It’s fear. As corny as it sounds, Yoda had a point: “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
Most people who suffer have no bandwidth to empathize with others as they are just trying to make it through the day themselves.
People are afraid for all the reasons you point out, and more I think. They are inundated 24/7 with stories, social media posts, news, etc. designed to keep them in a constant state of uneasiness and outrage. Logarithms that push confirmation bias, further examples of reasons why “others” are out to get you, to ruin your future, to change the laws that would threaten your way of life.
Economic strife fuels it even further. A people perpetually busy, exhausted, and relentlessly under demand for their every waking minute to be centered around their work and “making a living,” have no time to sit and reflect. No time to step out of their daily grind to indulge their interests, hobbies, etc. that may put them into real contact with other human beings. Human beings that could alleviate their fear by showing them that while they may have differences, they are more similar in the end on what truly counts.
Finally, fear of the future in general; climate change, war, pandemics. A “what’s the point” stance if, in the end, they can effect no change in making the world they are fighting to live in a better place.
Instead of empathy, the suffering caused by fear leads to its opposite - apathy.
Can't imagine what institutions, organizations, political parties, and corporations benefit most from rule by fear. Fear shuts down your higher thinking skills, turning off your brain to act fast instead of carefully. Tremendously useful for a certain sort of evil.
For those missing the subtext: it is those who want to use fear to override your empathy, see enemies under every flowerpot and behind every window, to see anyone unfamiliar as Other and Alien and Evil, and who ceaselessly try to suppress and roll back the Enlightenment values that have produced the greatest flourishing of human thought and culture in our history.
Because it's profitable for you to be made scared and stupid, and less profitable for you to reach out and see yourself in the Other.
From the Bible: "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." 1 John 4:18 NIV
There was a time when empathy seemed less like a political statement and more like an ordinary expectation of civilised life. It was not a grand ideology or a fashionable slogan. It was simply the ability to imagine what life looked like from another person’s point of view. Whether dealing with a neighbour who had fallen on hard times, a stranger facing discrimination, or a colleague struggling with illness, empathy was often regarded as a basic social virtue.
Today, however, empathy is in retreat. Public debate appears harsher, social media rewards outrage, and political discourse increasingly divides people into competing tribes. Across the political spectrum there is a growing sense that understanding others has become less important than defeating them.
Social media caricatures and divides us
Part of the problem lies in the way modern communication works. Social media platforms encourage speed rather than reflection. Complex human beings are reduced to usernames and profile pictures. A person who might seem thoughtful and nuanced in a face-to-face conversation can easily become a caricature online. The algorithms that drive engagement often favour anger because anger keeps people clicking, sharing and arguing. Compassion, by contrast, is rarely viral.
The result is a culture in which people often encounter one another not as fellow citizens but as opponents. Instead of asking why someone holds a particular view, there is a temptation to assume the worst. Disagreement becomes evidence of moral failure. In such an atmosphere, empathy can appear almost old-fashioned.
Economic insecurity: no time to stop and think
Economic pressures have also played a role. For many people, life has become more insecure. Rising housing costs, stagnant wages, stretched public services and growing inequality have left millions feeling anxious about their future. Anxiety narrows horizons. When people are worried about paying bills, finding work or securing healthcare, it becomes harder to focus on the struggles of others. Empathy does not disappear, but it can be crowded out by the pressures of daily survival.
At the same time, society has become more individualistic. For decades, people have been encouraged to think of themselves as consumers rather than citizens. Success is often measured by personal achievement, wealth or status. While ambition is not inherently harmful, a culture that celebrates individual success above collective wellbeing risks weakening the bonds that hold communities together. If every problem is seen as an individual responsibility, there is less room for recognising the social and economic forces that shape people’s lives.
The resilience of empathy
Yet there maybe another side to the story. Some would argue that empathy has not disappeared at all. In many respects, contemporary society is more empathetic than previous generations. There is greater awareness of mental health, disability, racism, sexism and other forms of disadvantage. Many experiences that were once hidden or ignored are now openly discussed. Campaigns for social justice often begin with a simple appeal to empathy: asking people to understand lives different from their own.
The paradox is that empathy has expanded in some directions while shrinking in others. People may feel deep compassion for certain groups yet struggle to extend that same understanding to those they perceive as political or social opponents. Empathy becomes selective. It is offered generously to some and withheld entirely from others.
History suggests this is not a new problem. Human beings have always found it easier to sympathise with those who seem familiar and harder to understand those who appear different. The challenge of every generation is to widen the circle of concern. The great social reforms of the past, from improvements in working conditions to the expansion of education and healthcare, were often driven by people who looked beyond their immediate interests and recognised the humanity of others.
Perhaps the real question is not what happened to empathy, but how we nurture it again. Empathy does not require agreement. It is perfectly possible to oppose someone’s views while still recognising their dignity. Nor does empathy demand sentimentality. Understanding another person’s circumstances is not the same as excusing every action they take.
