Empathy & Stupidity

Empathy & Stupidity

Without love, there’s no intelligence.

Without empathy there’s no place
for love to begin or intelligence to grow.

If you feel empathy
only for some, you’re stupid;
you haven’t nurtured empathy
enough to encompass all.

You’re in the majority.
Stupidity is easy,
seemingly comfortable,
keeps the powerful in power
and the status quo stable
by reassuring the stupid they’re actually smart
believing unfettered empathy destroys.

Intelligence and knowledge though
not the same, require symbiosis.
Measuring intelligence needs
an evaluation of knowledge.
No matter how objective the facts,
knowledge is only quantified
subjectively through what areas
of study and experience
your intelligence is applied.

Even the knowledgeable can be stupid just
like the most informed can despise empathy.

Your degree of stupidity is based on your ability
to see beyond your own opinion
and your willingness to examine
how your opinion was derived.

Not only must we know
what is and is not opinion,
we must know why
as well as what
we know.

True empathy has no limits.

Your respect for others is
the same respect
you have for yourself;
if that’s dependent on how much
you think they respect you,
you’re diminished more
than by the suffering
their lack of respect
forces you to endure.

People unable to see
beyond their own perspective are
the ones adamantly certain
what your perspective should be.

Knowing there is more
to them than stupidity
never suffices, but at least
by identifying their stupidity
you can then know
the limits of their empathy and
shape your arguments
and actions accordingly.

 

Copyright 2018, held by author