Empathy, sympathy and perspective

Sometimes we look at a creature and see a fellow member of a kind -- a warrior, a parent, a citizen same as me. At other times the same stranger can seem totally alien. A bizarro, a mystery, an eater of weird foods and doer of strange deeds. Nothing like us.

Empathy (the ability to feel what others feel) and sympathy (the ability to at least imagine what it must be like to feel as they do) are both much easier when accompanied by a perception that ``they're like us.''

Case in point: Look here at how the artist Tim Flach photographs bats. In these photos, he shows them at rest, not flitting about. And he presents the image upside down,so that, instead of eerily hanging before us, the animals seem to be standing up. They look like nice dogs, or even like people waiting for a bus. And that makes it easier to feel kind thoughts for them, doesn't it?