I don’t know if you’ve heard, but apparently the culprit for the supposed decline of the Western world is an innocuous attribute called empathy. At least, that’s if you listen to conservative American commentator Allie Beth Stuckey in her new book Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion. She says in the book,
“It’s a toxic empathy that pushes us not only to have compassion for someone’s difficulties but to unquestioningly affirm their feelings, because, if we were in their shoes, we’d want our feelings to be affirmed. But what about when affirmation causes damage to the very people we say we’re loving? The truth is, this toxic empathy is a dangerous guide for our decisions, behaviour, and public policy.”1
Stuckey asserts that empathy causes us to do things we’d otherwise be opposed to—that putting ourselves in others’ shoes likewise puts us into a position to be manipulated. She says that this kind of empathy is not based on facts—rather, it is fundamentally rooted in feelings.
“When they call you hateful, bigoted, racist, or any other epithet, it usually means they don’t know why they believe what they believe, so their insecurity manifests itself in anger.”2
Fundamentally, it’s a critique of left-wing politics and those who subscribe to it.
Or there’s Joe Rigney, a pastor and author who recently released his own book: The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits. Similarly to Stuckey, Rigney rails against the activism of the left—but in particular, he takes aim at feminism. In an interview promoting the book, he says,
“There is a reason that the empathetic sex—that women—are barred from the pastoral office. Priests and pastors . . . are charged fundamentally with guarding the doctrine and worship of the church, of setting the perimeter for what is in and out. That’s the calling. And therefore the sex that is bent and wired towards care, nurture, compassion and empathy is ill-suited to that role. So it’s no surprise that in a culture which has become dominated by feminism . . . that in that same timeframe you would have an outbreak of empathy that would become the steering wheel by which every institution is hijacked.”
At another point, Rigney quotes author Paul Bloom, author of Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion:
“When most people hear the word empathy, they think kindness. I think war. Because it’s empathy for my in-group, empathy for the oppressed classes, empathy for these people, is coupled with intense rage, hatred, demonisation of anybody that I think is threatening them.”
In Bloom, Stuckey and Rigney’s view, empathy is the vehicle through which the West will be feminised, deconstructed and converted into a Marxist hellscape.
All these conversations found their nexus when recently, Elon Musk appeared (again) on the Joe Rogan Experience talking about (among other things) how empathy is “a fundamental weakness of Western civilisation”. He refers to it as “an exploit” or “a bug in the system” (because of course Musk must relate everything to computer programming).
His point (as he puts it) is that you should care about people (he does say at one point that empathy is a good thing) but you should care more about civilisation as a whole than just individual people. Borrowing a term from marketing professor and Joe Rogan frequenter Gad Saad, Musk says “We’ve got a civilisational suicidal empathy going on”.
Perhaps this notion doesn’t sound all that bad to you. Perhaps it even sounds mildly appealing. After all, those of us who live in a prosperous, democratic society would wish the death of that society? But what may appear ideologically defensible at first glance may actually hide a more sinister intent.
where did empathy come from?
Empathy as a word has only been with us for around 100 years. The German word Einfühlung (a combination of ein, “in” and Fühlung, “feeling”) was coined by philosopher Rudolf Hermann Lotze in the mid-19th century. Etymologically, Einfühlung (and by extension, empathy) has its roots in the Greek word empatheia (en, “in” and pathos, “feeling”). The word as rendered in Greek means “passion”, or “a state of emotion”.
It wasn’t until 1908 that Einfühlung made the leap from German to English. There is some doubt as to whether Lotze translated the phrase into English or whether the British psychologist Edward Titchener was the one to do so. Titchener wrote,
“Not only do I see gravity and modesty and pride and courtesy and stateliness, but I feel or act them in the mind’s muscles. This is, I suppose, a simple case of empathy, if we may coin that term as a rendering of Einfühlung; there is nothing curious or idiosyncratic about it; but it is a fact that must be mentioned.”3
Originally, empathy was not interpreted as feeling another person’s emotions—rather, to “enliven an object, or to project one’s own imagined feelings onto the world”. By the 1950s, psychologists shifted their thinking to define the word in terms of interpersonal connection.
Swiss child psychologist Jean Piaget believed and taught that empathy was a vital component to children’s cognitive development—that without empathy, a child would not be able to grow up to become a functioning, healthy member of society.
Carl Rogers, the founder of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, believed that empathy ”means entering the private perceptual world of the other, and becoming thoroughly at home in it . . . It means temporarily living in his life moving about in it delicately without making judgments sensing meanings of which he is scarcely aware.”
