People on the political left often accuse those on the right of lacking empathy. Support ICE? You must not have empathy for immigrants. Refuse to get vaccinated against Covid? You must not have empathy for the elderly and the immunocompromised. More than a few leftists are in emotional crisis because they´ve convinced themselves that the great majority of folks in parts of the midwest and south are sociopaths.
I see that too. They don't see that people can be empathetic cognitively without losing themselves in emotional empathy. However, so many people on the left are being weaponized and are being utilized by PSYOPs because they can't control themselves. And to be fair, there's a similar behavior in MAGA that's similar but with a slightly different expression. There's something about progressive politics that draws the emotional empaths more.
It's the freakouts about guns, gays, god, Christmas cups, etc. It's the black and gray American flag with the red and blue stripes that says 'I support all the things, ' not unlike the progressives with their 'in this house' yard signs. That said, it's different and the more I'm thinking about that, I think I'm describing a different behavior than empathy aren't I?
I think it has to do with how we relate to that which we perceive as "other." Maybe there´s a continuum that is unbalanced/immature/pathological at both ends. Let´s say Steve is a straight white male. If Steve is on the far left imbalanced side of the spectrum, he might say "everybody but me is OK." Steve might decide that since he´s privledged he shouldn´t talk or voice his opinion. If Steve is on the far right imbalanced side of the spectrum, he might say "only I´m OK." In this case, Steve reacts with fear and judgment toward people who are different.
I think that most people, on both the left and the right, fall more towards the middle. There are compassionate, rational folks on both sides.
Excellent article! The thing that sticks out the most for me is the distinction between mature expression of empathy that reflects a differentiated person vs undifferentiated/unindividuated person conditioned to respond to and internalise the dominant feeling of others.
That's a really good point. That sounds like an expression of agency, but a little different. More like a maturation of a person in order to achieve agency.
Agency exists in differentiated people, but if you're undifferentiated, then your identity and your agency aren't really your own are they? Now I wish I had slipped that idea into this essay. I'm planning a follow-on so I'll make sure I put these ideas there.
Yes exactly! Either way, you’re impulsed by something, so you might as well choose love (if you can and only in those moments when you can consciously express empathy vs the conditioned responses).
Awesome article as always. I’ve been through all these stages and I feel pretty happy that I am somewhere in the maturity phase and hopefully will continue instead of sliding backward.
I’ve learnt that we don’t need to take up many causes if we want to become empathetic. Rather, we need to stick to one cause that truly matters to us instead of outraging like armchair activists over almost everything that we see on social media today. This is one of the main reasons why we tend to lose our empathy energy if that’s a thing.
Reminds me of Swami Vivekananda’s quote:
“The watchword of all well-being is not ‘I’ but ‘thou’. Who cares whether there is a heaven or hell, who cares if there is a soul or not . . .? Here is the world, and it is full of misery. Go out into it as Buddha did, and struggle to lessen it or die in an attempt.”
The armchair outrage is certainly part of the toxicity and I think you’re right that if these people got out and did something about it, about something, more than just going to a Saturday morning protest to wave a flag but actually did something their energy would be much more focused and they’d be forced to deal with everyone and break out of their feedback loops.
Empathy, while a powerful tool for connection and support, needs to be balanced like anything else. Excellent examples as to why with tons of great references on Substack, podcasts and one of my favorite books in Mark Manson.
Very important topic, thank you for discussing this.
Especially if we are wired for strong empathy, we need to be aware of its dark side (from my experience, it is very important especially for women to understand this).
When we think about the definition of empathy: “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another” we can also notice that empathy is prone to projections.
As projection is not only about projecting "bad things" onto others.
We can also project our good characteristics, our empathy, sensitivity etc. and assume the same characteristics in others, which sometimes can be surprisingly incorrect...
Very good points. Projection is a huge problem, and empathy is one vector. To add a positive spin on projecting empathy, one way to help calm down an out of control empath is to be calm and rational. It doesn't work well online because they'll read your tone however they want, but it does work well in person. And that just hit me that we may see more of this toxic empathy online because if a person is out of control, then nothing I can say, no matter how nice or as calm, will be 'read' that way. My brain goes back to this essay on how people project tone onto text: https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/the-conoftext
This was such a great take, thank you. I was required to read “The Empath's Survival Guide: Life Strategies for Sensitive People” in my clinical residency and it was absolutely irrational to me. The hyper focus on emotions was a bit too much.
More of a good thing isn’t always great, like beer and hot wings. Once a threshold is crossed all things become toxic, right? Maybe except for love. Maybe that’s why it’s such a unifying force.
