Entry 2414, on 2025-10-08 at 20:55:24 (Rating 4, Comments)
One of the more interesting public figures I follow on-line, and listen to on podcasts, is a Canadian professor, Gad Saad. He was born in Lebanon and is a cultural Jew. He is a controversial figure mainly because of his criticism of Islam. A concept he either created or at least popularised is "suicidal empathy" and that's what I want to talk about here, because it fits in with many points I have made in the past, including a post from 2019-10-04 called "St George in Retirement" which basically contends that all problematic ideas are just previously resonable ideas which have gone too far.
As I suggested above, the idea isn't new, although the name might be. Aristotle observed that to live a good life people should do the right thing, which isn't particularly insightful, but he added to this by saying that we should do the right thing to the right extent. In other words, doing too much of the right thing is itself wrong.
So as you might have realised by now, suicidal empathy refers to the state where a previously good thing (empathy) is taken so far that it becomes (at least metaphorically) suicidal.
Empathy refers to the ability to put yourself in another person's place and understand them that way. It is why we are upset by watching other people suffer, and clearly is a good thing for a social species, like humans. Empathy relies on theory of mind, where humans learn at a young age that others have thoughts just like they do, but what many people don't realise is that there is a lot of variation in the way people think as well, due to genetic, social, and environmental factors.
So enough of this theory. I always try to give examples of even my most theoretical musings, so now is the time.
Let's start with a very currently relevant topic: immigration, which has become a significant source of conflict and disagreement, mainly in the US, and Europe, and especially Britain.
Many pro-immigration people want more immigrants because they see the desperate situations other people live in and want them to live a better life by immigrating. They assume that the immigrants will be grateful for this, and integrate into the society and deliver major benefits.
No doubt many immigrants are very valuable to their new country, but does this extend to them all, especially the illegal immigrants who are allowed to stay by people who might be acting based on their own empathy?
It seems fairly clear that the answer is no. Especially in Europe, uncontrolled immigration seems to have been a disaster, resulting in increasing crime, violence, and conflict between different communities. In some cases it might be claimed that the societies allowing this to happen are committing suicide because of excess empathy.
Note that the claim of suicide might be too strong for many, but at least things are heading in that direction. Also note that this is a statistical argument. I'm not saying every immigrant is problematic, just a significant number of them.
What about crime? Well, in California theft up to a certain value was seen as a misdemeanour, and was unlikely to be acted on. It was assumed the thief was stealing something they really needed, and that a prosecution for that was unnecessary, cruel, and often racist. This allowance has been tightened up a bit recently, presumably because they realised how suicidal that form of empathy really is.
So now we move onto the form which Professor Saad has mentioned on many occasions: that is tolerance of Islam. Again, I have to say that not all Muslims are problematic, in fact the majority might be absolutely fine, but the more militant minority are a big problem, and Islam itself is just a bad belief system (more so than other religions, in my opinion).
Sharia Law is implemented to a limited extent in some Western countries, such as the UK and Sweden. Surely this is just a bad idea. Laws should not be based on religious ideas (and this includes ideas from other religions too, like Christianity) and the same laws should be used for everyone in a country. Being empathetic towards Muslims in this case goes too far when this is the result.
And police in the UK (and other countries) seem to be hesitant to prosecute Muslims, even when their actions are clearly illegal. The "grooming gang" problem in the UK has existed for years, and pro-Islam protests seem to be allowed far more leniency that protests against Islam. The UK has taken it to the extent where just making a statement critical of Islam often results in a visit from the police, even where no law has been broken.
Again, empathy for a religion, which has many of its members living in dangerous and unpleasant conditions, results in too much empathy for those trying to escape those conditions.
Who else do we have too much empathy for? Well, how about trans people who have been given far too much ability to infringe on women's rights. How about indigenous people, who get a pile of special privileges others don't have. It happens in many different places when you look for it. And you can tell it's happening when the supporters say something like: "don't you want to help refugees" or "don't you care about trans rights" or "criminals are victims of an unjust society".
There might be an element of truth in all of these, but that doesn't mean the actions they are used to support are reasonable. We need empathy, but not suicidal empathy.
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