Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 593 ｜ Is Empathy Making Us Stupid？

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. This episode is brought to you by our friends

00:00:04.760 at Good Ranchers. American meat delivered right to your front door. Go to goodranchers.com slash

00:00:09.400 Allie. That's goodranchers.com slash Allie. All right, guys, I hope everyone had a wonderful

00:00:24.220 weekend. Last week, last Thursday, I was in Auburn, Alabama, speaking to some students there and I

00:00:32.120 think some people from the community with Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA. We talked about all

00:00:37.260 kinds of issues that are deemed very controversial today, but it was a great crowd. They were super

00:00:42.800 engaged and we only had one dissenting question. And, you know, I really appreciated the fact that

00:00:50.040 she had the courage to stand up in front of a bunch of conservatives and ask the question that

00:00:55.020 she knew was going to kind of be antagonistic. She did have a little bit of a tude and I told her

00:01:00.080 that. But I also told her that I was very proud of her for standing up and for saying something that

00:01:05.260 she believed and asked a question that, you know, she thought was an important question to ask.

00:01:10.100 And we as conservatives should learn a lesson from that kind of courage that if you are in the

00:01:15.920 minority or if you are surrounding people that you know are going to push back against you,

00:01:20.520 you still should have the courage to stand up and say what you know to be true or ask really

00:01:25.460 important and even seemingly controversial questions. So I had a blast doing that. I don't typically travel

00:01:33.620 as much as I have in the past few weeks and as much as I'm about to over the next few weeks. I kind

00:01:39.220 of have just like this burst of travel that's fun, but also as you guys can probably understand and

00:01:46.800 maybe you understand from your own lives, it can also be very difficult to try to balance everything

00:01:51.660 that is going on. But thankfully, they're short seasons and I have a lot of support and I'm very

00:01:58.580 thankful for that. And I'm thankful for you guys who come out and come to the talks. I always love

00:02:04.240 meeting you. As I talked about last week, I got to stay with a fan turned friend and just enjoying

00:02:11.420 that Christian hospitality. It just edified me so much. And I really do feel like we are family.

00:02:17.480 And when I get to meet you in person, it's just amazing. So thank you to everyone who comes out and

00:02:22.380 meets me and talks to me and all that good stuff. All right. Today, we are going to talk about

00:02:28.460 the dangers of one, maybe two concepts. It depends on how far we get. Two traits or characteristics,

00:02:35.860 if you will, that we have been told are universally positive, but are actually dangerous and destructive.

00:02:41.720 And that is number one, empathy. And number two, inclusion. And we talked about this in Auburn. And

00:02:48.360 then it just got me kind of thinking about this subject. And I thought it was important enough for

00:02:52.320 me to start the week out with. And I don't know if we're going to get to the inclusion portion.

00:02:57.580 Because I could spend hours and hours talking about the dangers of empathy. So we're definitely

00:03:04.260 going to talk about that. We either will do like a part two about the dangers of unfettered inclusion,

00:03:09.300 or we'll include it in today's episode. And I understand I've already scandalized some of you

00:03:15.500 by saying there are problems with empathy, because empathy and inclusion are the values that have

00:03:22.180 sucked so many people, especially young people, especially women, and especially Christian women

00:03:28.780 into accepting ideas and policies that are actually very harmful. And they are harming the very people

00:03:36.040 that these groups say that they want to defend the most vulnerable, particularly women and children.

00:03:42.420 And I'll talk about how that is. But not just women and children. Also, the people that we tend to see

00:03:48.380 is marginalized and discriminated most against in American society. I remember a few years ago,

00:03:56.080 I saw a video of a pastor talking about the dangers of empathy, even talking about the sin of empathy.

