Is Empathy a Weakness?
Did you see that the richest man in the world, and President Trump’s trusted advisor, Elon Musk said to Joe Rogan, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy”?
Wait! Empathy is a “weakness”? Jesus preached it’s the “meek” who inherit the world, not the powerful and potent. To Musk, Rogan, and maybe even President Trump, meekness is weakness. I’ve often said if you think meekness is weakness, trying being meek for a week! Even with the God of the universe living inside me, I can’t manage it for a day.
To me, it’s no mystery that Musk and his counterparts get along so well. I’m no psychiatrist but isn’t it a classic sign of narcissism if not sociopathy if you consider empathy as a “weakness”? Was it weakness when Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus or over obstinate Jerusalem? Was he being weak when he had compassion on the crowds when he saw them as “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd”? How about his fiery little half-brother James when he wrote, “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy”? Was that being weak? And what about Jesus’ chief Apostle, Paul, who told us to “clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience”?
That’s the Jesus way!
I don’t expect Musk to think or act like a Christian. But it grieves me, and I believe it grieves the Lord that because he’s highly intelligent and so filthy rich that millions of people take their cues from a guy who seems to take his cues from people like nineteenth century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. He’s the guy who coined, “God is dead” and claimed that “only decadents call compassion a virtue.” Nietzsche viewed empathy as potentially detrimental, especially when it leads to “self-denial.” Wait! Self-denial is bad too? I think I read someplace that we’re to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus!
It grieves me that our president called Musk “a great patriot,” someone who has “opened a lot of eyes.” Maybe both things are true in a way. Maybe he cares about our country, though I have serious doubts about that. And he has opened a lot of people’s eyes, but to what? What has the world’s wealthiest entrepreneur shown us that we needed to know, besides how to make cars and take other rich people into space?
Have you heard this term: “Psychopathy”? According to psychologists it’s a personality disorder characterized by a lack of empathy, remorse, and guilt. Apparently, people with this condition display manipulative behaviors and a tendency towards antisocial behavior. Sound at all familiar?
Musk went on to say on Rogan’s show almost dismissively, “I believe in empathy, like, I think you should care about other people.” That’s like saying, “I believe in relationships. Everyone should have a pet.”
He went on to say that empathy can lead to something he called “civilizational suicide.” In other words, don’t care too much about others, because you might ruin the world! Concern yourself primarily about yourself and everyone wins! Well, not everyone. Maybe you might win, but at what expense to the world, not to mention to you?
“They’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization,” he says, “which is the empathy response. So, I think, you know, empathy is good, but you need to think it through and not just be programmed like a robot.”
I assume he means by a “bug,” the kind that messes up your computer. So too much empathy will ultimately crash the world? Does any of this sound remotely true or in any way parallel to the life and teaching of Jesus? And does Jesus program us like robots? Does he control us or is it more accurate to say that kneads his nature into those of us who soften our hearts toward him?
The most popular definition of empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. It’s being willing to try to “walk in someone else’s shoes,” which is something that few people in the billionaire class seem to be able to do very well. Even if they’re otherwise good people, just by nature of the socioeconomic chasm between them and the common person, let alone the 700 million people in the world who live on less than $2.15 a day, it must be hard to even find the shoes of others, let alone walk in them.
Without a functioning conscience or the compassionate God living inside him, (neither of which seem likely in his case), Musk can’t possibly understand the challenges of those not wearing his “Cybertruck shoes.” Yes that’s a thing.
This is the world’s richest man espousing that empathy is a problem, a “bug.” The one that shuttered the department that feeds the hungry and cares for the sick around the world. The one who slashed funding for cancer research, that gutted the National Weather Service, putting the planet in even greater danger from climate change, and intends to cut funding from the VA.
This is a man who doesn’t just lack empathy, he thinks it’s a problem, like a bug in the software of Western civilization. It’s not only his inability to comprehend the suffering of others, but his will to dehumanize them that makes him and others like him dangerous to us all.
“The measure of a country’s greatness is its ability to retain compassion in times of crisis.” (Thurgood Marshall)
That’s the Jesus way!
