# How to avoid the Stockholm syndrome

- Link: https://www.andreidraganescu.info/2017/01/03/how-to-avoid-the-stockholm-syndrome/
- Published: 2017-01-03T19:24:26+03:00
- Author: Andrei Draganescu

#### Two responses stitched together

![](https://draganescu.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/0a306-12ruq24vl9bykvflgczdvjq.
png)

Empathy. The beloved of peace makers. It means according to Google:

> the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

In her [recent](https://medium.com/@emmalindsay/what-i-block-people-for-what-i-have-infinite-patience-for-ac1266316575#.t194b9ois)
new Medium hit, Emma Lindsay writes:

> there is no way for you to know what another person is feeling.

I have seen this idea in many other situations dealing with political correctness
subjects and it was a favourite weapon of the PC police: calling the discussion 
off because feelings cannot be questioned on the basis of feelings having an unsharable
status.

But this intrigued me because I know we are not, as a species, islands. We don’t
know _everything_ another person is feeling, but the fact is we know enough if we
try harder.

And in fact this makes it even more shameful to deny the reality of others.

**Those who deny the reality of others actually do it because they themselves live
in denial of reality itself.**

I mean, isn’t empathy built in? We do have brain regions specifically built to mirror
another’s internal lived experience _into_ us so that we can get them, so that we
can exactly feel what they feel.

Isn’t art a proof for shared feelings on common stimuli? From music to visual arts,
from food to dance, we have collected in our civilised history mountains of descriptions
on the experience (a.k.a. strings of connected feelings) given by art. And we have
analysed them over and over and found themes, common traits in the reactions humans
have to it.

If there is no way empathy exists, then how would one explain our humble hundred
thousand years long survival as groups? We stick to each other, more so when the
times are hard, closer when pain is shared or imminent, selectively when pleasure
is shared or imminent, I mean, there really is a quite intricate web of ways in 
which we show outward the fact that we do share feelings of other humans around.

Not only that, we’re also eager to do it. Biologically we get amazing positive feedback
for empathy, as anything from blood sugar, heart rate, blood pressure, endocrine
secretion and many others are directly modulated positively following social interaction,
but, do note, especially so social interaction where we empathise.

Aren’t manipulation and its younger hotter sister persuasion _based _on the fact
that we do have ways to know how other people are feeling? Sure they are so.

_And it is not only empathy as a way for one to know what another is feeling._

**Empathy** is biologic, and like any biologic aspect some people have more of it.
Just like talent.

**Compassion** too is there to help. Compassion does not occur spontaneously, it
is a side effect of an attempt to understand rationally the behaviour of another.
It is when we feel like we understand the behaviour of others that we turn to compassion
as a means of communication. Compassion is granting the humans around us the right
to be themselves.

**Sympathy** is also a real thing. Sympathy though only appears when we share the
experience of the humans around. Only once you have actually, viscerally experienced
that which “the other” goes through you can display sympathy or act sympathetically.

So, we, like in we humans, I believe, should give up this idea that the basis of
mutual respect is our inability to perceive one another, but exactly embrace the
original idea that this is actually the foundation: our shared humanity, and shared
brain structure, and shared smelly shit and sweat, and hairs in places we can’t 
tell, and pain in invisible places, and suffocating longing, and fear of loosing
our sanity, and spinning sinking never ending inner turmoil, and joyous trembling
of guts and hearts, and chocking tears of happiness, all these things we know about
each other, which are a mile long list if ever enumerated, are the foundation of
mutual respect.

If we’d only stop ignoring our shared humanity. If we’d just stop being in denial
of our own reality. But instead, we fake empathy, compassion and sympathy everyday.

We fake empathy pretending to feel for the others, and actually invading their intimacy.
We fake compassion pretending we know the others, and actually attacking their dignity.
We fake sympathy, pretending we’ve worn their shoes, and actually stealing their
identity.

However, when you read mr. Van Jones’ [idea](https://journal.thriveglobal.com/the-role-of-empathy-at-this-moment-in-our-history-ccb82bd0819c#.yw1exp1kv)
that:

> When those of us on the left assume that every Trump voter actually endorses every
> extreme idea Trump has voiced, we miss opportunities to truly understand the human
> motivations and dilemmas that produced this outcome.

… you realise that outside of Political Correctness and into the realm of politics,**
empathy can be completely harmful for those that drew the short stick at birth.**

### **Don’t have empathy for your oppressors, because you may become your own oppressor.**

The oppressed for the oppressor_ would be better off _to experience:

 * mercy
 * forgiveness
 * compassion

Why I believe these words are thrown around so weirdly, well, it is because we’re
so bad at googling word definitions and word etymology, and because they tend to
press painful wounds when needed.

Take a child molester and the adult today molested child.

There cannot be any empathy from the molested to the molester, unless the molested
child becomes a pedophile, which many times is a form of self inflicted harm originating
in low self esteem. If the molested pedophile actually molests a child too, then
sympathy can wake up as a sentiment.

Take the recent discussion around here on sober pedophiles being open with their
challenge. Very few people were compassionate, and most were angry. Why? Because
as an outsider empathy for any kind of different sexuality is hard because we when
we mirror those feelings we get sick as _we’re biologically conditioned so_. So,
no empathy, but anger and disbelief in their soberness. I have no clue … but, what
I can rationally say is: innocent until proven guilty, opens up on the hardness 
of an unasked for experience, therefore I can try to understand what they go through
by intellect which brings by the possibility of _compassion_.

I think this is the same mechanism that explains why there were church folk who 
cared for AIDS sick gay folk and church people who yelled „you deserve it”, while
both parties agreeing that being gay is fundamentally wrong. Some had compassion
some hadn’t.

The oppressed can feel mercy. Mercy is a form of passive aggressiveness that a lot
of people confuse with compassion. They cannot be more different. Mercy is when 
you believe one is essentially fixed in a lower human state. It is confused with
compassion because it is rational, but unlike compassion, mercy is about the state
of the human, not about the human. That is why I get a sudden fever when I hear „
have mercy for the poor” and I immediately know they’re pinned to that condition
by the so called help they get.

Some say indifference is the death of love, I say mercy is the death of love. Mercy
is for love like water for the lungs.

The oppressed may feel forgiveness, which is not as a way to comfort the oppressor
but as a way to smother the inner suffering of the oppressed. Forgiveness is the
true antidote to suffering. Communicating forgiveness is completely optional and
it is an act of generosity. Not altruism, because there is no sacrifice, just an
optional decision with some possible societal reward.

The oppressed may feel compassion, but that should only be seen as the best way 
to disrupt the oppressor, not as a blank check for more oppressive actions. The 
oppressed’s compassion is a weapon, or at least a tool and it should be used because
it basically means understanding the inner workings and life of the oppressor. This
is useful to prevent more oppression, not to cuddle the oppressed.

Vengeance is when the oppressed uses compassion without forgiveness. That is why
vengeance always will hurt both sides. That is not to say vengeance is wrong, like
our over the top morality claims, but just that you should not use it to soothe 
wounds but as a kind of sacrifice you should be at least aware of.

### the Stockholm syndrome

can thus be avoided and such things as

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2016/11/10/im-a-muslim-a-woman-and-an-immigrant-i-voted-for-trump/?utm_term=.96492c57c149](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2016/11/10/im-a-muslim-a-woman-and-an-immigrant-i-voted-for-trump/?utm_term=.96492c57c149)

potentially be cast as mere accident of thinking. Otherwise, embracing the poster
child of pseudo fascist discourse with the kindness of empathic thought might cost
not only your life and freedom but also those of many others who have yet to come.