00:04:03.260 And then I saw an influencer. I don't know if that's the correct term. I don't mean that in a derogatory

00:04:08.620 way, but someone who has influence, who is a Christian talking about how deleterious empathy

00:04:14.960 can be. And honestly, for a while, I just didn't buy it. I just kind of felt like people who were

00:04:21.380 saying this were trying to be edgy. And honestly, it kind of offended me. I thought of all the things

00:04:27.780 in the world, of all the terrible things that a person could be, of all the problems that we have

00:04:32.440 in the universe, we're going to spend our time trashing empathy. Like, doesn't empathy just mean

00:04:38.600 putting yourself in someone else's shoes, trying to understand how someone feels, to comprehend

00:04:43.880 their position so you can listen to them, learn from them, and then potentially, if necessary,

00:04:49.340 advocate on their behalf? Like, what could be wrong with that? Isn't empathy what helps us

00:04:53.680 be less judgmental and kinder to people? And then inclusion, how could that be bad? What's wrong

00:05:00.380 with trying to bring more people into the fold, making sure more people feel seen and heard?

00:05:05.460 Shouldn't we, especially as Christians, be creating a more inclusive and empathetic society? Like,

00:05:10.220 isn't that what Jesus would want? Isn't that loving people, loving your neighbor as yourself?

00:05:15.760 The answer is, though, I've realized over time and after some thought and some reading and some

00:05:21.660 investigation that the answer is actually no. The answer is no. Not only should we not be

00:05:28.100 prioritizing empathy and inclusion in our own lives. Prioritizing. I mean every word. So make

00:05:35.000 sure that you're listening to what I'm saying. I'm not saying, as I will talk about, that we shouldn't

00:05:40.280 care about these things at all. But we should not be prioritizing empathy and inclusion in our lives.

00:05:46.120 We also shouldn't be pursuing these as top societal values. So first, to explain why,

00:05:54.240 and if I'm angering some of you already, understand that I'm going to explain my position hopefully

00:06:00.260 clearly. And I also understand how you feel because I felt that way in the beginning of

00:06:05.240 kind of this thought process. So first, let's talk about what empathy is. It comes from the Greek

00:06:11.340 empathia, which means in a state of passion or emotion. And I'm going to butcher the pronunciation

00:06:20.540 of the German word of empathy, which came around in about the beginning of the 20th,

00:06:26.780 end of the 19th century, which is einflung. I think that's how you pronounce it, which literally

00:06:32.220 means in feeling. It was built on that Greek word. And this is interesting. If you look at the

00:06:38.280 etymology of this word, it meant a term from a theory of art appreciation that maintains appreciation

00:06:44.660 depends on the viewer's ability to project his or her personality onto the object. So someone

00:06:51.180 putting themselves into or onto another object to determine their feelings about it. So kind of

00:06:58.780 like becoming that thing so they can appreciate and understand it. So let's stop right there when

00:07:04.460 we're talking about empathy. The etymology, so the study of this word, the study of the meaning of

00:07:11.780 this word indicates that empathy is primarily about feelings. It is primarily about your state of

00:07:19.220 emotions, the state of your mind. It's about your mentality. So when someone says that they're an

00:07:25.380 empath, which is a word that you've probably heard more frequently recently, they typically mean that they

00:07:31.200 can feel someone's pain strongly. So they are constantly taking on the struggles of those around

00:07:37.160 them and they feel them deeply. Typically, this is used in a very positive sense that you want your

00:07:43.500 counselor or your friend, your psychologist, your pastor to be an empath, to be a very empathetic

00:07:50.480 person. This is different than sympathy, which is feeling for someone or feeling with someone,

00:07:56.580 but not necessarily putting yourself into their position and taking on the full depth of their pain.

