Pity

[The Cheese]

Pity evokes a tender or sometimes slightly contemptuous sorrow or empathy for people, a person, or an animal in misery, pain, or distress. In regard to humans, a protective or quasi-paternal feeling of pity may be felt towards marginalized or impoverished people such as homeless families; orphans; people with disabilities or terminal illness, and victims of rape and torture. People who have previously experienced the pain or misfortune in question may feel greater pity. Because pity will often result in the pitier aiding the pitied, some people equate pity with sympathy and assume, therefore, that pity is naturally a positive thing. However, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche believed that pity causes an otherwise normal person to feel his or her own suffering in an inappropriately intense, alienated way. "Pity makes suffering contagious,"[1] he says in The Antichrist, meaning that it is important for the pitier not to allow him/herself to feel superior to the pitied, lest such a power imbalance result in the pitied retaliating against the help being offered.

Okay people...your opinions on pity ?
Is it a benevolent quality?Or should we avoid acting in such a manner because it does more harm than good to the person in question?
People who have previously experienced the pain or misfortune in question may feel greater pity...is it that or do they in fact refrain from pity because they know what's it like to be pitied?
Also,do you consider pity,sympathy and empathy to be the same?
I know I have my perhaps biased opinion on the subject...which is why I want to hear yours
You could make it as simple or complicated as you prefer.

[mr_j]

I think pity is an acquired skill some people feel pity towards animals dying and being tortured for no reason, others do not, some feel pity towards other humans suffering, others do not. I think it depends on how you were raised