[nilirl]

'be more empathetic' is not a veiled request, it is openly declared. The author subverts the ask for behavior change by a) calling it veiled and b) not treating it as the main argument against which they're trying to make a point.

Like the author, you're constructing a similar straw man argument: selecting a specific use of the word and making that the main point to argue against.

'be more empathetic' is an argument to behave differently with the people around you. Not think differently; behave differently.

[yesfitz]

Can you tell me which specific use of the word "empathy" I am arguing against? Because I don't think I'm arguing against any definition at all.

I think I'm arguing that telling someone to behave a way that they don't understand is unhelpful. That could be "empathetic", "thankful", or "gropulent". ** Taking the author at their word, they don't understand the request.

When they ask for clarification, they don't receive it.

In that way, it is veiled, similarly to my "gropulent" analogy.

In other words, the author is being asked to behave differently, but not given guidance on how to behave differently. Which is why they wrote this piece about what empathy is.

I think the author would have gotten a lot further by asking how rather than why, but the author admits that they thought that requests to be empathetic were requests "to be fake and lie". (i.e. They misunderstood what "empathy" meant.)

[nilirl]

I was referring to this:

> who can't explain how they use gropulence to support the claims that they make about others, and they sound an awful lot like psychics, who we all know are frauds

You invoked usage that connotes vapid meaning.

I see your argument: How can someone do something if they don't know what to do?

Explicit instruction is useful to a novice; say a toddler or someone new to a domain. But most adults don't spend the day explicitly telling each other how to behave socially.

A case can be made for individuals who display some difficulty learning this vicariously, but considering that should affect <1% of the world population, I think it's reasonable to be suspect of misbehavior.

i.e "you didn't tell me how to be nice, so how could I be nice?" is not a reasonable excuse for most adults.