00:08:02.540 But both sympathy and empathy can be harmful. Both can be destructive, but especially empathy. So

00:08:12.140 how? Because feeling too much for someone can blind us to reality, a reality that is bigger than

00:08:23.800 someone's experience in pain. It can make us forego principles that are higher than this person's

00:08:29.800 experience of pain. It can cause us to ignore the truth, the objective truth, in favor of how a

00:08:35.540 person feels. So when we allow someone's pain to become our own pain, we then become unable to separate

00:08:43.320 feelings, which are subjective, from reality, which is objective. So here's what I mean by that. And I know

00:08:51.040 this is going to be controversial to use this as an example, but truly the example of race and

00:08:58.280 policing is I think the most relevant because this is where I see empathy tripping people up. It blinds

00:09:06.540 them to what is actually true. It makes them ignore the facts because they're told being empathetic is

00:09:12.080 latching on to whatever narrative the mainstream media puts out. So whenever there is a police shooting

00:09:21.220 of a black man, we are expected to not just immediately express sadness, which I think is

00:09:27.800 justified and fine, but we are also expected to express outrage and not just outrage, but outrage

00:09:35.540 about this obviously being a racist and unjust event. So your empathy and love are measured on social

00:09:44.140 media by how quickly you attach this incident to white supremacy, systemic racism, and the problem

00:09:51.220 with policing in America. It's not enough, as we saw after the whole black square saga, after George

00:09:58.600 Floyd in 2020, it's not enough just to say, hey, this person is made in the image of God. Hey, this incident

00:10:04.860 doesn't look like it was justified. It looks like it could have been an instance of injustice that,

00:10:10.720 hey, this person has value and dignity and worth, and they weren't treated that way.

00:10:17.220 And I think that is wrong. You learn very quickly that that is not enough by the rage mob and the

00:10:23.160 racial social justice activists on social media. You learn very quickly that you have to go beyond

00:10:27.900 that, that you have to say that this is part of a grand racist scheme and system, and that you have

00:10:34.620 to work to dismantle and reform the system because it's not enough to be not racist. You have to be

00:10:39.580 anti-racist, which means you have to work to break down the institutions and systems that have caused

00:10:44.900 this kind of thing to happen. You're not allowed to say that this was an isolated incident or that

00:10:49.460 you care about it because you care about people in general. You have to latch on to whatever the

00:10:53.660 mainstream narratives say about race in order to be called empathetic. And because we have been

00:10:59.700 conditioned to believe that empathy is a fruit of the spirit, which it's not, and it's the foremost

00:11:04.580 characteristic that Christians should try to emulate, which it isn't, then we just find

00:11:10.440 ourselves agreeing with what the loudest and angriest and most dramatic people on social media

00:11:15.560 say that we should agree with. So if you say, well, I have no idea if this shooting had racist

00:11:21.780 motivations. We don't know if the shooting was justified or not. There's no evidence right now

00:11:27.840 that this is an indication of white supremacy or systemic racism. We just don't know if this is a

00:11:33.420 of a larger racist problem with American policing. Let's wait for the facts. Oh my goodness, if you

00:11:40.180 say that, and I'm saying this from experience, if you say that, it's almost worse if you definitively

00:11:48.380 take the opposite position from the people who are saying that this is an instance of white

00:11:52.680 supremacist injustice. If you show any curiosity or any humility or any deference to the fact that

00:11:58.980 you might not know everything, you are accused of being a white supremacist, of being a racist,

00:12:05.320 and the worst thing ever, being unempathetic. If you say, hey, we do have the facts, actually,

00:12:13.220 and they don't seem to be in line with this narrative, that the police are shooting unarmed

00:12:18.640 black men in droves. And by the way, that's true that the facts don't actually support that. It's

00:12:26.480 exceedingly rare for a police officer to kill an unarmed person in general. There are more white

00:12:30.640 unarmed men killed by black unarmed, uh, killed by the police officer than, uh, killed by police

00:12:35.640 officers than black unarmed people. And the number of black men killed by the police is proportional

00:12:40.200 to the crime rate among black Americans. Unfortunately, that's a fact. Black Americans make

00:12:44.800 up 13% of the population yet commit 40% of all homicides. In New York City alone, black Americans make

00:12:49.720 up about 23% of the population yet account for 64% of all murder suspects, 67% of all murder

