Gad Saad

So post

Postmodernism basically says up is down, left is right, men are women, freedom is slavery, war is peace.

Everything is relativistic, and therefore we're not shackled by this thing called reality.

So to then argue that, no, no, no, people are born with specific features

phenotypes they're called male and female and you can't alter that becomes very mean it becomes non-empathetic be kind so what happened in the university is we switched from an epistemology of truth to an epistemology of care which is one manifestation of suicidal empathy

It's both.

But before I expand on what you just asked me, let me, just for the listeners and viewers, explain what is suicidal empathy.

Empathy is a perfectly laudable virtue for human beings to exhibit, right?

We are a social species.

So for you and I to have a meaningful conversation, I need to put myself in your mind and vice versa.

That's called cognitive empathy or theory of mind.

So the book is not an attack on empathy, period.

It's an attack on dysregulated empathy

Aristotle explained to us several millennia ago that all good things in moderation, too little of something is not good, too much of something is not good.

And that exact principle applies to empathy.

If I have no empathy, I'm likely to be a psychopath.

If I have hyperactive empathy that is invoked in the wrong situations toward the wrong targets, we end up with suicidal empathy.

But to come back to your point, yes, the Pope behind the very high Vatican walls could pontificate about the love and brotherhood between Islam and Christianity as thousands of Christians are massacred in Nigeria.

So I can strongly

stroke my beautiful, luxuriant hair while looking at myself in the mirror of moral preening because I don't bear any of the costs of appearing kind, tolerant, empathetic, and compassionate.