Today, the study of empathy has moved into many spheres of life, including economics, leadership, literature and more.
a Christian ideal
There are numerous places we could appeal to in order to make the claim of why empathy is important. Secular biologists might point to an evolutionary drive to not simply see everything as either food or foe, pointing to the notion that doing so would have allowed animals and early humans alike to more easily collaborate and survive. Historians may point to early civilisations that banded together in cities, established centralised farming practices and complex trade networks—all impossible without empathy.
As a follower of Jesus, empathy as a value is impossible to ignore if I am to take Jesus’ teachings seriously. While the word isn’t recorded in the biblical text, its power is obvious.
In John 11, Jesus receives word that His dear friend Lazarus is sick—and dying. Initially, Jesus rebuffs the messengers but when Lazarus does indeed die, Jesus goes to Lazarus’ home in Bethany to visit his two sisters Mary and Martha. When Mary sees Jesus, she falls to His feet crying, telling Him that “if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32). John tells us that Jesus was “deeply moved in spirit and troubled” to the point that we have the famous “shortest verse in the Bible”, John 11:35: “Jesus wept”. Jesus wept not just because He was sad, but because He empathised with Mary’s emotion. Jesus was not distant to the emotions of others—rather, He felt the feelings of the people around Him.
Jesus also called His disciples (and us) to do as He did. In the famous parable of the Sheep and the Goats, Jesus addresses the actions taken by so-called followers of His toward the marginalised of society. The Goats are those who profess to follow Jesus but whose lives don’t reflect His teachings. Jesus says, “I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me” (Matthew 25:42,43). To the Sheep Jesus reflects the same list of scenarios, but instead affirms how they fed, clothed, invited in and visited Jesus.
Both the Sheep and Goats are confused, asking when they did (or did not do) any of these things to Jesus. To the Sheep Jesus says, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did to me” (Matthew 25:40). The Goats? Well, you get the picture.
Jesus’ message is clear: every kind word given to someone in discouragement is like speaking to Jesus. Every act of generosity toward someone in need is like being generous to Jesus. Every dish of food, drink of water, shirt—Jesus counts any such kindness as having been given to Himself. In the inverse way, every harsh word, act of cruelty, every selfishness or inhumanity—will in the end count as though it were done to the Son of God. Like Jesus says earlier: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37–39)
warnings from Nuremberg
“Why”, might we well ask, “Would someone like Elon Musk and those who are aligned with him politically all of a sudden want to vilify something so basic as empathy?” To find the answer we must turn to history.
At the end of WWII, trials were held for surviving Nazi members in the city of Nuremberg in Germany. The aim was to hold to account those who architected Hitler’s wartime plans, as well as for the horrific concentration camps that killed more than 6 million Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and other marginalised groups. An American psychologist, Gustave Gilbert (born to Jewish-Austrian parents), was appointed as the prison’s psychologist. He also became a confidant for many of the highest-ranking Nazis, most notoriously Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hermann Göring, Wilhelm Keitel, Rudolf Höss, Ernst Kaltenbrunner and others. In 1947, Gilbert published the diary he kept while observing, eavesdropping or speaking directly to these men.
Though there is much that could be said about Nuremberg Diary, Gilbert’s assessment of evil is perhaps most striking (and certainly most famous). He said,
“I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”
The absence of empathy is what enabled the Nazis to unify around the ideals of anti-Semitism. It is what enabled them to rally a nation that otherwise would not have embraced such extremism. In the case of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s chief propagandist, systematically destroying any sense of empathy toward the Jews was fundamental to achieving the Nazis’ aims—up until and including Hitler’s “Final Solution”. Goebbels amplified Hitler’s rhetoric agains the Jews by labelling them as “a disease”, “traitors”, “money-grubbers” and much more. Jews were mistrusted because (as Martin Luther wrote) they killed Christ. These insults were not simply vindictive—they were carefully calculated.
By removing the humanity of Jews, the Nazis were able to shift how ordinary Germans thought about their neighbours, friends and in some cases, family members. To “drink the Kool-Aid” was to accept that Jews were in fact, not human and therefore not deserving of empathy. Once their humanity was lost, it was far easier for Nazis to convince the German public that the Jews ought to be dealt with like a cancerous tumour.
As Gilbert said, “Evil is the absence of empathy”. We should be exceedingly suspicious of anyone who advocates for the abandonment of empathy, especially on a societal level.
what is a Nazi?
Going back to Elon Musk: I don’t think he’s necessarily a Nazi. Sure, he flirts with Nazi ideas, has shown remarkable affinity for far-right political groups, belongs to a club of powerful men who all so happened to have grown up in Apartheid South Africa—oh and yes, gave a sieg heil at Donald Trump’s inauguration.