00:12:56.100 victims. If you say that, if you counter any of the emotional rhetoric that we hear in these

00:13:02.500 conversations about racism and policing and crime in the United States, if you go against the left-wing

00:13:08.160 social justice narrative, and you talk about facts, and you talk about statistics, and you try to add

00:13:13.000 statistical and evidentiary context to the conversations, then you are accused of being

00:13:18.660 unempathetic. And empathy actually blinds people to the facts that I just listed, that actually do add

00:13:27.660 context when we are talking about race and policing in the United States, and whether black lives matter

00:13:35.380 in the U.S. or not. Like, all of those facts really matter, and yet we are told by the people who

00:13:40.780 weaponize empathy that you're not allowed to talk about facts because it's not loving. So, but, but here's why the

00:13:47.180 statistics are actually important that I just listed, that I know we're controversial, but are

00:13:52.580 nonetheless factual. One, that because of crime numbers, a black American is more likely to have

00:13:58.740 an interaction with a police officer, which means they're more likely to have an interaction that

00:14:02.280 ends in a poor outcome, unfortunately, like a fatal shooting. I'm not saying that's good. I'm just saying

00:14:06.780 that statistically, that's how things go. So, that should make us question, that alone should make

00:14:11.340 us question whether racism is the motivator, has anything to do with it. And that question is

00:14:17.960 important because if we assume that a police officer shooting a black man is because of systemic racism

00:14:23.680 in the police force or the justice system, then that sets the groundwork for policy change, like

00:14:28.800 defunding the police or bail reform, both of which have led to levels of violent crime in major cities that

00:14:34.760 we have not seen in decades. So, that's my second point in that. Like, this kind of stuff, these

00:14:41.700 narratives have actual consequences. So, the empathy that causes us or manipulates us to accept the

00:14:48.520 narratives about policing and white supremacy and systemic racism in the United States completely

00:14:53.780 uncritically without looking at the facts can actually make us support policies that end up causing

00:15:01.080 more victimhood among the very people that we say that we are trying to protect by being empathetic

00:15:06.240 in the beginning. Did you follow that? So, all of that means the reforms that we're seeing because

00:15:12.520 of the narratives that are being pushed means more black victims of violent crime and murder. Black

00:15:16.880 Americans aren't just the most likely perpetrators of violence in major cities. They are the most likely

00:15:23.460 victims. So, this is where, again, empathy is destructive. When the media and activists on social media,

00:15:29.440 many of whom are Christian influencers try to get you to respond exclusively in empathy by saying,

00:15:34.200 yes, this incident was unjustified no matter what, and a racist no matter what, and we need major changes

00:15:39.220 to our system and our society, they don't believe that black lives matter. All you're doing is reacting

00:15:44.720 to the demands of emotion. And emotion, while it absolutely has its place and is natural, it very often

00:15:53.740 ignores facts. And when we ignore facts in favor of feelings, we tend to push for policies

00:15:59.440 that does not make sense and is destructive. And not just policy that doesn't make sense,

00:16:04.180 but theology that doesn't make sense. You'll hear people talking about God's justice after these

00:16:09.280 incidents, after these tragedies. I can call it a tragedy no matter what. Any time a human being,

00:16:15.860 especially an unarmed human being, especially if it was unjustified, dies at the hands of the state

00:16:20.120 or anyone else, I think it is a tragedy. They're made in the image of God. But you'll hear people put

00:16:25.300 out, you know, Micah 6-8. And they'll talk about racial reconciliation and reparations,

00:16:31.640 white supremacy. But very few people seem to be willing to step back and say in the aftermath

00:16:36.940 of all that, hang on, what really happened here? What do we know? What are the facts? What's going

00:16:42.820 on in this incident, in this instance, and in our country as a whole? And if you do ask those questions

00:16:49.280 again, because I've been on the receiving end of this, you are told that now's not the time. Now's

00:16:54.980 not the time for those questions. Now's not the time for facts. Now's not the time for statistics.

