A subculture is emerging that claims empathy is “progressive,” “sinful,” and “parasitic.” What can aspiring helpers do to outlast the fad?
I recently bought a copy of Strength to Love, a collection of sermons by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., at the gift shop for the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. I respect King and his legacy as a helper. King believed that all humans are valuable, and I hoped he had written about the topic in his book.
I was not disappointed. King devoted a chapter to the second half of the Great Commandment, which states that we should love our enemies as ourselves. “Love even for enemies,” King writes, “is the key to the solution of the problems of our world.” He continued, “Our responsibility as Christians is to discover the meaning of this command and seek passionately to live it out in our daily lives.”
You don’t have to be a Christian to appreciate his wisdom.
In 1965, two years after King published Strength to Love, King was arguably the most well-known American outside of politicians and professional athletes. He had his enemies and detractors, for sure, and he wasn’t a morally perfect person. Regardless, what made him a legend after his time was his embodiment of love as a force for good.
“Weaponized empathy”
Fast forward to the recent past. In February 2025, Elon Musk appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience for the sixth time. Rogan’s studio has become a safe space for Musk, a place where the world’s richest man can philosophize with the host of the world’s most popular podcast. Musk used this appearance to spitball about a few issues.
One exchange between Musk and Rogan has since gone viral. Most notably, Musk said, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” He also said “weaponized empathy is the issue” with society today, implying that most acts of empathy should be viewed as interactions where one person exploits another.
Much like King was the most well-known American sixty years ago, Musk is now the most well-known American aside from the president.
Musk’s actions make the news, and his words carry weight. For someone of his status to declare that empathy has been weaponized means he isn’t the only person out there who believes it.
As a reminder, empathy describes a person’s capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing. Researchers have associated high levels of empathy with healthy relationships and prosocial behavior. There is also evidence to suggest it is a skill and can be improved with training.
Empathy is a core human trait. It’s how we relate to one another. We need it to think critically about social issues and solve problems together, large and small.
Unfortunately, Musk is part of a cohort of American thought leaders working to undermine positive definitions of empathy. Some conservatives, including some Christians, have begun attacking empathy as “progressive,” “sinful,” and “parasitic.” Right-wing influencers are now publishing books with titles like Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion, The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits, and the forthcoming Suicidal Empathy.
The “Toxic Empathy” subculture
Empathy as a positive skill seems to be under attack, but why? It’s a moral and political ploy. These people believe liberals are now exploiting empathy for good-hearted but misguided purposes, siphoning resources from society to support a “parasitic” underclass. Their solution is to simply do away with any system or behavior that is based on empathy. This would undermine an imaginary “woke” agenda and save our society.
According to the author of Toxic Empathy, we should further base our truth on the Christian version of God “because God is love and is the Source of truth.” She spends the book explaining why supporting individuals from marginalized groups is woke “using factual and biblical truth.” Toxic Empathy is based on standard, far-right talking points, full of caveats that read like, “I believe in empathy and kindness, but [insert hurtful, far-right argument].”
Scrolling through my illegally downloaded copy of Toxic Empathy really bothered me. Part of why I pirated the book, aside from not wanting to give the author money, is because the book was in high demand where I live. This author also hosts a podcast four days a week on YouTube and elsewhere. She has hundreds of thousands of social media followers across various platforms. Her brand of conservative Christianity is clearly working for her and her audience.
The narrative that most empathy is toxic is now being pushed across American culture. If it’s good enough for the world’s richest person and other far-right grifters like him, more Americans than I’m comfortable with will begin to believe it.
What can be done?
I started King’s Strength to Love in my disgust about our Toxic Empathy subculture. Not to glorify the past, I thought, but how has American society fallen off so hard in the last sixty years? In my opinion, the rise of economic inequality would be one reason. The decline of social trust across America would be another.
The loss of how to deal with people we have differences with, which would fall within the Venn diagram of empathy, would be the major factor.
We are now taught—and are teaching others—to be angry with and seek to embarrass those we disagree with. We are all responsible for this. Liberals laugh at punching Nazis and burning Cybertrucks. Conservatives mock social justice warriors and gender nonconformists. Most of us don’t have dedicated enemies like King did, but we tend to vilify groups outside of our own.
So how do we weather the storm of unkind, unempathetic behavior that seems to be gaining momentum? First, stop teaching others it’s okay to hate on people they don’t like. Stop liking social media posts that give you enjoyment at someone else’s expense. Don’t indulge when someone you know celebrates another’s misfortune. If you want to be an empathetic person, then start by practicing it in your daily life.
Second, if you consider yourself an aspiring helper, keep doing what you’re doing and wait. There’s no stopping the Toxic Empathy storm on a national level, but you can slow it down in your network. Take care of your loved ones. Pick a cause and be content that your efforts are enough. Befriend your neighbors.
Like Maya Angelou said, “Every storm runs out of rain”. If you believe as I do that empathy is a core human trait, then take hope that one day the Toxic Empathy fad will be over.
“Love multiplies love”
King offers three suggestions for how to love an enemy. The first involves forgiveness, or removing the barrier the person’s hurtful actions may have placed on a relationship. The second involves a willingness to look past the person’s actions and see the potential goodness in their existence. The third involves focusing on understanding, if not outright trying to befriend, the person—defeating or humiliating them should no longer be options.
Personally, I’d rather find inspiration in King’s methods than in Elon Musk’s. I can pity Musk while at the same time disapproving of how he handles his affairs. Remember that the next time Musk and his Toxic Empathy cohort make the news. Their influence won’t last forever.