Even people who describe themselves as "woke" these days seem to not have much in the way of empathy. I've literally watched self-proclaimed progressives argue about who has the "right" to be depressed.
Sorry to say, not both sides are the same. The polarity in one side prefers to extinguish life if it doesn't fall into their realm of belief. That's not even a point of reaching across the isles. Demanding I believe in something because your feelings and it's what you believe doesn't promote a whole lot of Intelligence, so you tell me if they would even know what empathy is if it stared them down.
Empathy isn’t sympathy. In the context of understanding or studying socio-political issues, you have to maintain an academic and objective view of the issue and those involved. Empathy is the mechanism to achieve that. Sympathy is not, because sympathy is not objective.
We on the left — the party of academia — have all but abandoned objectivity. We can’t be objective because we allow our emotions to dictate too much. For example you can’t study the opposition of a political issue if you’re so emotionally invested in hating them that you can’t even talk to them. Being empathetic allows you to understand their perspective. And understanding people’s perspectives is the cornerstone of all social sciences. And the undoing of social sciences happened when it was deemed heresy to view the opposition as anything other than evil.
So where has all the empathy gone? It got cancelled lol. It was the baby thrown out with the bath water in the left’s shift away from academia to Wokeness. It was one of many things we sacrificed when we decided conformity trumped critical thinking and free thought. So when someone says something like:
> Sorry to say, not both sides are the same. The polarity in one side prefers to extinguish life if it doesn't fall into their realm of belief. That's not even a point of reaching across the isles. Demanding I believe in something because your feelings and it's what you believe doesn't promote a whole lot of Intelligence, so you tell me if they would even know what empathy is if it stared them down.
I say it’s pretty obvious that we ditched empathy because it’s easier to do and say things like this than fixing the problems at hand. It’s easier to insult the other side than empathize with them.
WileyCoyote7 | 20 hours ago
It’s fear. As corny as it sounds, Yoda had a point: “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
Most people who suffer have no bandwidth to empathize with others as they are just trying to make it through the day themselves.
People are afraid for all the reasons you point out, and more I think. They are inundated 24/7 with stories, social media posts, news, etc. designed to keep them in a constant state of uneasiness and outrage. Logarithms that push confirmation bias, further examples of reasons why “others” are out to get you, to ruin your future, to change the laws that would threaten your way of life.
Economic strife fuels it even further. A people perpetually busy, exhausted, and relentlessly under demand for their every waking minute to be centered around their work and “making a living,” have no time to sit and reflect. No time to step out of their daily grind to indulge their interests, hobbies, etc. that may put them into real contact with other human beings. Human beings that could alleviate their fear by showing them that while they may have differences, they are more similar in the end on what truly counts.
Finally, fear of the future in general; climate change, war, pandemics. A “what’s the point” stance if, in the end, they can effect no change in making the world they are fighting to live in a better place.
Instead of empathy, the suffering caused by fear leads to its opposite - apathy.
kylco | 18 hours ago
Can't imagine what institutions, organizations, political parties, and corporations benefit most from rule by fear. Fear shuts down your higher thinking skills, turning off your brain to act fast instead of carefully. Tremendously useful for a certain sort of evil.
For those missing the subtext: it is those who want to use fear to override your empathy, see enemies under every flowerpot and behind every window, to see anyone unfamiliar as Other and Alien and Evil, and who ceaselessly try to suppress and roll back the Enlightenment values that have produced the greatest flourishing of human thought and culture in our history.
Because it's profitable for you to be made scared and stupid, and less profitable for you to reach out and see yourself in the Other.
SpinningHead | 15 hours ago
Murdoch has been doing this on 3 continents.
HistoricalHat4847 | 4 hours ago
From the Bible: "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." 1 John 4:18 NIV
[OP] coffeewalnut08 | 20 hours ago
There was a time when empathy seemed less like a political statement and more like an ordinary expectation of civilised life. It was not a grand ideology or a fashionable slogan. It was simply the ability to imagine what life looked like from another person’s point of view. Whether dealing with a neighbour who had fallen on hard times, a stranger facing discrimination, or a colleague struggling with illness, empathy was often regarded as a basic social virtue.
Today, however, empathy is in retreat. Public debate appears harsher, social media rewards outrage, and political discourse increasingly divides people into competing tribes. Across the political spectrum there is a growing sense that understanding others has become less important than defeating them.
Social media caricatures and divides us
Part of the problem lies in the way modern communication works. Social media platforms encourage speed rather than reflection. Complex human beings are reduced to usernames and profile pictures. A person who might seem thoughtful and nuanced in a face-to-face conversation can easily become a caricature online. The algorithms that drive engagement often favour anger because anger keeps people clicking, sharing and arguing. Compassion, by contrast, is rarely viral.
The result is a culture in which people often encounter one another not as fellow citizens but as opponents. Instead of asking why someone holds a particular view, there is a temptation to assume the worst. Disagreement becomes evidence of moral failure. In such an atmosphere, empathy can appear almost old-fashioned.