00:16:59.520 But those people never have an answer for me. When I ask, when is the time? Like, when is the time to

00:17:06.120 ask those questions? When is the time for context? When is the time for data and statistics and for facts

00:17:11.280 that can actually help us make better policy decisions that will do a better job of protecting the

00:17:17.140 communities that we say we want to protect, the most vulnerable communities, women, children,

00:17:22.120 whomever it is? It seems that the people who are most empathetic in reacting to those news stories

00:17:29.060 don't allow their empathy to carry them to the point of coming up with viable solutions,

00:17:35.980 because they are more concerned with sounding empathetic than they are actually loving the people

00:17:41.700 they say they are concerned with. And I have more to say about that in just one second.

00:17:52.100 Because look, if we really cared, if this is an issue that's really on our heart, if we really

00:17:57.480 believe that Black Lives Matter, which I think that we all should, then we would care about the tens of

00:18:02.500 thousands of Black Americans, including children, dying by homicide every day, largely thanks to the

00:18:07.640 soft on crime policies of progressive cities. We would care that more Black babies in New York City

00:18:12.020 are aborted than born most years. If Black lives really matter, we wouldn't be only focusing on the

00:18:18.040 people shot by the police. We'd be focusing on how to fix the problem of Black people dying in droves

00:18:23.380 to the hands of each other. But to bring that up, you're called racist. We're told, oh, that's not

00:18:28.040 white people's business. Why not? We share a country. We live in a shared society. It's our business if

00:18:34.060 one kind of crime is committed against a Black person, but not another. Our empathy is demanded

00:18:38.820 when it's a police officer firing the shot, but not when it's a neighbor. Why? Why? Because the people

00:18:46.600 who perpetuate only one side of the story, who perpetuate one narrative, the people in the media,

00:18:53.860 the activist class who do so, have something to gain. Have something to gain. How do I know? Well,

00:18:59.380 more than 130 Black men, who, according to the Washington Post, not have deadly weapons on them,

00:19:05.100 although that doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't present some kind of threat, have been shot

00:19:09.360 and killed by the police in the past year. 132. Do you know their names? Maybe we should be asking,

00:19:16.780 why not? I didn't know this. Because for reasons that we don't have time to fully analyze right now,

00:19:23.940 they didn't trend on social media. The media did not whip up your outrage. Your favorite

00:19:28.660 influencer or pastor did not demand your empathy. We didn't see rioting and looting in response to

00:19:36.360 the loss of these 130 plus lots. And now that is a big problem with empathy. It, one, blinds you to

00:19:43.620 facts, facts that matter, facts that should guide our reaction to something, facts that help us shape

00:19:47.700 actual good policy rather than reactive policy that will end up hurting the very people that we want to

00:19:52.480 help. And number two, it is unreliable. It is ungrounded. It tosses people and societies to

00:19:58.380 and fro on the latest wave of media-generated outrage, which seems to be timed perfectly for

00:20:05.500 elections. Tell me, is that love? Is that the love that Christ calls us to? One that is unreliable,

00:20:14.340 that is unpredictable, that is feelings-based, that is reactive, that is generated by social media

00:20:20.160 outrage, biased news headlines, the timing of elections, that is untruthful, that defends things

00:20:26.420 like looting and arson and rioting and can lead to unjust, deleterious policy that will create more

00:20:31.240 victims, like defunding the police or releasing violent criminals from jail in the name of equity.

