The Evils of Empathy

Empathy—we’re constantly being inundated with messaging that promotes it. Touted as a good that every human should exhibit, if you don’t go along with the social movements backed by so-called empathy, you are some sort of monster; the scum of the earth.

At least in their own minds, and by their own definition, the ‘progressive’ Left and those heavily ascribed to identity politics are driven by so-called empathy. ‘Empathy’ is of course what drove people to donate millions of dollars to the Black Lives Matter movement, and it continues to underpin the acceptance movements towards anything that falls under the ‘LGBTQ+’ umbrella. It is ‘empathy’, to this day, that drives some people to madness over calling for everyone to wear a mask and for the government to impose vaccine mandates indiscriminately, even to the point of aggression.

Now more than ever are we seeing the problems manifest from ‘empathy’ by the progressive movement, and these problems are made worse by the support of the well-meaning but misinformed individuals who strive to act empathetically towards others without thinking critically first. The meaning of empathy is thus shifting further and further in the direction of enabling unhealthy and self-destructive behaviours that will ultimately destroy society if left unfettered.

What Is Empathy?

When it comes to abstract ideas, people by and large hold varied understandings. ‘Love’, for instance; many philosophers have defined it differently, and over time we have created subcategories for it. Inspired by the ancient Greeks, C. S. Lewis categorised love into four different types—philia, storge, eros, and agape. Others, particularly in the modern age, catergorise self-love (philautia) as the most important of all. You can see this in cultural movements like the self-love movement, the body-positivity movement, and the LGBTQ+ acceptance movement.

Similarly, there are types of empathy that go beyond the basic understanding of ‘the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes’: the capacity to identify with the thoughts or feelings of another living being (somatic empathy); the ability to respond to another person’s feelings in an appropriate way (affective empathy); and the ability to understand why someone makes certain decisions and acts the way that they do (cognitive empathy).

These understandings of empathy are necessary for society to function well. Children void of empathy can grow up to be, at best, narcissistic and self-centred. At worst, they can become chronically aggressive—a condition of course facilitating future embarkments on the path of criminality. If nothing else, it seems that today’s society might actually be lacking in true empathy, with online observers tweeting about the “aesthetic” qualities of the recent Russian bombings of Kyiv in a fashion that would make you think they were fictional bombings leaving real people unaffected.

Even John Cena took the tragedy as an opportunity to promote his new show Peacemaker. It’s not that we can’t say we wish superheroes were real in light of global tragedies, but the use of the hashtag to drive traffic to his ventures is what makes this statement appear to be really self-centred. Let’s also not forget how quickly and profusely he apologised to the Chinese Communist Party for daring to say that Taiwan is a country.

How, then, does the Left define empathy? It is supposedly the quality at the core of their efforts, after all. It’s not like dictionary definitions get directly updated to reflect what the Left wants the word to mean (although that didn’t stop the ACLU from trying earlier this year). But you can see the limits and constraints of their empathy in how they treat people: in particular, their political opposition, especially towards nonwhite, non-heterosexual, and cisgender people whose beliefs don’t align with theirs.

When it comes to the Left’s political opponents, leftists have no qualms about unapologetically bashing Republicans and conservatives until a certain global or nationwide tragedy occurs. In this case, they will act like they have never said anything nasty and will call for unity, as if unity is not what conservatives have always wanted.

When it comes to gun control, the Left really want zero per cent of the American population to be armed. Be damned if you live in the countryside and have wild javelinas, foxes, or other pests you need to defend you or your livestock from. Be damned if you live twenty minutes away from the nearest police station and need to be able to defend yourself, your home, and your family. And be damned if you just want to feel safe in your own home and environment, in a world where bystanders will do nothing as women get raped on a train. This is unless, of course, you’re Ukrainian.

The difference between leftists and conservatives is that conservatives not only support all Americans’ right to bear arms, but for all people globally. Imagine a world where corrupt police forces must proceed with caution when risking needless attacks on civilians. Imagine a world where police are incentivised to actually protect and serve their communities instead of a corrupt government. A world where rapists think twice before going to attack someone; where criminals and would-be mass-shooters would think twice before entering a bank, school, or church if many people there are likely to be armed already. The Left only supports the right to self-defence for the guy who is getting beat up on the global stage by a conventionally armed invader, and they’ve no interest in trying to even understand why someone may want to choose the easy-to-use, versatile, and massively popular AR-15 for personal self-defence and security purposes.

Similar to how Leftists have no understanding of what the second amendment means, they’ve little to no understanding of what the first amendment actually entails. The following example is pretty self-explanatory:

Given the prior three examples (and there’s much more than just these three) we can derive the Left’s flavour of ‘empathy’. At best, it does consist of the true elements of empathy, though this is exclusively applied to groups that they consider to be good (or at least human). They do not consider fetuses to be human, nor people who are anti-vax mandate, nor conservatives, nor white people, and for the most part, they also don’t consider men to be human. These groups are either subhuman because they’re ‘parasitic’ (in the case of fetuses and those against vax mandates) or monstrous (in the case of the other groups). Thus, everyone outside of those groups is deserving of empathy, love, and respect. Everyone within those groups? Well, they’re parasites and monsters. Why would you ever show such people any respect or decency?