I agree. However, love is an interesting one because it can get out of control especially if it’s untethered from agency. In fact, much of what you see in Toxic empathy is fueled by ‘love.’ You just care so damn much about ______ and you lose your agency. Infatuation is another. Now could argue that what I describe isn’t true love and I wouldn’t disagree with that either but I think the mechanisms underneith are the same.
Toxic empathy can have real world effects. Witness San Francisco where rampant open-air drug abuse, sidewalk tent camps, riots, and shoplifting are acceptable to locals who percieve these people as victims.
Exactly right. Freddie deBoer rails against this regarding mental health where we view it as 'bad' to involuntarily hold people in mental health facilities so we let them all live on the streets in that squallor and call that kind? What you describe is a perfect example of Toxic Empathy.
I took the lesson from both stoicism and the Gita in particular (plus Buddhist strains of thought) that one's feelings are a choice, and empathy is another feeling that could potentially carry us away like a strong tide. I've now landed on the other side of this, having been a Social Injustice Warrior (TM): empathy is weaponized by women to greatest effect, and I don't see straight men doing the same thing because empathy is a source of moral capital for women in particular among each other, and it can be converted to actual capital in a time of intense competition as we see today; I don't think it's an accident that we see empathy as moral capital deployed as a weapon to great effect by women against others in professional contexts, in particular. I'm now quite skeptical when I'm asked to show empathy, because it can get in the way of seeing a situation clearly. And separately, I think that when people say 'empathy,' a lot of the time they mean compassion; in most cases, we cannot mentally or emotionally enter into another's shoes. The need to display it on demand comes from therapy culture, which is pronounced, of course, among women.
Excellent examples. Also, the book, "Against Empathy" makes the case that empathy is so misused as to mean everything like compassion, humility, kidness, love, etc. There's also the twist between cognitive empathy and emotional empathy (where we feel it) and cognitive empathy can be better described by those aforementioned concepts and emotional empathy is what really gets manipulated.
I've also been facinated as I've studied how much overlap the Gita and also Taoism have in commong with Stoicism. I need to study more because I'm obviously steeped in Western Culture and haven't appreciated the full scope in others.
Empathy with an individual is often genuine. Empathy with a group is easily turned into manipulation and toxic influence. Social media tends to generalize the individual to become the group and the weaponization becomes systemic. this is why local news tends to be more honest and heartfelt while national news tends to be more programmed and polarizing.
That's a great point. It's also impossible to be individually empathetic at scale and so it quickly becomes tribal when expanded. (damn, now I wish I had articulated that in the essay!!) Great comment to trigger a clarification.
I know you and a few of your fellows (Adam "Guz", Mark McGrath, et al) are on to something. Much is over my head (I have a very primitive brain-one trick pony mind),
What kind of reset do you have in mind for the species, over the next 3.5 years ?
I just recommend people go out and touch grass like that german guy did. That video is the exact opposite of what were told the world looks like on social media.
Thanks, there's so much focus on feeling we miss that we don't have to. We can be there without getting lost in there. As an antidote to that book, I recommend "Against Empathy" where you can instead, focus on compassion, kindness, and care without losing yourself emotionally:
I think it's helpful to differentiate between cognitive and emotional empathy.
You don't want the ER doctor to be wrapped up in emotional empathy since it will disable and distract them, but if they experience no cognitive empathy the odds of something ugly happening sooner or later goes up as well.
Epictetus, I think, was getting at this distinction "As far as words go, however, don’t hesitate to sympathize with him, or even, if the occasion arises, to join in his lamentations; but take care that you don’t also lament deep inside."
Yes. I’ve come to appreciate that distinction as, after I wrote this, I read the book “Against Empathy” (Were you the one who recommended that?) and I agree that the difference is critical. I like how he clarifies that often, a nuerotic person doesn’t want emotional empathy. They want cognitive empathy and they’re the one who needs the emotional empathy from a calmer person, otherwise you get a death sprial of anxiety.
Insightful essay.
People on the political left often accuse those on the right of lacking empathy. Support ICE? You must not have empathy for immigrants. Refuse to get vaccinated against Covid? You must not have empathy for the elderly and the immunocompromised. More than a few leftists are in emotional crisis because they´ve convinced themselves that the great majority of folks in parts of the midwest and south are sociopaths.
