A Civilization Without Empathy
The dire and accurate prognosis of Elon Musk
According to Elon Musk, “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.”
Musk uttered these words on an episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast that aired on Feb. 28. Musk’s statement is incredibly troubling, but unfortunately, he is not wrong, and the accuracy of his statement speaks to a cancer that has always resided in the heart of the West.
The diseased growth at the heart of the West that devours and poisons everything it touches is the alarming fact that for most of its existence, dating back to Plato, Western civilization has attempted to exist without empathy. The West’s quest for perpetual expansion and growth and the desire to consume everything it touches result from creating a civilization devoid of empathy. These last two sentences may sound absurd or alarmist, but the absurdity disappears once one learns that the word “empathy” did not even exist in English until 1909.
Empathy has only existed in the Western world for a little more than 100 years. For thousands of years, the West has built and stretched its civilization across the globe, and it engaged in all of this before the creation of the word empathy. When Europeans colonized the world, they did so without the capacity to articulate or comprehend empathy, and their actions demonstrate this fact. They showed no empathy to non-European people, and the divided societies they built entrenched their lack of empathy into these new nations.
Musk was raised in apartheid South Africa, and one of his ancestors immigrated to South Africa because of the entrenched racial divisions.
When America’s founding fathers built this nation, they did so without empathy. The United States and Western civilization were built without empathy, and Musk is worried that empathy could destroy America and everything the West has built. Unsurprisingly, Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency believe that he can help save humanity, the West, and the United States by firing thousands of federal employees and having a complete lack of empathy as he does so.
1909: The Birth of Empathy in the West
In 1909, British American psychologist Edward Titchener translated the German word Einfühlung, meaning “in-feeling” or “feeling-into,” into English by creating the word “empathy.”
In German, ein means “in,” and Fühlung means “feeling,” so Titchener directly replicated the meaning of the German word but used Greek roots instead: in Greek en- means “in,” and pathos means “feeling.”
Prior to Titchener’s translation, empathy did not exist as a word or concept in Europe. Yet this fact is often disputed because of the Greek word empatheia that also can be translated as “in feeling,” but is best translated as “a state of feeling or passion.” Empatheia expresses that a person is in a particular state of passion, feeling, or emotion. Empatheia has nothing to do with an emotional connection to another person or thing and everything to do with describing a person’s emotional state at a particular moment. Empatheia and empathy are not the same. Empathy came from Einfühlung and not empatheia.
Ironically, Titchener’s concept of empathy also bears almost no resemblance to today’s usage.
Starting in the 1800s, Germans began to casually say Einfühlung to each other, but the popularity and usage of the word grew exponentially when Germans realized that they could experience Einfühlung with an inanimate object.
For example, looking at a painting and being overcome with emotion would be an expression of Einfühlung because the person would “feel into” the art. The art is inanimate, so the feeling that someone experiences could not be mutual. The painting cannot be overcome with emotion, but the person can. The lack of a shared emotion meant that the person’s emotional response could not be an expression of sympathy or “feeling together.” Since the person and the art could not “feel together,” Germans concluded that the person was “feeling into” the art. Einfühlung was an external “in feeling,” and empatheia was an internal “in feeling.”
In 1873, German philosopher Robert Vischer published his doctoral thesis on aesthetics, and his paper was the first time that Einfühlung appeared in print. His paper discussed the act of “feeling into” art, architecture, etc. More than 30 years later, Titchener found Vischer’s work, but at this point, empathy was not something that the English-speaking world believed could extend to another person. One could “feel into” a building, but one could not “feel into” another person.
Tragically, English speakers believed that sympathy had already filled this need.
Sympathy, Division, and Projection
British philosopher Adam Smith wrote extensively about sympathy, and his analysis shows how sympathy and empathy are not the same.
Also, sympathy is a concept that has been prevalent in the West since the 1500s and the end of the Dark Ages, and it directly correlates with the Greek sympatheia, meaning “together feeling, fellow feeling, or community of feeling.” Sympathy has existed in the West for thousands of years.
Seventeen years before the publication of The Wealth of Nations, Smith published The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and in it, he wrote extensively about the importance of sympathy, which he defined as “fellow feeling” instead of “together feeling” or “community of feeling.” Smith concluded that the capacity to feel together with one’s fellow man was an integral component for creating a society’s moral foundation and also an act that was in one’s self-interest.
However, Smith also wrote extensively about the perils of sympathy and how sympathy can become problematic when you imagine another person to be your fellow when they are not. In particular, Smith used the example of class division and the notion of a shared sympathy between the rich and the poor to describe how sympathy can become problematic.
Smith wrote about how the rich want to exploit the poor to enrich themselves and that the rich will facilitate their exploitation of the poor by convincing the poor that they are fellows or have the same end goal. This professed end goal is normally the enriching of the poor, and as a result, the poor will view the rich as their fellow because they aspire to be rich too.
This façade of sympathy only makes the rich richer and the poor poorer, and we can see this dynamic manifesting in the present through the Donald Trump supporters who regret voting for him now that Trump’s and Musk’s actions have resulted in them losing their jobs and being worse off financially. These Trump supporters believed that Trump’s harmful policies would not harm them because they were fellows or part of the same community, and would only harm the other Americans who they cannot feel into.
According to Smith, sympathy amounts to little more than projecting yourself onto the people you interact with, and the benefit of sympathy depends on the accuracy of that projection. If you believe another person is the same as you or has the same goals, then sympathy can be incredibly beneficial if your projection is correct. However, if this projection is incorrect, the outcome will be catastrophic.
Additionally, sympathy cannot be extended to people who you do not feel are fellows or part of your community. Now, you are not expected to have any emotional attachment to the Other. You cannot empathize with them because this concept was foreign to the West. All you can do is either maintain the perpetual division or forcefully mold the Other into someone who reflects your beliefs. Once you see yourself in them, they can become a fellow and you can feel together.
The West’s sympathy manifests in its quest to conquer and civilize the world by forcing their beliefs onto the Other so that they can see themselves in these people and have the potential of having an emotional connection to them.
Our Government Without Empathy
The horrors of DOGE, Musk, and Trump derive from Western civilization’s reliance on sympathy. Trump’s divisive agenda consists of categorizing Americans as either his fellows or his foes. The exploitation of his supporters, as he fires them and enriches himself, is also a result of Western sympathy.
Western sympathy creates destructive, regressive societies, and it cultivates people like Musk, who have a desire to save humanity and very little concern for human beings. He cannot feel into the Other, but he can project his destructive vision of society onto the world and embrace the fellows who share his vision.
Empathy may be Western civilization’s greatest weakness, but only a fool would conclude that empathy is the problem.