What does it mean to be a good person?

[mamachick]

Agree. The behaviors are plain evil!

 

[TruthSeeker]

Agree. The behaviors are plain evil!

Evil sums it all up well!

 

[shatter eyes]

Uh oh... I did not mean to offend anyone or give a pass to those that mistreat others while caring for an animal friend. I read the replies and felt it is needed to explain myself.

What i intended to say was an interpretation from my head.. a visual of someone holding a gineau pig or cuddling a cat or bringing leaf to ladybird/bug = good person. I did not think deeper and am sorry.

I pondered thread's question, my brain played a sample movie, and i was like yes yes. Thats a good person.

 

[intothelight]

Feeling empathy makes the difference between "good" and "bad", regardless if you want to label it a person or behavior.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Feeling empathy makes the difference between "good" and "bad", regardless if you want to label it a...

I agree- took my initial idea from a value stance- good point-empathy is important no matter who you are!

 

[Cactus Bloom]

I agree- took my initial idea from a value stance- good point-empathy is important no matter who you ar...

Do you think a person is born with empathy and/or maybe learn to have empathy through their own struggles? Does that make sense? I’m just wondering because I was born with a very sensitive temperament but I feel like I’ve become more empathetic because of all of the things I have been through. It’s an interesting thing about people’s personalities and empathy. Like my father, he doesn’t have empathy because it seems like his personality or whatever it is doesn’t allow him to feel things like I do. He’s not a bad person but he has caused a lot of pain for myself, my siblings to one degree or another and my mother because he has never been able to “put himself in someone else’s shoes.” He can’t even understand depression and thinks people use depression as an excuse to be lazy. Yet, here I am on social security disability for PTSD for the last 8 years and not once has he been condescending to me (at least not that I know of) and he does so much for me in the only way he knows how to show his love and that’s through buying things and physically providing. It used to drive me absolutely crazy that he cannot grasp what depression is like let alone all the other things I suffer from but I’ve accepted that it’s impossible for him to do that.

I don’t know if this is anything of value to what this thread is about and I apologize if I do this. I know that I have done this and haven’t recognized until later that I do get off track from the main subject of a thread and I sincerely apologize and please know that I do not do this on purpose and I’m working on this.

 

[Friday]

Do you think a person is born with empathy and/or maybe learn to have empathy

No one is born with empathy... it’s a learned skill.

Personality babies have in spades, but learning that things that don’t hurt US (like chewing through someone’s nipple, yanking on hair, bashing their head against your face, stabbing fingers into eyes, etc.) hurts OTHER people is taught by thousands of yelps, hisses, stern voices, hands being removed / persons being removed / breast being removed... from day one. Those lessons are built upon ...literally by the thousands... year after year.

It’s part of early childhood development. It takes several years to become solidly formed association.

Err too strongly in either direction... never making a child associate feeling bad or not getting what they want with someone else being hurt // or put a child through tremendous pain (abuse), or refusing food for an infant for days instead of minutes (neglect)... equals the SAME result - zero empathy to blunted empathy & severe attachment issues. Most commonly these infants become Psychopaths & NPD, but you’ve got the entire range of personality disorders to choose from, as well as DID, PTSD, and others. You just find a crazy high number of antisocial personality disorder & narcissistic personality disorder (& failure to thrive / deaths) in proportion to the other disorders.

Clearly, no one in their right mind studies infants and small children by putting them through this. Instead? They study children & adults who have already been through this. Most famously Russian Orphange Studies & Feral Children Studies.

It’s one of the things that always makes me roll my eyes when I see non-parents talking about how they’d NEVER make a child feel bad. May as well beat, starve, and rape them as do that. Results are the same. Seriously damaged, f*cked up kids/adults. Because they honestly don’t care who they hurt, or how badly. As a parent? Sometimes you use a gentle voice, and sometimes? You aim for tears. The only black and white in parenting = Abuse vs Neglect. You don’t want either. You want fair, and balanced, and loving. Age appropriate consequences. Not no consequences. Because empathy has to be taught. To both the lump-babies (smiling rays of sunshine who just coo and charm and lay there, even as they bite your nipple off and fingerpaint in your blood... babies love finger paint, blood, poop, poison, shaving cream... it’s all the same to them, until they learn from parents reactions that it’s not) & the adventure-babies (these ones give parents grey hair and swear off sex as they’re climbing book cases, out of cribs, running into coffee tables and splitting their skulls open :eek: ).

Developmental psych is the softest of an already soft science, and it’s the most affected by things like culture, and other external influences... but there are a few things (very few) which appear to be species-true. Empathy being a learned skill, rather than an innate one, is one of them.

 

[Cactus Bloom]

No one is born with empathy... it’s a learned skill.

Personality babies have in spades, but learning...

Thank you for your comment. I appreciate your thoughts and knowledge and I’m learning a lot.

 

[Friday]

:sneaky: People are awesome. And endlessly fascinating.

 

[shatter eyes]

No one is born with empathy... it’s a learned skill.

Personality babies have in spades, but learning...

This is news to me. I always thought people were born with empathy. I learned in school that i was lacking in this. For me being Aspie i really had to "develop" the skill to read others and tinker tweak my responses as if everyone and situation had a unique algorithym. I had to study by reading books on EQ and such.
As an aspie i learned that sometimes i had to tell other people my smirk grin and awkward chuckle means I am crying inside. My face wont show it naturally. I am much better these days. If you cry i would pat your back or give some comfort by placing my hand on you to say i am here for you.... instead of walking off (to get you water because my brain is telling you are losing water and need to be rehydrated.).

Been called sociopath and psychopath many times by others that it made me believe i am not a good person.

Reading that we are not born with it makes me feel more normal. Autism includes developmental challenges and one of mine was expressing empathy appropriately. Better late than never to learn empathy.

Empathy... i have.
I am a good person.

 

[TruthSeeker]

This is news to me. I always thought people were born with empathy. I learned in school that i was...

Yes you are- some of the coolest people I know have Aspbergers- many are very creative and kind.

 

[Slushie]

For me, good person just equals someone who doesn't harm other living beings.