I see that too. They don't see that people can be empathetic cognitively without losing themselves in emotional empathy. However, so many people on the left are being weaponized and are being utilized by PSYOPs because they can't control themselves. And to be fair, there's a similar behavior in MAGA that's similar but with a slightly different expression. There's something about progressive politics that draws the emotional empaths more.
I´m curious about the similar behavior in MAGA. Would you be willing to say more?
It's the freakouts about guns, gays, god, Christmas cups, etc. It's the black and gray American flag with the red and blue stripes that says 'I support all the things, ' not unlike the progressives with their 'in this house' yard signs. That said, it's different and the more I'm thinking about that, I think I'm describing a different behavior than empathy aren't I?
I think it has to do with how we relate to that which we perceive as "other." Maybe there´s a continuum that is unbalanced/immature/pathological at both ends. Let´s say Steve is a straight white male. If Steve is on the far left imbalanced side of the spectrum, he might say "everybody but me is OK." Steve might decide that since he´s privledged he shouldn´t talk or voice his opinion. If Steve is on the far right imbalanced side of the spectrum, he might say "only I´m OK." In this case, Steve reacts with fear and judgment toward people who are different.
I think that most people, on both the left and the right, fall more towards the middle. There are compassionate, rational folks on both sides.
Yes. The extremes are very noisy but not very large and certainly make up a disproportionate volume (both types) online.
Excellent article! The thing that sticks out the most for me is the distinction between mature expression of empathy that reflects a differentiated person vs undifferentiated/unindividuated person conditioned to respond to and internalise the dominant feeling of others.
That's a really good point. That sounds like an expression of agency, but a little different. More like a maturation of a person in order to achieve agency.
Yes! I also wonder if it's having greater access to one's agency to express it consciously as one matures.
Agency exists in differentiated people, but if you're undifferentiated, then your identity and your agency aren't really your own are they? Now I wish I had slipped that idea into this essay. I'm planning a follow-on so I'll make sure I put these ideas there.
Yes exactly! Either way, you’re impulsed by something, so you might as well choose love (if you can and only in those moments when you can consciously express empathy vs the conditioned responses).
Excited for your follow up!
Awesome article as always. I’ve been through all these stages and I feel pretty happy that I am somewhere in the maturity phase and hopefully will continue instead of sliding backward.
I’ve learnt that we don’t need to take up many causes if we want to become empathetic. Rather, we need to stick to one cause that truly matters to us instead of outraging like armchair activists over almost everything that we see on social media today. This is one of the main reasons why we tend to lose our empathy energy if that’s a thing.
Reminds me of Swami Vivekananda’s quote:
“The watchword of all well-being is not ‘I’ but ‘thou’. Who cares whether there is a heaven or hell, who cares if there is a soul or not . . .? Here is the world, and it is full of misery. Go out into it as Buddha did, and struggle to lessen it or die in an attempt.”
The armchair outrage is certainly part of the toxicity and I think you’re right that if these people got out and did something about it, about something, more than just going to a Saturday morning protest to wave a flag but actually did something their energy would be much more focused and they’d be forced to deal with everyone and break out of their feedback loops.
Thoughtful post as always.
Empathy, while a powerful tool for connection and support, needs to be balanced like anything else. Excellent examples as to why with tons of great references on Substack, podcasts and one of my favorite books in Mark Manson.
Thanks, and agree. Our collaborative essay should focus on that I think.
Very important topic, thank you for discussing this.
Especially if we are wired for strong empathy, we need to be aware of its dark side (from my experience, it is very important especially for women to understand this).
When we think about the definition of empathy: “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another” we can also notice that empathy is prone to projections.
As projection is not only about projecting "bad things" onto others.
We can also project our good characteristics, our empathy, sensitivity etc. and assume the same characteristics in others, which sometimes can be surprisingly incorrect...
Very good points. Projection is a huge problem, and empathy is one vector. To add a positive spin on projecting empathy, one way to help calm down an out of control empath is to be calm and rational. It doesn't work well online because they'll read your tone however they want, but it does work well in person. And that just hit me that we may see more of this toxic empathy online because if a person is out of control, then nothing I can say, no matter how nice or as calm, will be 'read' that way. My brain goes back to this essay on how people project tone onto text: https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/the-conoftext
This was such a great take, thank you. I was required to read “The Empath's Survival Guide: Life Strategies for Sensitive People” in my clinical residency and it was absolutely irrational to me. The hyper focus on emotions was a bit too much.
More of a good thing isn’t always great, like beer and hot wings. Once a threshold is crossed all things become toxic, right? Maybe except for love. Maybe that’s why it’s such a unifying force.