Economic insecurity: no time to stop and think
Economic pressures have also played a role. For many people, life has become more insecure. Rising housing costs, stagnant wages, stretched public services and growing inequality have left millions feeling anxious about their future. Anxiety narrows horizons. When people are worried about paying bills, finding work or securing healthcare, it becomes harder to focus on the struggles of others. Empathy does not disappear, but it can be crowded out by the pressures of daily survival.
At the same time, society has become more individualistic. For decades, people have been encouraged to think of themselves as consumers rather than citizens. Success is often measured by personal achievement, wealth or status. While ambition is not inherently harmful, a culture that celebrates individual success above collective wellbeing risks weakening the bonds that hold communities together. If every problem is seen as an individual responsibility, there is less room for recognising the social and economic forces that shape people’s lives.
The resilience of empathy
Yet there maybe another side to the story. Some would argue that empathy has not disappeared at all. In many respects, contemporary society is more empathetic than previous generations. There is greater awareness of mental health, disability, racism, sexism and other forms of disadvantage. Many experiences that were once hidden or ignored are now openly discussed. Campaigns for social justice often begin with a simple appeal to empathy: asking people to understand lives different from their own.
The paradox is that empathy has expanded in some directions while shrinking in others. People may feel deep compassion for certain groups yet struggle to extend that same understanding to those they perceive as political or social opponents. Empathy becomes selective. It is offered generously to some and withheld entirely from others.
History suggests this is not a new problem. Human beings have always found it easier to sympathise with those who seem familiar and harder to understand those who appear different. The challenge of every generation is to widen the circle of concern. The great social reforms of the past, from improvements in working conditions to the expansion of education and healthcare, were often driven by people who looked beyond their immediate interests and recognised the humanity of others.
Perhaps the real question is not what happened to empathy, but how we nurture it again. Empathy does not require agreement. It is perfectly possible to oppose someone’s views while still recognising their dignity. Nor does empathy demand sentimentality. Understanding another person’s circumstances is not the same as excusing every action they take.
Redivivus | 20 hours ago
It got labeled as too woke.
MKEMARVEL | 14 hours ago
Even people who describe themselves as "woke" these days seem to not have much in the way of empathy. I've literally watched self-proclaimed progressives argue about who has the "right" to be depressed.
NihiloZero | 18 hours ago
Seriously.
vegandread | 19 hours ago
Trump made it ok to be an asshole to people with different beliefs in public, and things have gone downhill ever since.
And now, the toothpaste is out of the tube. There’s no going back to where we used to be.
thewanderingent | 18 hours ago
Can we just wipe all the toothpaste off of the counter and act like no one squeezed the whole tube out? Please? 🥺
Iamanimite | 20 hours ago
Sorry to say, not both sides are the same. The polarity in one side prefers to extinguish life if it doesn't fall into their realm of belief. That's not even a point of reaching across the isles. Demanding I believe in something because your feelings and it's what you believe doesn't promote a whole lot of Intelligence, so you tell me if they would even know what empathy is if it stared them down.
WayFadedMagic | 19 hours ago
That really sounds like you are talking about the "left".
But this is reddit, so you are probably talking about the right.
GreenEyedTreeHugger | 19 hours ago
The billionaire class and the bigots tend to enjoy selective and performative EQ.
Lower_Ad_5532 | 12 hours ago
Americans sold it for a quick buck
lolumadbr0 | 7 hours ago
Something something something it's a made up New Age term--- the Lord savior The Podcaster
OneMan_OneBeard | 18 hours ago
Empathy isn’t sympathy. In the context of understanding or studying socio-political issues, you have to maintain an academic and objective view of the issue and those involved. Empathy is the mechanism to achieve that. Sympathy is not, because sympathy is not objective.
We on the left — the party of academia — have all but abandoned objectivity. We can’t be objective because we allow our emotions to dictate too much. For example you can’t study the opposition of a political issue if you’re so emotionally invested in hating them that you can’t even talk to them. Being empathetic allows you to understand their perspective. And understanding people’s perspectives is the cornerstone of all social sciences. And the undoing of social sciences happened when it was deemed heresy to view the opposition as anything other than evil.
So where has all the empathy gone? It got cancelled lol. It was the baby thrown out with the bath water in the left’s shift away from academia to Wokeness. It was one of many things we sacrificed when we decided conformity trumped critical thinking and free thought. So when someone says something like:
> Sorry to say, not both sides are the same. The polarity in one side prefers to extinguish life if it doesn't fall into their realm of belief. That's not even a point of reaching across the isles. Demanding I believe in something because your feelings and it's what you believe doesn't promote a whole lot of Intelligence, so you tell me if they would even know what empathy is if it stared them down.
I say it’s pretty obvious that we ditched empathy because it’s easier to do and say things like this than fixing the problems at hand. It’s easier to insult the other side than empathize with them.
cranktheguy | 18 hours ago
Sure it was the left that abandoned empathy. Just ignore the right talking about the sin of empathy.