The Empathy Trap

Have you heard of Bluesky, the Twitter alternative that became a refuge for distressed progressives? If so, you’re likely familiar with its recent history. The platform saw surges of new users after Elon Musk’s takeover of X and then again when Donald Trump won the White House. Many celebrities and journalists—the self-styled #Resistance—simply couldn’t cope with the removal of speech constraints on X, fleeing what they deemed an intolerably “fascist” environment. But that progressive obsession with purity spirals followed the exiles to Bluesky, where the congregation of despondent leftists needing a “safe space” fueled a fourfold increase in requests for moderation of “offensive” posts.

It may seem absurd to think you can win a fight after walking off the battlefield, but in this case, winning isn’t the goal. Progressives have grown so accustomed to having their views affirmed by media, Hollywood, academia, and at times even the church, that they now genuinely believe speech is violence. I suppose when you’ve controlled the narrative for so long, gotten used to platforms censoring views you don’t like and reported anyone who stated hateful things (like that there are only two sexes), you must miss feeling superior to everyone else. Some points of view were deemed not

worth trying to understand and the exodus from X proves that contempt was always the point.

Perhaps our Bluesky friends have forgotten that Twitter was always kind of toxic, as feminist writer Victoria Smith remembers. Certainly if you were right wing, but even more so in progressive circles where allegiance to the revolution involves keeping up with the New Thing. You must affirm whatever It is at every turn, while denouncing those who doubt. Lefty feminist Twitter from years past exemplified what Smith is talking about:

So many people self-identifying as good, so many invitations to follow the path of righteousness, so much confidence that we, here, are better than the others! So much faith that your own cruelty can be of the kindest sort!

"Cruelty of the kindest sort”, that’s the empathy trap. A thought-provoking conversation between Dr. Albert Mohler and Dr. Joe Rigney makes a compelling case that our culture’s love of outrage and canceling stems from elevating empathy to a supreme virtue. Sympathy was once the starting point of compassion, but today, merely feeling pity or sorrow over another’s situation isn’t enough. You must fully walk in someone’s shoes to be considered understanding. Yet the ever-shifting nature of 'lived experience' makes that goal unattainable—by design.

Empathy, which came from a German term for grasping a sense of what was being conveyed in art or music, has evolved to mean that one fully feels what another feels. Perhaps mere sympathy was always too “othering” to be useful to progressives. To truly be moved by the plight of women, minorities, or “The Oppressed,” one must not only acknowledge their suffering but feel it. Otherwise, you might simply thank God it wasn’t you and move on. While this may seem like a positive development, Dr. Rigney argues that calls for empathy are often weaponized to manipulate and control.

Hollywood provides a prime example of an industry built on manufacturing empathy. At a recent awards ceremony, Jane Fonda explained that actors must deeply empathize with their characters to elicit the same response from audiences: “Our job is to understand another human being so profoundly, that we can touch their souls. We know why they do what they do; we feel their joy and their pain.” Even if actors dislike the roles they play, she suggested they must “dig deep” to uncover what led their character to become a bully or a prostitute, for example. While Hollywood has gotten very good at that manipulation, it has fallen into an empathy trap. The growing trend of explaining villains’ motives through sympathetic backstories—seen in Maleficent, Wicked, and The Joker—has a way of diminishing evil, blurring the lines between victim and villain and also removing actual guilt.

Dr. Rigney sees this problem too: “The sharing of passions – whatever you feel, I need to feel – kind of [sucks you] in and you lose [a] sense of boundaries, a sense of identity, a sense of what's good and what's bad because the feelings and the emotions are now in charge and running the show”. He says that the church has not been spared either. Showing up first in counselling practices, Dr Rigney says soft-hearted Christians assumed empathy had no downside. However, Dr. Rigney warns that, like anger and fear, empathy is a passion—one that can manifest in both good and harmful ways.

Many woke campaigns have aimed to invoke feelings of empathy—whether through appeals to white privilege, 'say his name,' 'pronoun hospitality,' or even the rebranding of illegal immigration—all based on the notion that challenging victimhood claim means you don’t care. Christians, knowing that Christ first loved us, are particularly susceptible to such sentiments. But Dr. Rigney warns of a clash: those seeking to care for the hurting will face a choice—remaining faithful to God or being “steered by the emotions of others,” ultimately yielding to the “most immature and reactive members of their community.” Consider the “women’s autonomy” argument for abortion. It appeals to compassion for the mother but disregards the murder of the baby. Today, Dr. Rigney asserts, “the first person to bring up empathy…is probably trying to steer you.”

I’ve previously written about my belief that the progressive left is coded as female, so I won’t rehash that here. However, given that women are naturally more empathetic, it’s not surprising that they are most susceptible to toxic empathy and also its primary purveyors. Men certainly hear about it when they push back against feminine bullying. You may recall the fallout when the Vice President told Margaret Brennan “I don’t really care, Margaret”. She had tried to have him concede that tough border polices were cruel. His no-nonsense response was something we are not used to hearing.

But don’t expect his critics back down anytime soon. The vice president went on to create another stir, insisting that it is proper for a man to prioritize his nearest and dearest more than the poor and harassed of the world. This is anathema to those who prefer our eyes on “causes” rather than neighbors. Rather than see that it is proper for a man to love his own children more than a stranger’s child far away, critics chose to take his statement in the worst possible way. One post said Vance “apparently meant you didn't have to care much about those beyond your immediate circle.” His reference to Augustine’s idea of ordo amoris even drew a rebuke from the Pope himself.

The empathy trap is an abstraction. For those who have fallen into it, helping the world’s poor lets you off the hook, even if you are shunning your family or neighbor. The manmade religion of humanitarianism thrives on feeling empathy over acting wisely, replacing real virtue with "a vague and undemanding sentimentality." Those who believe empathy is all you need do not recognize the limits of human capacity nor the reality that we cannot right every wrong in this life. The empathy trap is not just about feeling too much—it’s about allowing emotion to override faith, truth and even love. Christians must recognize that true love for neighbor is not measured by emotional conformity but by faithfulness to God’s Word.