I agree. However, love is an interesting one because it can get out of control especially if it’s untethered from agency. In fact, much of what you see in Toxic empathy is fueled by ‘love.’ You just care so damn much about ______ and you lose your agency. Infatuation is another. Now could argue that what I describe isn’t true love and I wouldn’t disagree with that either but I think the mechanisms underneith are the same.
Toxic empathy can have real world effects. Witness San Francisco where rampant open-air drug abuse, sidewalk tent camps, riots, and shoplifting are acceptable to locals who percieve these people as victims.
Exactly right. Freddie deBoer rails against this regarding mental health where we view it as 'bad' to involuntarily hold people in mental health facilities so we let them all live on the streets in that squallor and call that kind? What you describe is a perfect example of Toxic Empathy.
I took the lesson from both stoicism and the Gita in particular (plus Buddhist strains of thought) that one's feelings are a choice, and empathy is another feeling that could potentially carry us away like a strong tide. I've now landed on the other side of this, having been a Social Injustice Warrior (TM): empathy is weaponized by women to greatest effect, and I don't see straight men doing the same thing because empathy is a source of moral capital for women in particular among each other, and it can be converted to actual capital in a time of intense competition as we see today; I don't think it's an accident that we see empathy as moral capital deployed as a weapon to great effect by women against others in professional contexts, in particular. I'm now quite skeptical when I'm asked to show empathy, because it can get in the way of seeing a situation clearly. And separately, I think that when people say 'empathy,' a lot of the time they mean compassion; in most cases, we cannot mentally or emotionally enter into another's shoes. The need to display it on demand comes from therapy culture, which is pronounced, of course, among women.
Excellent examples. Also, the book, "Against Empathy" makes the case that empathy is so misused as to mean everything like compassion, humility, kidness, love, etc. There's also the twist between cognitive empathy and emotional empathy (where we feel it) and cognitive empathy can be better described by those aforementioned concepts and emotional empathy is what really gets manipulated.
I've also been facinated as I've studied how much overlap the Gita and also Taoism have in commong with Stoicism. I need to study more because I'm obviously steeped in Western Culture and haven't appreciated the full scope in others.
Here's the link to the book: https://amzn.to/4m1Hvsh
Empathy with an individual is often genuine. Empathy with a group is easily turned into manipulation and toxic influence. Social media tends to generalize the individual to become the group and the weaponization becomes systemic. this is why local news tends to be more honest and heartfelt while national news tends to be more programmed and polarizing.
That's a great point. It's also impossible to be individually empathetic at scale and so it quickly becomes tribal when expanded. (damn, now I wish I had articulated that in the essay!!) Great comment to trigger a clarification.
how about this: "Let's Stay Together" https://youtu.be/rYOYfAVMI34?si=6z0Tw95qnl5uCWWo
-a German named Wolfgang singing reverent American country music in a modern reiteration-
for me, it starts and ends with humility, and a sincere intention to be a positive force of good.
thanks for the use of the hall- barely ablemann
It's a great song and a good reminder that empathy starts with humility and how toxic empathy creates the opposite of togetherness.
I know you and a few of your fellows (Adam "Guz", Mark McGrath, et al) are on to something. Much is over my head (I have a very primitive brain-one trick pony mind),
What kind of reset do you have in mind for the species, over the next 3.5 years ?
I just recommend people go out and touch grass like that german guy did. That video is the exact opposite of what were told the world looks like on social media.
Thanks, there's so much focus on feeling we miss that we don't have to. We can be there without getting lost in there. As an antidote to that book, I recommend "Against Empathy" where you can instead, focus on compassion, kindness, and care without losing yourself emotionally:
https://amzn.to/3TU2Qbh
I think it's helpful to differentiate between cognitive and emotional empathy.
You don't want the ER doctor to be wrapped up in emotional empathy since it will disable and distract them, but if they experience no cognitive empathy the odds of something ugly happening sooner or later goes up as well.
Epictetus, I think, was getting at this distinction "As far as words go, however, don’t hesitate to sympathize with him, or even, if the occasion arises, to join in his lamentations; but take care that you don’t also lament deep inside."
Yes. I’ve come to appreciate that distinction as, after I wrote this, I read the book “Against Empathy” (Were you the one who recommended that?) and I agree that the difference is critical. I like how he clarifies that often, a nuerotic person doesn’t want emotional empathy. They want cognitive empathy and they’re the one who needs the emotional empathy from a calmer person, otherwise you get a death sprial of anxiety.
Not I. But sounds like a good book.