AIM Framework glossary
Pseudo-Empathy
Canonical definition
Pseudo-Empathy is the output of the Empathy-Mimesis Antagonism: an Intrinsic empathic signal that has fused with an agent-attribution for the sufferer's condition and now functions as targeting permission rather than as care. It is distinguished from empathy by what it tracks rather than by how it feels. Pseudo-Empathy intensifies with the vividness of the perpetrator-narrative rather than with proximity to the sufferer; it requires the attribution to hold, so removing the identified agent dissipates the motivational force or turns it on whoever removed it; and it produces action directed at the accused rather than restoration for the suffering, which is the diagnostic that settles it, the Intrinsic function having been restoration. Pseudo-Empathy is sincere: the Individual believes they are moved by compassion, and under Axiom 4 that belief is the honest output of the architecture.
Explanation
The test is not how strongly someone feels but where the feeling points. Compassion that grows as the villain comes into focus, rather than as you spend time with the people actually suffering, is pointing at the villain. So is compassion that collapses, or turns on you, when someone questions who is to blame. And so is compassion that produces denunciations rather than help. The people are real, the feeling is real, and the sufferer receives none of it.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Construct. Derived at Chapter 11, Section 11.20 as the output of the Empathy-Mimesis Antagonism Principle.