But the reason I don’t think Musk is a Nazi is more a matter of semantics than it is broad cultural strokes. As many historians have argued, though Fascism and other forms of far-right authoritarianism are an ever-present danger to to any democracy (Western or otherwise), Nazism is “its own thing”.
1. anti-Semitism
The political, social and cultural environment of the late-19th to early-20th century was an ideal breeding ground for the rise of the kind of anti-Semitic, right-wing authoritarian movement that became the Nazis. Germany was already a keenly anti-Semitic country—but so were many other countries in Europe. The Dreyfus scandal—now forgotten by most, was an incredibly controversial moment in French history that directly played into the general mistrust of Jews in Europe. Anti-Semitism was rife in Europe, but all it took was someone to light a match to set the entire tinderbox ablaze.
2. stolen victory
The Treaty of Versailles provided historical justification for Jew-hate. The “stab-in-the-back” conspiracy theory that became so popular (because the Nazis promoted it so widely) allowed Germans to feel that they hadn’t actually lost WWI, but that conspirators (liberal democrats, Marxists and the Jews) conspired to “rob” the German people of their victory. The Great War, as they thought of it, was actually a German victory but thanks to the “traitors” who had sold them out, their rightful victory had been “stolen”.
3. the master race
Finally, the popularity of Social Darwinism gave a scientific justification for believing that Jews were not a legitimate part of the human race and that the “master race”—the Aryans—were destined to either dominate all other races, or be consumed by lesser men. This mentality made the Germans feel as though they were in a zero-sum game: either destroy the Jews and master the world, or be left to languish and eventually die.
In this sense, Musk isn’t a Nazi—but that hasn’t stopped him from flirting with Nazi ideas. He talks about “human civilisation” or “the greater good” in a way that you’d expect from a comic book superhero. He talks about how he’s focused on achieving the “greatest good for the greatest amount of people”. He also buys in to the “great replacement” theory—a theory that deserves its own article.
rule of the technocrats
It should be disconcerting when unelected men with such resources and power get so much of a say on how we all get to live our lives. After all, if it’s in the best interests of “civilisation” to preserve “the best”, the “most productive” or “the smartest” people over and above others, who does Elon Musk consider in that category, and who is out? If technocrats like Musk are to achieve their goals, the easiest way to get there is to degrade the rights of workers, put more immigrants and prisoners to work (because they cost less and don’t have as many rights) and then when the technology is ready, outsource it all to robots.
In order to exploit human beings to the extent that such a future requires, will in turn require a level of dehumanisation that you or I might find unimaginable. “What is the value”, the technocrats would ask, “of one criminal, or illegal immigrant, or political prisoner, when considering the scope of human civilisation?” Empathy has no place in that future.
While this is all sounding incredibly Blade Runner (or to use a contemporary parallel, Cyberpunk 2077), I still have hope for humanity. Empathy is a gift that allowed us to build civilisations, make incredible discoveries and plumb the depths of human relationships. As both psychologist Greg Depow and social thinker Jeremy Rifkin affirm, empathy is vital for function and thrive in the long term. Depow, quoting Rifkin, said that “empathy is the driving force that has moved us from tribal bonds to religious ties, to nation states and could eventually move us to global co-operation.” Of course, that final step isn’t guaranteed but if we’re going to get there, empathy must be part of the formula. When archaeologists dig up ancient ruins, they look for skeletal remains of those with broken bones that have been mended. Caring for an injured person is costly, burdensome and time-consuming in the modern era but in the ancient world, it was even moreso. It was done because we cannot build civilisation without empathy. Without empathy, there can be no trust. Without trust, there can be no cooperation. Without cooperation, there can be no civilisation.
Empathy is what helps us make bridges, not walls. It is the driving force behind ending hatred, division, selfishness and conflict. It is what can ensure a happy marriage, a fulfilling career and a life well-lived. Empathy not just is core to the building of civilisation—it is fundamental to what it means to be human.
If you’re a Christian, empathy is the metric by which you show how much you love God. It is impossible to love God and in the same breath, not show love for those around you—especially those who are not like you. God made each of us in His image—the Psalmist said, “We are fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). To deny empathy for any person is to reject the image of God in every person.
If you are not a Christian, this is the standard you should hold Christians to. If they display non-empathy, remind them that empathy is not just a nice option—it is a non-negotiable for a follower of Jesus. After all, Jesus did say that the way outsiders would be able to identify His followers is by how they loved each other. Every person has value and is deserving of empathy, no matter their background, ethnicity, gender or any other identifying feature. We owe it not just to civilisation, but to our fellow humans, not to pick and choose who we show empathy for. As the famous passage in the Jewish Mishnah says,
“Whoever saves one life saves the entire world.”
