Suicidal Empathy: Dying to be Kind
This month we’re looking at political thinking, making this weeks book Suicidal Empathy: Dying to be Kind by Gad Saad. So let’s do this.
Gad Saad is one of my favorite sarcastic bards of the 21st century. He’s been screaming for at least a decade that the emperor is naked, while all the emperor’s courtiers insist that everything is fine. And in this book, he just lays it all on the line.
And, honestly, since I catch a lot of the same headlines and X streams that Saad does, there wasn’t a whole lot in here that surprised me. But he does lay out how we got here, in eight easy to read chapters.
A Good Virtue Gone Bad is the opening salvo and in it Saad lays out why empathy is actually a good thing, an evolutionary adaptive trait that allowed man kind to evolve as a social species. But somewhere along the way, empathy has maladapted into what Saad calls empathy-related disorders. These include psychopathy, and he references the most famous of Hollywood maladapts, Hannibal Lecter, as well as compassion fatigue, people who work in helping professions who burn out of empathy. All of which leads to the central thesis of the book—Suicidal Empathy.
Examples of this abound in todays media. When women are raped but the rapists allowed to go free because they are refugees and don’t know any better. That’s suicidal empathy. When people are more outraged at Nick Shirley than they are about the fraud he uncovered because it was Somali refugees committing the fraud...that’s Suicidal Empathy.
As a side note, when I was reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book earlier this year, she spells out point blank that Somali’s committing fraud against the government is literally a way of life, refugee or not. They commit as much fraud in Somalia as they do here...they get more out of it here, as Somalia does not have the billions of dollars to throw at empathetic causes that America does, but this is not a refugee thing. This is a Somali thing.
Anyways, back to this book. Forbidden knowledge is the things that are known to be true, but you’re prohibited from saying them. There are only two genders. Trans women are men in woman face. If a transwoman dies alone in the middle of a desert and their body is found in 50 years, nothing more than bones, the forensic pathologist is going to look at their skeleton and say something like “Caucasian male, approximately 25 to 35 years old.” No amount of surgery or estrogen supplements can change your bone structure. Or the DNA in those bones, should they only find a tooth and go to the trouble of extracting DNA from it.
He talks about linguistic empathy, how language has been literally changed so the speaker appears more empathetic so that its no longer secretary, it’s administrative assistant. It’s not janitor, it’s custodial engineer. It’s not birth defect, it’s congenital disability. It’s not illegal immigrant its undocumented immigrant...or in the country improperly.
He then takes this to it’s absurdist logical conclusion and refers to immigrant rapists in the book as undocumented lovemakers.
It kills me because the same people who, ten years ago were justifiably outraged that Brock Turner was sentenced to a mere six months in county jail and three years probation, excuse rape when the rapist is an immigrant...excuse...undocumented lovemaker.
Cultural Theory of Mind is exactly that. It’s a theory that the mind is a product of cultural and linguistic evolution. I’m floored that this is up for debate since we all know that humanity is heterogeneous...I mean, their catch phrase is Diversity is Our Strength. So it’s WELL KNOWN that not everyone is alike. We’re all human, but people who grow up in Japan are wildly different from people who grow up in Poland. Who are different from people who grow up in Dubai, Argentina, America.
And yet, people think that opening the borders and letting all the refugees flood across...well, it’s just a matter of getting them to assimilate. The problem is, not every refugee WANTS to assimilate. I would refer you again to Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book. She was the rare gem who actively sought to improve her own life. Most refugees take the dole and then demand the society they moved to accommodate them. Hirsi Ali reported that when she first started trying to improve her lot, the counselors at the refugee camp encouraged her to STAY IN THE CAMP! They were not, in fact, trying to help her assimilate, even though she wanted to.
Cultural Theory of Mind addresses that not all cultures are equal, and cultural relativism is the back door through which suicidal empathy slides. The same people who are outraged about Epstein’s Island turn a blind eye to the child brides of Islam...because that’s just their religion. Cultures are NOT equal. And sorry, but the West is the Best. And Japan. Have a love affair with Japan’s hardline stance these days.
Blank Slate Felons addresses the incredibly light sentences being handed out to immigrant criminals, in the name of empathy, turning a blind eye to Adam Smith who wrote in The Theory of Moral Sentiments “Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” But then again, since Smith also wrote The Wealth of Nations and is considered the Father of Capitalism, so it’s no surprise his other wisdom is routinely ignored by the Suicidally Empathetic.
Settled Science, Taboo Trade-Offs addresses how frequently “settled science” is wrong, addressing the madness of the Covid-19 pandemic and climate activism, which has mysteriously vanished now that large corporations want to build data centers everywhere. He addresses the tragedy of the commons in a round about way, discussing how the brain trust at the world economic forum thinks none of us should own cars or property, and we should be thankful in our poverty, for the good of the planet. Travel should be reserved for refugees and the Hollywood elites who know better than all of us how we should live our lives. And how the fear of being called a bigot leads to more tragedy...more unwanted lovemaking, more crime, more criminals allowed to go free.
I mean hell, on May 7 this year, Rhamell Burke shoved Ross Falzone, a 76 year old retired teacher down the subway stairs. He had previously attacked a 23 year old woman on the subway only she declined to press charges because, and I quote “Maybe a part of me was just like, I don’t want to put another black man in jail.”
Selling Indulgences is much like how the Catholic church used to sell indulgences for your sins and you could literally buy forgiveness for everything from lustful thoughts to murder. Mandatory training in empathy is becoming common across corporate America and in universities, it’s de rigeur for the DIE cult, which was covered in full in Saad’s previous book The Parasitic Mind. Universities get around their inclusion requirements by narrowly defining who is to be included. Saad includes a position that was open for “all areas of artificial intelligence. The call is open only to qualified individuals who self-identify as women, transgender, gender-fluid, non-binary, or Two-spirit.”
I mean, if I see that and I’m a dude, I 100% self-identify as a woman. Not as transgender. I’m going full South Park.
I am horrified to see what the next generation of medical doctors will produce. And am not in the least surprised that the back to the land people are also growing their own herb gardens and exploring home apothecary options.
Govern Me Harder, Daddy! I love that this chapter opens with a very famous CS Lewis quote:
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
And then he talks about the outrageous wastefulness of the government in spending our tax dollars. And how, for a few brief shining days at the beginning of Trumps second term, there was the DOGE...Department of Government Efficiency, which slashed through huge swaths of government waste. That brief window of time is the only time in my 15 years the VA has responded to me in something even remotely approaching a reasonable time frame.
And yet, those who preach empathy are all too willing to give the government more and more of our money. Taxation is theft, and our idiot forefathers authorized it whole cloth when they passed the 16th amendment. He does talk about the “benefits” of “free” healthcare. Note the quotes….nothing free is actually free. Someone has to pay for it. And if it’s not you, then you’re the product.
But, not all is lost. In his final chapter, Inoculation Against Suicidal Empathy, Saad lays out a pathway forward. It’s not a catchall solution, mostly because those who already agree with Saad are at least partially inoculated. And those who don’t agree with him are likely to never read this book.
But the good news is, he’s now #1 on the New York Times, and you KNOW they did not pick that. He’s there because his book is SELLING.
I always like Dr. Saad’s books, he’s an excellent author, I appreciate his wit and sarcasm, and this book was no exception. I highly recommend it if you want an understanding of how the once greatest nations are collapsing in real time while we all watch, sidelined by those who would torture us without end, providing mercy to the guilty, while we all suffer for their empathetic tendencies.
