Empathy Blues

Now that’s a lack of sympathy, right there. That’s cold, man.

Introduction

When it comes to addressing the sin of empathy, Joe Rigney has been on the case from the beginning. He and I talked about it in the pilot episode of Man Rampant, back in the first season, and that caused something of a stir, and then it played a significant role in his briskly-selling book Leadership and Emotional Sabotage. And now, like the men of Gideon hot after the Midianites, faint yet pursuing, he has just released a new book, The Sin of Empathy.

Judging from the online upsetness of it all, I thought it would be appropriate to wade into the melee, and offer an astute observation here and there. These astute observations will be located alongside my other observations, and I will leave you to sort them all out.

The very first thing to notice, if we take the definition of empathy given in the top slide, an emphasis that is standard in our therapeutic circles, is that the most obvious thing about this ongoing fracas is that a lot of defenders of this therapeutic definition are listening in order to respond, and not to understand. It is uncanny. It is like arguing with people who think it is a sin to argue, and yet they proceed with agitated arguments, unaware of what is going on. It is like getting into fist fights with pacifists.

I asked Joe yesterday if anybody had called the church office to check up on how Joe is doing. The answer was sadly in the negative.

The empaths might mutter in response that I am doing the same thing, which is “listening to respond.” Yes, but remember that I think that’s okay. It is perfectly appropriate to listen in order to respond, so long as you respond with understanding. I don’t have to obey the other guy’s assumptions—but hear me out now—I really do think the other guy should obey his own assumptions.

So how is it that debates over empathy are every bit as rancorous as debates over other political issues? The answer to that question is found in the realization that this issue is simply another political issue.

To Review Briefly Where We Are

Nobody in this discussion or debate believes that cruelty is okay, or that insensitivity to suffering is appropriate, or that malice is the way to go. Sympathy really is a Christian grace, and it is one that is modeled for us by our high priest, the Lord Jesus. We have a high priest who sympathizes with us in our weaknesses (Heb. 4:15). And the apostle Peter instructs Christians, among other things, to be sympathetic. “Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.” (1 Peter 3:8). The word in Greek is sympathes and is a compound word, and it means “to suffer together with” (sum + pathes). So there is nothing wrong with that, and it is all good.

What RIgney has put forward, and what Allie Beth Stuckey has more recently argued, is that when human fellow feeling is weaponized, and when it is detached from objective realities like stone cold truth, the end result is something entirely other than human compassion. Compassion is twisted into a counterfeit form. Joe Rigney calls this new thing “untethered empathy,” and Stuckey calls it “toxic empathy.” This kind of empathy is truly destructive because it cannot be checked or contradicted or modified by any kind of objective reality. The thing being objected to is an autonomous feeling of compassion.

It is a facsimile of compassion that is under no law except the one law of being under no law.

What is the key element of this no-good empathy? It is found in the therapy-speak definition posted above. “Empathy: “Listen to understand, not respond.” If you respond to someone who is, say, going through a tough time in their feelings, you might track in some reality from outside.

So in short, the debate is not between those who think the word sympathy is sufficient for our use, on the one hand, and those who believe that we should make sure that our classic understanding of sympathy has an accompanying synonym, that of empathy. This is not about whether sympathy has a synonym. It is about whether or not true compassion requires an anchor in an objective reality that is outside the feelings of the sufferer.

And incidentally, as in, by the way, when an ordinary citizen uses the word empathy as an ordinary synonym for sympathy, the attitude of all those in the Rigney camp runs along the line of “God bless you.” We have better things to do than quarrel about words. The only issue here is the alien definition of empathy.

An entire world of radical relativism is bundled up in that word.

True for You

In the older way of thinking, the world was the way it was, and it was our job to figure out how to adapt to it. The world was rigid and unyielding in its own way. Stubborn almost. Reality was not really optional, and never had been.

But what has happened in the empathy revolution is that we have come to believe that it is reality’s job to adapt itself to the way we are feeling about it all. In the past, if a man felt like a girl, but his chromosomes had taken a different line, it was necessary for the feelings to submit to the chromosomes. But today, the idea is that the chromosomes are the ones that need to give way. And because they won’t give way (reality being old school the way it is and all), we have organized a culture-wide game of “let’s pretend.” And those who don’t go along with the charade are policed vigorously.

Brené Brown Brings the Difference of Worldviews Into Focus

Just below is Brené Brown, not only arguing for the value of this therapeutic approach to empathy, but also arguing that sympathy is bad and destructive. She does not argue that sympathy is good, but that empathy is a higher, richer form of it. No, she argues that sympathy is bad and uncaring. It is here we can see the intention to replace the compassion that is objectively grounded with a “compassion” that is not,

Please note how she says that empathy is very different from sympathy. And while we are at it, you should note that the sympathetic character in this short, the deer, is not sympathetic at all, but is rather a blundering clod. And Brown says that sympathy “drives disconnection.” Well, sure. If some great tragedy happened and you callously offered the hurting one a sandwich, that would drive disconnection. But the thing that is driving disconnection there is cluelessness, not sympathy.

Brown also makes a point of saying, and this is crucial, that an essential element of empathy is “staying out of judgment.” This is the place where this false view of compassion detaches from reality. This is because judgment is all about discerning where this situation is located on a map in the real world.

This person is sobbing and well . . . shouldn’t the reason why matter? There is a difference between dealing with a person who is sobbing because she cheated on her husband and is filled with remorse, and a person who is sobbing because her husband cheated on her and she is filled with hurt.

There are times when you do stay out of judgment, but you have to make an initial judgment in order to determine if that is appropriate. There are other times when it is important to say, “Well, you do have a nail in the middle . . .”

The reason this skit is so funny is that an awful lot of people have been there. But the entire set-up is a standing refutation of this new approach to empathy. Moreover, this is something that every sensible person knows. There are times when this is what is happening.

But not always. Put another way, there really are times when you simply weep with those who weep. You don’t say anything, and you don’t need to say anything. There are times when the attitude that Brown commends—”I don’t even know what to say. I just so glad you told me.”—is the only appropriate response.

But there are also times when someone needs to be told that they should stop blaming everyone else for the consequences of their own bad decisions. These are times when the sorrow and misery that the person is struggling with is almost entirely self-inflicted. But see? In order to know that, somebody has to track judgment into the situation.

The Politics of Calvinball

I said at the top that is issue is a political battle because it is just one more political issue. But I need to correct that. It is not “just one more” issue—it is actually a meta-political issue. We are living in a time when a host of bad ideas have been implemented in every arena of life—socialism, feminism, transgenderism, and so on. Being really bad ideas and all, they have destructive consequences that actually come to pass in the real world. Our generation does not want to face those consequences, and has adopted this judgment-free mechanism as a method for wishing all such unwelcome consequences away.

We are living in a time when the current wisdom wants the prodigal son to be staring at the pig food, and to learn how to say to himself, “this is what genuine wealth looks and feels like.” And to the extent that it cannot be experienced as genuine wealth, that must be the fault of entitled white supremacists.

But reality is what it is, and it remains the case that God is not mocked. A man will still reap what he sows (Gal. 6:7), even though a world of rebels tells him that this is not what is happening. It remains the case that if you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. It is not possible to construct a world that encourages all the boys and girls to play stupid games, and then to outlaw stupid prizes.

Because . . .