The Empathy Swamp

Many people consider empathy, the ability to understand and bond with the emotions of another person, to be a uniquely human trait. It is seemingly more coveted by liberals.

A recent study in Israel showed that liberals show more brain activity regarding suffering than conservatives. Conversely, a study by the Cato Institute showed that conservatives value respect for authority much more than liberals. Pew Research has shown much the same, that liberals and conservatives focus on passing preferred values onto their children, with conservatives dedicated to faith and obedience while liberals channel their children towards tolerance and empathy.

Those two sympathies often bind liberals to marginalized groups, as tolerance and empathy for the successful does not comfortably win virtue signaling. People in difficult situations fall directly into liberals’ line of vision as emotional targets.

It does not always work out well.

There is a well-known dynamic of an “Empathy Trap,” whereby people who are deeply drawn to a loved one in a difficult situation, end up doing more harm than good. For example, seeing a family member struggling with an addiction may cause them to enable an even worse addiction because they are pained to see a loved one hurting. The addict knows this, and manipulates family to satisfy their addiction, taking advantage of the weakened emotional state of people who love them.

A similar but more twisted version is happening now in the 2023-4 Gaza War, in something I’ll call an “Empathy Swamp.” Both liberals and conservatives are horrified at the site of children being killed in Gaza. However, seemingly only liberals are falling into the empathy swamp which encompasses everyone in Gaza, excusing and enabling sadistic Hamas murderers and rapists – past, present and future.

Liberal women’s rights groups refused to denounce the mass rapes and mutilation of women committed by hundreds of Palestinian men. Liberal college professors shouted that Hamas’s burning Jewish families alive was “exhilarating.” Politicians including Representatives Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, Summer Lee and Jamaal Bowman called for a ceasefire leaving Hamas in power to commit the atrocities again, and don’t offer a word about releasing Jewish hostages.

A protest outside UNESCO headquarters in Paris on December 1, 2023, to denounce the silence of international and feminist organizations on rapes committed during the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel (photo: © Dimitar Dilkoff, AFP)

Liberals have so elevated the Palestinian cause in their declarations of empathy, that they have become utterly blind to the sadistic savagery of thousands of Palestinians, and refuse to call for them to be brought to maximum justice. They decry the Israeli response as being “disproportionate”, while simultaneously urge Palestinians to use “any means necessary” to obliterate the Jewish State.

Jihadists are ecstatic, and fan the flames for liberals to “globalize the intifada,” manipulating them to destroy the very western values they hold dear.

The Empathy Swamp is drowning liberals around the world, and Jews are the first to pay the price, with the West to soon follow.

#CompassionNeedsACompass