In our last session together…1
Please, feel free to lie down on the couch, that’s why it’s there…
Gooood… is that comfy?
So, in our last session together, we discussed the manipulative manner in which many presented Charlie Kirk’s statements about empathy. They took his statements out of context.
They do not care about the truth. They do not want to understand him.
We encouraged: 1. Get your facts straight. 2. Discover the context. 3. Listen to understand rather than to destroy… of course, once you understand, destroy is still an option so don’t get too disappointed right up front. 4. Define your terms and encourage your “opponents” to do the same… emotional thinkers will be unable or unwilling to do so. That’s when the rage and mocking really kicks in against you.
We began to discuss the truth of Kirk’s off-handed remark which involves the recently coined term empathy and the role that it plays in shaping myopic, emotional thinkers that become easy prey for whoever strums the heartstrings best at any moment. And that is where I wish to pick up today.
What is Empathy Again?
The English word empathy emerged around 1908 by psychologist Edward Titchener, translating the German Einfühlung (“feeling into”). Robert Vischer introduced the word “Einfühlung” in the 1870s, and Theodor Lipps developed it to describe the act of emotionally projecting oneself into a work of art or into another person’s experience. Critical Marxist’s demand that you trust other people’s “lived experience,” so long as those other people are the right sorts of people.
Though built from the Greek roots en (“in”) and pathos (“feeling, suffering”), the ancient Greeks never used these together to express this idea. Their similar term empátheia (ἐμπάθεια) actually meant emotional excess or passion—something negative that philosophers like the Stoics sought to overcome.
Thus, while empathy draws on Greek etymology, its modern sense of emotional understanding is a distinctly modern invention of late-19th- and early-20th-century psychology.
Empathy is a Johnny Come Lately
The modern call to empathy, to “feel with” the oppressed in their oppression, has, as Kirk duly noted, been weaponized to advance ideas about society and about distinct groups in society that prove devastating for the whole society. You cannot feel empathy for everyone involved in any conflict. You’d go mad if you tried. You can’t empathize with the killer and the killed, you have to choose. You can sympathize for both but not empathize with both.
This is why Charlie Kirk favored the term sympathy over empathy.
“Empathy” is a Marxist Tool for Revolution
Marxist ideas about reality depend upon convincing emotional-thinking people to throw their support behind those whom Marxists make to look pitiful, sorrowful, injured, hard done by. They are really good at it. Hollywood and TV shows have been doing it for years. They yank viewers to root for serial killers, throw in their emotional lot for rebellious and destructive teens, champion unfaithful wives and lascivious seducers. And they do it all with a level five application of emotional expression on actors’ faces.
“Marginalized” is a Weasel Word
The scene begins with a “marginalized” person… Wait! Hit the brakes! The very term marginalized is a manipulation of reality by presenting those living on the outskirts of “normal” society as victims of “normal” people. Existing in the margins is something done to the character not something the character did to themselves through ignorance, indolence, bad choices and anti-social behavior.
We’ve Been Played for Emotional Fools
Okay, press play… (Recap) The scene begins with a “marginalized” person, perhaps walking down the hall minding their own business. Often the person’s basis for marginalization is etched on them through a notebook cover or T-shirt. The other classmates are making rude remarks, knocking their books down, tripping them, tossing a slushy on them… sometimes you see nothing but dirty looks.
But that is far less important than what the camera does as it zooms in on the openly-displayed level 5 sadness and heartbreak that springs to life (or death as the case may be) onto the face of the victim. You must give moral support to this suffering one.
The A-Moral Feelings of Empathy
I chose the phrase “morally support” carefully, because you are often rising to defend evil and perversion when that evil person or perverse person’s sorrow is put on level 5 display for you. Moral judgements about that person are set aside and activism springs to action. In that moment, you would cheer the wholesale murder of those other characters, and wrap a loving and protective arm around the “victim.” And they’ve got you. Congratulations, you are now a “Useful Idiot” (Their term not mine.)
Empathy’s End-Game
Those seeking to unravel the institutions of a society, seek to sever common connection to that society’s past, its traditional behaviors, values, morals, ethics, beliefs, culture, etc… the things that built and sustain that world. They need you to empathize with those useful to this cause… those marginal individuals who, because of their inability or refusal to live responsibly within society, choose by default to live life on the margins. Therefore they present them as victims of society (the marginalized), scapegoats for an evil society.
Yes, by evil society, they don’t mean places like China or North Korea with totalitarian governments who disappear people, use them for organ harvesting, or to act as “free” labor in internment camps, No. Nor do they mean those African nations where murder, assault, theft and rape are common place… Nor places of deep poverty, near starvation, and actual slavery, sexual and otherwise… no, no, no.
No Empathy for the Righteous
The evil nation is any nation promoting freedom and natural rights, those built on and sustaining the traditional values and beliefs, morals and religious convictions, “prejudices” and “selfishness” of Western Civilization—i.e. Cis Gendered, Homophobic, Misogynistic, White, Christian, capitalistic males and their Stockholm-syndrome defenders, who created all the present systems to protect these things and to oppress dissenters.
If you truly empathize with the right people in these “unbearable” societies, you must rise up… i.e. get active, and do your part to disrupt, intimidate, destroy, and eventually kill.
What Could Go Wrong?
But don’t worry. The promise is great. Surely, once you help burn it all down, something better will emerge spontaneously from the ashes, rising like a glorious phoenix where everything is free, people are no longer selfish, you can do whatever you want without consequence. From each according to their ability to each according to their need. Oh glorious day!
And what are a few years of poverty, starvation, and murder when such wonderful things await. Great leaders will stroll through the wreckage as creators, and all will be well.
If you are one of the chosen ones who survive that is.
~Andrew D. Sargent, PhD
- https://drandrewsargent.com/2025/10/empathy-the-christian-and-charlie-kirk-part-1-context-matters/ ↩︎
