The Glue of Civil Society
"Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself." (~Mohsin Hamid)
In what seems a blink of an eye, the world for us, in the United States, has started changing its rotation. Americans were generous, highly democratic, and kind. For over a half-century, post-World War II, that was the prevailing narrative.
Recently, not only have people like Musk but also ultra-Christian nationalists dug in and are berating us for being muddled in our thinking and in our ability to make razor-sharp decisions. The reason they scream is that we let empathy, the ability to feel and share each other’s experience, muddle our efficient thinking. Elon Musk, the vampire prince of big money and unfettered certainty, has said “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” (February 28, 2025 on the “Joe Rogan” podcast).
The world according to Trump and Musk is detonating in all corners of our being. Economic, cultural, social, and also human traits.
If you are a religious person, there’s no religion that has a beef against empathy.
Judaism: The concept of "tikkun olam" (repairing the world) encourages Jews to work towards social justice and care for those in need, reflecting an emphasis on empathy and compassion.
Islam: The Koran and the Sunnah include verses and sayings that focus on empathy and social awareness, highlighting the importance of kindness and compassion among believers.
Buddhism: Buddhism emphasizes compassion (karuna) and understanding the suffering of others, promoting actions that alleviate suffering and foster well-being.
Hinduism: Hinduism emphasizes compassion and empathy, with concepts like "ahimsa" (non-violence) and "karuna" (compassion) promoting ethical and compassionate behavior.
And if you are a non-religious person, look toward Einstein, who said: "A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
Even ChatGPT has no beef with empathy, one of the defining traits of being human (though not exclusively a human trait). “ By putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes, we gain insight into their experiences, struggles, and emotions, which can lead to stronger bonds and more effective communication. Whether in friendships, family relationships, or the workplace, empathy helps create a supportive and understanding environment where people feel heard and valued.”
Empathy is at the core of our civil contract in modern governance. I ask you to think about all the ways that we, daily, respond with empathy and thereby retain social harmony.
The lack of empathy, in my worldview, is a world of cruelty and disassociation. The Nazis, especially the elite SS, created by Hitler in 1925, was the epitome in modern times of learning that empathy was a handicap. Many stories are told about this, especially in film. As a young person, Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900, had a vicious Donald Sutherland, smashing the head of his favored cat to prove his dissociative pathology.
It’s this conscious and deliberate tutelage that makes policies of mass firings of federal workers, gutting of government institutions and departments, dehumanizing immigrants, trampling the right to the first Amendment, kicking the benefits of the old and the weak to the side and threatening the oppressed to bow to the oppressor reasonable and expected.
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others ; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were- cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?'‘
(~ George Orwell, 1984)
___________________________________________________________
AVAILABLE AT PORTER SQUARE BOOKS FOR ONLINE ORDERS (https://www.portersquarebooks.com/product/revisiting-mines)
AVAILABLE ON FLIPKART IN INDIA