At their worst, the Left have no empathy at all. Rather, they operate with a performative form of support or condemnation of certain ideas, policies, or beliefs. This is not on principle, but when it suits them. Their end goal is to force the world to bend to their wills, beliefs, and principles, and if anyone stands in the way, they need be mowed down. You can argue that because of the Left’s inconclusive, twisted definition of empathy, the goalposts start in one place and shift further in whichever direction favours the Left. Today, they cheer for fascism because the Democratic party—which favours them as its useful idiots—is in power. If Donald Trump were to be back in office tomorrow, they would call for the government to withdraw the kinds of fascistic overreaches we have been seeing for the last two years.

Empathy In Action

The Left’s mainstream popularity on the political and cultural front is easily seen in action. Their empathy is evident in much government policy, and in the way that we treat certain groups in society. It led to the rise of acceptance around the subsection of the woke movement that aims to ‘include’ everyone and be empathetic to non-white, non-straight, non-cisgender individuals (as long as they’re all not conservative), and those of all sorts of niche and at times self-inflicted afflictions and ailments.

The Black Lives Matter movement blew into the stratosphere after the death of George Floyd. Of course, this was in large part due to the narrative successfully being pushed into the mainstream that black people were being needlessly slaughtered by police on the basis of race, but also because the Left has been able to push the narrative that rampant discrimination and racism exists in America today. Of course slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, and a disrespect for civil rights constitute abhorrent parts of America’s history. But they vilify white people on the basis of race like they claim they do to them. If that was the case, how was Kamala Harris able to get away with backing a bail fund that aided the release of a domestic abuser and murderer? If the world were as racist as they claim, how could she have become vice president, and how could the 2020 riots have happened in the way that they did? How do you explain the numerous successes of black Americans, or the fact that we had a black president?

Regardless of all that, the Left blows up the amount of racism that truly does exist, and they strive to paint a picture of black and other nonwhite Americans facing abhorrent discrimination and violence every day. Because of that, non-whites can never be great, and only the magnanimous-yet-somehow-also-scummy white people can save them by donating money to their causes.

The State of California exhibits policies that are so empathic and ‘understanding’ of individual circumstances, that drug addicts, criminals, and those with no regard for the sexual safety of others are completely free to be themselves. Proposition 47, which was adopted by California in 2014, makes thefts of $950 or less a misdemeanour. Until the inflation rate makes this chump change, that’s an exorbitant amount of money. Some degenerate could round up his or her friends to rob Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus of their fancy handbags—likely for reasons of ‘something-something racism and discrimination’ or ‘they’re just looking to secure their next meal’—and get off scot-free.

The Biden administration wanted to implement a ‘harm reduction’ approach to help drug users consume illegal drugs safely, rather than abstain. Kind of like the ‘cool’ parent that lets their kid get drugged up or have sex in their house who then cries ‘how could this happen’ when the kid grows up to have a drug or sex addiction or has some kind of STD, this plan involved “[allowing] federal funds to be spent on sterile needles for ‘syringe services’ programs.” Some funding was also to be diverted for sterile crack pipes, despite the Left claiming this isn’t true enough to make the headlines.

Thanks to California Senate Bill 239, it is no longer a felony for HIV-positive people to engage in unprotected sex while not disclosing the status of their sexual health to their partner. So, people can get kicked off a bus for not wearing a mask (and then run over), but if they knowingly pass on HIV to someone—the disease leading to AIDS—it’s not as big a deal? This seems to have been an effort to reduce or eliminate discrimination on the basis of sexual health, but instead it has endangered people who, responsible or not, were withheld crucial information before having sex with someone. Apparently consent only matters sometimes.

How Do We Re-Draw The Line?

There’s a line in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins spoken by Ra’s al Ghul to Bruce Wayne: “Criminals thrive on the indulgence of society’s understanding.” It’s a message that, if they genuinely cared about people, the government could benefit from hearing, and it’s also one that needs to be reaffirmed to the average person.

Just because a person is suffering from mental, physical, or financial hardship, it does not mean that they can just get away with being terrible people, blaming their mistakes on mental illness or difficult circumstances in their life, and taking advantage of the goodwill of family and friends who love them and want to see them happy and healthy. At some point, the empathy must (and does) run out, but the issue arises when vocal groups of people in society are always on the side of those who leech off empathy.

So where do we draw back the line?

For Leftists, many have such deep-set beliefs about who is deserving of empathy that there is no turning back. Some, however, could change, and many former Leftists indeed have. Dave Rubin of course was previously a pundit for The Young TurksNetwork, and you can find numerous videos on why people similarly abandoned their loyalty to the Left.

The line should absolutely be drawn on what true empathy consists of, and this must be extended to apply to all people. Even if you vehemently disagree with someone, it’s important to empathise and still hold that person accountable. Where a Leftist would allow a drug addict to overdose using sterile, federally funded equipment, for example, a more conservative individual may turn to move the addict out of the environment that enables them to engage in their habits, and maybe even move them outside of the cities providing them with their drug connections.

Empathy can force someone to think critically, too. This is especially important when discerning why someone has arrived at the point in life that they’re at, and in doing so, we can acknowledge how we as members of a society need to change. Maybe we need to call on the government to stop taking our money to fund ineffectual solutions. Maybe we need to start breathing down the necks of teachers and school administrators who aren’t helping children through their displays of ‘empathy’, but rather hurting them. Despite the fact that wokescolds and Leftists are the ones preaching about empathy, we need to buckle down and remind ourselves that it is important to have and exhibit it.