EMPATHY

What is the relation between genes and race, class, or gender? Does social superiority spring from superior genes, or from biological differences between the sexes? As a Marxist and activist, Lewontin believed that we need to fight at both levels: to expose class, race and gender stereotypes as a reflection of power within society, and also at the level of radical science, meaning from the fundamentals of scientific theory and data. Empathy definitions encompass a broad range of phenomena, including caring for other people and having a desire to help them; experiencing emotions that match another person's emotions; discerning what another person is thinking or feeling;^[11] and making less distinct the differences between the self and the other. Nowhere does any biological basis for race being superior or inferior exist

Having empathy can include having the understanding that there are many factors that go into decision making and cognitive thought processes. Past experiences have an influence on the decision making of today. Understanding this allows a person to have empathy for individuals who sometimes make illogical decisions to a problem that most individuals would respond with an obvious response. Broken homes, childhood trauma, lack of parenting and many other factors can influence the connections in the brain which a person uses to make decisions in the future.^[13] According to Martin Hoffman everyone is born with the capability of feeling empathy.^[14]

Since empathy involves understanding the emotional states of other people, the way it is characterized is derived from the way emotions themselves are characterized. If, for example, emotions are taken to be centrally characterized by bodily feelings, then grasping the bodily feelings of another will be central to empathy. On the other hand, if emotions are more centrally characterized by a combination of beliefs and desires, then grasping these beliefs and desires will be more essential to empathy. The ability to imagine oneself as another person is a sophisticated imaginative process. However, the basic capacity to recognize emotions is probably innate^[15] and may be achieved unconsciously. Yet it can be trained^[16] and achieved with various degrees of intensity or accuracy.

At the same time, empathy is systematically destroyed by capitalism, since looking out for number one, confiscating a house and putting the family out on the street, sucking up all the wealth of a third country to starve the population, deliberately creating unemployment in favor of prison labor, etc. requires good capitalist practices, but a dearth of empathy.