Empathy, stupidity and ignorance

Fabulous article about American politics.
It makes me think of the quote, "Ignorance is not knowing. Stupidity is the active pursuit of ignorance."

Empathy and epistemic closure

It reads, in part,

Empathy, at its most basic level, is epistemic. It is sometimes discussed as though it is identical to love, respect or regard for others, but really it precedes that. It is what makes such love, respect or regard for others possible -- what informs it. Empathy is a way of seeing, and therefore a way of knowing. To avoid empathy is to limit one's own perspective to only one's own perspective -- to choose not to see and therefore to choose not to know. Worse than that -- it is to choose not to be able to know.

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Empathy, in other words, makes you smarter and wiser. Rejecting empathy makes you dumber and more foolish. To choose not to see what empathy shows us is to choose stupidity.