Is empathy saving America or tearing it apart?

[Chabria, from B1]

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MEMBERS of the Patriot Front, a far-right militia group, participate in the March for Life antiabortion rally in Washington in January.

(DOMINIC GWINN Middle East Images)

moment — what is possible and what is not, what is practical and what being a decent human requires of us.

Empathy and clarity. Not one or the other, but both, in equal measure.

Let me explain why I am making this obvious point.

There is a new attack underway by the far right that some of you may yet be unaware of. Those who seemingly disdain values I hold dear — solidarity, compassion, freedom — have launched a war on empathy.

Yes, empathy, the ability to share and understand the feelings of another — the gateway drug to emotions including mercy, and values including tolerance and justice. Some on the right have gone so far as to declare empathy a sin.

That may sound like a bad Christmas joke, but it’s true. This tantrum against our ability, maybe even obligation, to recognize others’ experiences is a strange and sad offshoot of the successful assault on “woke,” which has always been little more than belligerence toward equality.

This denigration of empathy is steadily if stealthily gaining a following on the so-called Christian right. More disturbingly, it can be seen in federal policy, which increasingly doesn’t just allow cruelty, but favors it. To wit: Stephen Miller.

MAGA champion Elon Musk put this view most succinctly when he labeled empathy as dangerous to America, and “Western” civilization as a whole.

“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy,” Musk said earlier this year on the Joe Rogan podcast. “The empathy exploit. They’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response. So, I think, you know, empathy is good, but you need to think it through.”