Palin & Lack of Empathy and Sympathy


There are two usages in the English language that I think are pretty important: both are our responses to feelings. One, sympathy, the other, empathy. Either you have experienced it before, sympathy, or you can figure out how one would feel, empathy. Experience, and understanding- Palin lacks both.

In watching Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric, on her very extreme pro-life position, she describes victims of rape as being in a “less than ideal situation.” That level of understatement would be funny if a feminist said it. Since she’s stripping these women of the right to choose, I’d say that her response is callous, or worse, doubtful of the situation. What’s doubtful about rape, again?

She responded to Biden’s very emotional moment in the VP debates with hardly a bat of an eye, again showing her inability to respond to other’s feelings. Forward to the last moments of the YouTube and you’ll see her un-empathetic and un-sympathetic response:

Definitions of empathy & sympathy, from dictionary.com.

Sympathy: the fact or power of sharing the feelings of another, esp. in sorrow or trouble; fellow feeling, compassion, or commiseration

Empathy: the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.