Empathy is, to me, the act of being able to feel what other people are feeling. It's a personal reflection of the outside world. Not everybody has that, frankly. It's a learned skill, and some people just don't, or only learn how to do it for a small handful of people, and for
most people it'll only really extend to specific types of people. This is kind of ultimately the root of xenophobia, the fear and distrust for the other, since if you can't think broadly enough you'll assume others are alien when really they're just different. It's an ongoing thing, frankly. As we find out more about the world around us, you (general "you," it's a process for me too) have to keep expanding your understanding of empathy.
But the obvious objection to this is that some people can't and shouldn't be extended empathy. That personal reflection can become toxic pretty easily if you're holding up the mirror to toxic people, after all. So I get the problems with an appeal to general good feelings. But... I don't think that the issue is that there's too much empathy, frankly. I think it's just the opposite, that a lot of people are only holding up that reflection to the toxic mindsets, and never expanding it. In that way, I think that a broad encouragement to stop, listen, and learn about people and problems before you commit to a viewpoint - that being how you become more empathetic - is good, with some obvious caveats.
OP is welcome to come through with whatever unspoken approach is being suggested outside of the "positive thinking" which, again, is steeped in privilege.
Know what else is steeped in privilege? "No negativity" aka tone-policing.
How are we defining "steeped in privilege," here? Great acts of kindness often come from those with the least to give, and encouraging message board posters - who are definitely not uniform in privilege - to extent a little more empathy into the world doesn't strike me as particularly absurd.
