Apparently, I’m a bleeding heart. Twice in two days I’ve sat through tear-jerkers; one about charter schools in New York City and a second about a US Navy rescue during the Vietnam war. The evidence would suggest that I derive pleasure from empathizing with strangers.
Does the converse necessarily hold? Are there adults who seek out experiences that stimulate antipathy? Are there people who enjoy hatred? I think the answer is fairly obvious.
Which is not to say that the two feelings are always so distinct. Consider the case of pity. But is compassion pity? No more than a stick insect is a plant. Thus, Nietzsche is right to criticize pity as an irresponsibility:
Pity is the practice of nihilism. To repeat: this depressive and contagious instinct crosses those instincts which aim at the preservation of life and at the enhancement of its value. It multiplies misery and conserves all that is miserable, and is thus a prime instrument of the advancement of decadence: pity persuades men to nothingness!
Of course, so does hatred. As we struggle to define what it means to be American, the opposition is not then between those who are irrational bleeding hearts and those who are stone cold realists but rather between nobility and nihilism.
Either you strive for greatness or you don’t.