I came across a term recently, “suicidal empathy”. Musk talked about it in an interview with Joe Rogan, and it seems to have originated from a man called Gaad Saad. As best I can tell he suggests that a big problem in society these days is an excess of empathy. In fact, in some pieces this concept is put forward as a big “threat to Western civilisation”.
I was pretty shocked when I read this, and explored a bit further to try and understand exactly what they were claiming. They seem to be saying that if we have “too much” empathy for certain people then we risk damaging the lives and values of the great majority. Who are these certain people? The usual suspects I’m afraid, immigrants, minority ethnic groups, trans people and, well, it seems to me, pretty much anyone they don’t actually like.
I don’t buy this. Not at all. Empathy doesn’t determine your actions. But it can, and, I believe, should, influence them. My point is that empathy does not lead inevitably to any particular strategies or policies at a societal level, and whatever an excess of it is, do we seriously believe that having empathy for a minority group actually harms the lives of the majority?
We only have individuals in life. We only have individuals in relationships. There is no “the people”, or “the majority” which has a single view of anything. The claim that there is such a thing is the path to despotism or populist fascism.
I spent an entire career over four decades where the core of my everyday was a sequence of one to one relationships with individual patients. I had empathy for every single one of them. I believe that was the only way to understand them, to really get to know them, and, so to help them. I believe that without empathy for every single person I worked with, I wouldn’t have been as good at my job as a doctor. Can you imagine a doctor who reserves their empathy for select groups of individuals? Well, actually we can imagine that, but it’s not something I’d like to support.
No, it’s not an excess of empathy, or a “misdirected” empathy, which is the biggest threat to our way of life. It’s a deficiency. We don’t care enough.
When immigrants are vilified, treated as less than human, when children are bombed, blown to pieces and killed in pursuit of “terrorists” or in an attempt by one country to grab some of the land occupied by others, then we have an empathy deficiency.
Back when 9/11 happened, the novelist, Iain McEwan, said the greatest failing of the terrorists was a lack of empathy….or did he say a lack of imagination? I’m not sure at the moment, I’ll look it up. Ah, it was both…..
If the hijackers had been able to imagine themselves into the thoughts and feelings of the passengers, they would have been unable to proceed. It is hard to be cruel once you permit yourself to enter the mind of your victim. Imagining what it is like to be someone other than yourself is at the core of our humanity. It is the essence of compassion, and it is the beginning of morality.
We need MORE empathy. Not less.
Heroes Not Zombies 