This was an answer to the question: What’s the difference between Sympathy, Empathy and Apathy?
This is how I answered this in one of my classes in B-school.
Example: My friend broke his leg.
Sympathy: I feel really bad, I’ll do something to help him. Though I don’t know how it feels to break your leg. (Sympathy without empathy)
Empathy: I’ve broken my leg before, I know how he must be feeling. But I don’t want to do anything to help him. (Empathy without sympathy)
Neutral: I know he’s broken his leg. Though I don’t really care much.
Apathy: I don’t know what’s happened to him and I don’t care either.
Sympathy = Feel for someone.
Empathy = Feel with someone.
Neutral = Nothing. You just know a fact, don’t feel anything.
Apathy = Less than nothing. You might have heard something, but you definitely didn’t care about it. And you’ll do your best to forget it as well.
I also think that some elements of all of these are helpful. Even apathy, which otherwise gets a bad rap.
There’s just too much noise in the world – if you aren’t apathetic to it, you’ll always be distracted.