Yet another groundbreaking story from the pages of the medical journal “DUH”.
What I wonder is how much of that is innate versus learned.
Because it has been an increasing talking point among the right wing and evangelical churches that empathy is bad. And… a lot of that boils down to not having any.
Look at John Fetterman. He had a stroke, now he’s conservative, callous, etc. so, I’d bet it’s both nature and nurture, but the uneducated and religious are more likely to be conservative than liberal.
It’s like the golden rule simply means as long as we each treat each other shitty we’re good. There needs to be another qualifier, and empathy, or kindness, or something else also needs to be attached. But, look who’s their leader! Clean. Your. House.
There is the Platinum Rule, which is to treat others how they would want to be treated. I’ve heard more references to it in the past few years than I have to the Golden Rule, so I take that as a good sign.
The silver rule is good too. “What you don’t want done to you, don’t do to others.”
Have you ever seen the culture in USA? Literally both “parties” are genocidal. It’s not learned so much as indoctrinated from birth. Not to mention the racism, patriarchy, etc.
it has been an increasing talking point among the right wing and evangelical churches that empathy is bad
While I’m inclined to believe this, my attempt to add a source came up mostly empty, other than an amusing chapter of CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters.
This was new to me so I tried looking it up as well. I found a lot of results right away with startpage, which makes me wonder what search engine you were using?
They (the evangelicals) are apparently calling it “toxic empathy” and they jump through a lot of loops to claim that it’s bad to have empathy with the victims of USA republican policies.
My first result was a long opinion piece criticizing evangelicals for their newfound crusade against empathy: https://churchleaders.com/news/511911-the-scandal-of-evangelical-empathy.html/4
2nd result is an evangelical that does a bit of mind bending to explain why empathy with outgroups is “toxic”: https://unityinchristianity.com/2025/02/03/the-truth-about-toxic-empathy-and-why-its-becoming-a-controversial-topic/.
The 3rd article has a claim that Jesus Himself was not empathic: “Clearly the Lord Jesus Christ can be sympathetic, but He cannot be empathetic in the sense of identifying with our sinful emotions and desires.” https://www.e-n.org.uk/features/2025-03-the-problem-with-empathy/ That article also references a book by an evangelical called “the sin of empathy”.
Modern USA could be summed up by the old Russian adage: “And then, somehow, it got worse.”
This is. … something ?! I’m flabbergasted. Thank you, wish I could give you more than one upvote!
Thanks. I was using Duck Duck Go for the terms “Evangelical” and “Empathy”, and found only pro-empathy articles on tht first page of results (other than the Screwtape Letters chapter).
“…identifying with our sinful emotions and desires” Don’t they also say that’s why he was fucking sent to Earth in the first place?
And the US evangelical team has won the gold in mental gymnastics once again.
I was at a cocktail party with people who mostly I have known for at least 15 years. This guy came up who is the husband of a good friend of my wife and he was talking about how he doesn’t believe in empathy anymore.
There’s definitely something in the water
I needed the laugh, thanks
The weirdest thing about MAGA psychopathy is that Trump is in the Epstein files.
Did everyone hear that water is wet btw? Wild, I know.
WILL THERE BE MORE AT 11? I HAVE TO KNOW
More wet water at 11! Stay tuned
Another study that proves water is wet
And that fire is hot
Today on balanced news we ask the question: is fire hot? We will listen to one expert who declares most dumpster fires don’t exist.
i was 🤯 when i found out most of them are metaphorical
deleted by creator
You can just say nazis.
No shit, Sherlock.
Don’t forget pedophilia
They love kids, even the ones who aren’t pedophiles still sexualize children all the time and are constantly thinking about how we must “protect the children”
who aren’t pedophiles
yea right
The same post under reddit:
Iirc, top level posts are supposed to pertain to the study itself. That isn’t really something negative in a science community, imo. Look at practically every top level comment here to see the reason.
Science confirming what we already know lol
As it should. Just because we think we know something doesn’t mean we shouldn’t measure it.
MAGAs are shitty people. Gee, what a surprise.
I feel like at least one of those traits are a necessary prerequisite to getting indoctrinated into the Trump cult.
You needed to conduct official research to figure that one out?
I’m up in Canada in northern Ontario and I have a few friends (on very thin ground mind you), relatives and associates who support or agree with Trump or MAGA … and all of them are racist, show signs of psychopathy, are manipulative, are callous and are narcissists.
9/10 if I meet a total ignorant jerk, they’ll be a MAGA idiot
