It started as a simple exploration. I was researching empathy’s role in design thinking—how understanding users’ emotions and needs leads to more human-centered, inclusive design. But somewhere along that trail of sources and side tabs, I found something unexpected. Not just critiques of how empathy is used, but full-blown campaigns against empathy itself. Empathy was being framed not as a virtue, but as a threat. And not just in abstract academic circles, but in political speeches, religious books, and headlines that reached millions.
This discovery was jarring, not just because empathy is foundational to so many of our modern values—equity, justice, connection—but because the backlash against it seems to be gaining ground. Why is something as seemingly uncontroversial as caring for others under attack? And perhaps more importantly, who stands to benefit when we stop caring?
Empathy Isn’t the Problem—It’s the Foundation
Let’s get clear on what we’re talking about. Empathy isn’t about agreeing with someone or excusing harm. It’s about understanding the emotional experience of another person—feeling with them, rather than simply for them. In design thinking, it’s the first step: the empathize phase, where we attempt to see the world through our user’s eyes. It’s what allows creators to design accessible apps, educators to reach diverse students, and community leaders to build systems that serve everyone, not just the majority.
Empathy also forms the bedrock of democracy, ethics, and shared humanity. Without it, our ability to connect, cooperate, or challenge injustice collapses. It is, in many ways, the connective tissue of civil society.
So why is it suddenly being cast as dangerous?
The Anti-Empathy Movement: From Concern to Condemnation
In March 2025, Elon Musk made headlines when he claimed, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” On the surface, that might seem like provocative hyperbole—but it reflects a growing sentiment in some political and ideological circles. Books like The Sin of Empathy by Joe Rigney and Toxic Empathy by Allie Beth Stuckey go further, suggesting that empathy is a kind of moral sabotage—something that deceives good people into abandoning truth or upholding sin.
Rigney argues that empathy, particularly when it involves “suffering with” someone in their emotional state, can erode moral clarity. Stuckey claims that progressives exploit empathy to manipulate Christians into supporting policies that violate biblical principles. Musk, meanwhile, suggests that empathy is a bug in the system, making society vulnerable to exploitation and collapse.
These views position empathy not as something to refine or contextualize, but as a fundamentally flawed impulse—a gateway to chaos. This isn’t simply a debate over emotional intelligence. It’s a cultural war over whose experiences we allow to matter.
Who Gains When Empathy Becomes the Enemy?
The more I examined the rhetoric, the clearer the pattern became. When empathy is cast as weakness, it conveniently clears the path for authoritarianism, exclusion, and moral rigidity. The less we care about others—especially others who are different, marginalized, or in pain—the easier it becomes to justify policies and ideologies that would otherwise face moral scrutiny.
Governments benefit. Apathy makes it easier to implement harsh immigration policies, ignore the needs of the poor, or dismiss entire communities as undeserving. When we stop caring, budgets can be slashed, cages can be built, and stories can be silenced—all with fewer objections.
Corporations benefit. Empathy demands that we consider the human cost of our products and systems. Without it, businesses can prioritize profit over people with little resistance. The empathy-free workplace is efficient, unbothered by burnout, inequity, or emotional labor. Caring is seen as a liability, not a leadership skill.
Dogmatic ideologies benefit—particularly those rooted in strict hierarchies and moral binaries. Empathy introduces nuance. It complicates easy narratives of good vs. evil, saved vs. damned, legal vs. illegal. If you feel with someone who defies your ideology, you might question the ideology itself. And that’s dangerous to systems built on rigidity.
In short, when we stop caring, we become easier to control. We ask fewer questions. We comply.
This Isn’t a New Battle—Just a Louder One
The distrust of empathy has roots. Stoic philosophy and Enlightenment rationalism often favored detachment over emotion. In some conservative religious traditions, emotions—particularly those that invite compassion for outsiders—have long been viewed as threats to orthodoxy. Calvinist theology emphasized depravity and predestination over shared suffering. Even in modern politics, the post-9/11 era saw a rise in what some called “moral clarity”—a black-and-white worldview that viewed empathy for enemies as weakness, even treason.
What’s different now is the platform. Anti-empathy sentiment isn’t confined to pulpits or obscure think tanks. It’s amplified through tech moguls, social media, and political influencers with massive reach. It’s been rebranded as reason, realism, or even spiritual discipline. It appeals to people who feel overwhelmed, burned out, or betrayed—and offers them a release from the burden of caring.
The Voices Fighting to Reclaim Compassion
Fortunately, the pushback is growing too. Books like John Compton’s The End of Empathy examine how white Protestant communities shifted away from civic compassion in favor of economic self-interest and individualism. Sarah McCammon’s The Exvangelicals documents the journey of people leaving faith communities that taught them to fear empathy as moral compromise. Kristin Kobes Du Mez, in Jesus and John Wayne, traces how white evangelicalism replaced the compassionate Jesus with a militant, authoritarian figure.
These voices argue that empathy isn’t a sin—it’s a skill. One that needs boundaries, yes, but also commitment. They show that empathy doesn’t erode truth; it reveals it. It doesn’t weaken conviction; it deepens it. They remind us that caring is not a flaw to be fixed, but a capacity to be cultivated.
Empathy, in this light, is not indulgence. It’s resistance. It challenges systems that thrive on dehumanization. It demands we look closer when power tells us to look away.
What About Toxic or Performative Empathy?
Let’s not pretend empathy is above critique. It can be shallow—used as a branding tool or a PR strategy. It can be manipulative—weaponized to silence or control others. It can be exhausting—when practiced without boundaries or support. But these issues don’t justify abandoning empathy; they call for deeper discernment.
Healthy empathy is not about losing yourself in someone else’s pain. It’s about bearing witness, offering presence, and letting that presence guide action. It’s about staying grounded in your values while recognizing the lived reality of another. It is not performative—it is participatory.
We don’t need less empathy. We need smarter empathy. Empathy coupled with critical thinking. Empathy grounded in context and guided by accountability.
What Will We Become If We Stop Caring?
This is the question we’re really asking when we explore the empathy backlash. What kind of society are we building if compassion is dismissed as emotional indulgence? What happens to justice, connection, and democracy when we decide that the pain of others is not our concern?
These aren’t abstract questions. They show up in courtrooms deciding who deserves asylum. In classrooms where students are punished instead of understood. In design labs where accessibility is seen as extra work. In boardrooms where people are numbers, and numbers are bottom lines.
If empathy disappears, we don’t become more efficient. We become more indifferent. And that indifference doesn’t lead to strength—it leads to collapse.
Choose to Care—Even When It’s Hard
You might feel the pull of detachment. It’s tempting, especially when the world is so loud, so cruel, so complex. But empathy isn’t about fixing everything. It’s about refusing to look away. It’s about asking who benefits when we do—and choosing, instead, to stay.
Stay present. Stay human. Stay connected. Because that’s how we build something better—not by caring less, but by caring more wisely, more intentionally, and more fiercely than ever before.