00:20:36.100 Is that Christian love? No. 1 Corinthians 13, 4-6 tells us what love looks like. Love is patient and

00:20:44.740 kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not

00:20:51.800 irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

00:20:57.460 So love, Christian love, rejoices with the truth. It does not lie or celebrate lies, even and perhaps

00:21:05.160 especially those told in the name of empathy. The world measures our love by how quickly and how

00:21:13.240 passionately, how emotionally we react and repeat mainstream left-wing talking points about racial and

00:21:19.000 social justice. How consistently we mimic the vocabulary of activists about systemic racism

00:21:24.320 and inequality without even understanding what is meant by these words. But that's not real. Honestly,

00:21:30.820 at the end of the day, that is self-serving. It's a vapid virtue signaling. It's something we do to be

00:21:37.000 in the in-crowd on social media to signal to other people that we're on the right side. We're doing the

00:21:42.100 work. We're fighting injustice without having to do so much as get off the couch. And I don't doubt

00:21:48.700 that we feel strongly or even that our indignation and compassion are real. But these feelings are so

00:21:54.220 often ginned up by what people on social media are telling us that we must care about and so often are

00:22:00.840 not grounded in reality. And we call for policies and solutions, not based on what is reasonable

00:22:06.340 and good, but based on what feels best in the moment, sometimes based on unsubstantiated fear

00:22:12.260 a resentment or revenge. The Bible measures the Christian's love by its patience, by its kindness,

00:22:20.840 not its niceness. Kindness and niceness are two different things, by the way. Kindness is not

00:22:25.420 manners, but it's actually seeking the best interest of another person. And best interest is defined by

00:22:29.960 what God says is someone's best interest because he created us. God judges our love by its lack of

00:22:36.500 arrogance. It's lack of rudeness. It's lack of irritability. It's lack of resentment. Wow, how

00:22:42.120 much policy today is actually based on resentment. He judges it based on its commitment to the truth,

00:22:51.400 to facts, to objective reality, to theological truth that's revealed to us by the Word of God. Do you know

00:22:57.900 how much God values truth when it comes to justice, when it comes to the court of law? I mean, we've talked

00:23:05.280 about justice versus social justice so many times on this podcast, and we have cited our sources in

00:23:11.620 talking about the four main characteristics that we see of God's justice when it comes to law giving

00:23:18.300 in the Bible, specifically in his law giving to Israel. And that is truthful. It is proportionate.

00:23:25.260 It is direct, and it is impartial. And on that truthful piece, we see how much God values it by his

00:23:32.520 requirement of witnesses, his requirement of an impartial judge. He forbids deference or partiality

00:23:39.800 to the rich or to the poor. He actually says that it is wicked to defer to the poor or to the weak

00:23:45.820 person in a lawsuit, that the judge must be impartial. And if there is a false witness against

00:23:51.920 the accused, the person who gave, who bore false witness must take on the punishment that would have

00:23:59.420 been endured by the person who was accused. That's how much God hates deceit. That's how much God hates

00:24:05.060 lying. We should maybe take that a little more seriously when we try to impugn the motives of

00:24:10.480 someone, especially maybe a police officer who, by the way, I don't think police officers are perfect.

00:24:16.220 I think they have major responsibility. They have people's lives in their hands, so they should be

00:24:20.260 held to a really, really high standard. I don't think we should unconditionally support police officers

00:24:25.240 across the board, but so often because, again, we want to be seen as so empathetic, we immediately

00:24:31.460 impugn the motives of a police officer as racist, as a white supremacist, our system as white supremacy.

00:24:38.080 Look, that's bearing false witness. God takes that really seriously. God cares about truth so much

00:24:44.000 that not only does he list it in 1 Corinthians 13 as a characteristic of what Christian love is,

00:24:49.460 but we also see it in his law giving to Israel. We also see it as inextricably intertwined with

00:24:57.780 the truth. I actually heard a pastor say a few months ago, or it could have been last year at this

00:25:03.600 point, when someone asked him to define justice, he said justice is empathy. No, no, no, no, no. In fact,

00:25:12.140 empathy can be an impediment to justice because if you are feeling someone's pain and you put on

00:25:19.260 someone's pain as your own pain, that can deter you from being able to see things objectively,

00:25:25.360 that can deter you from being able to see the other side of the story or to look at the facts, to look

00:25:31.340 at things in an unbiased, impartial way. You can take on their resentment. You can take on their paranoia.

00:25:38.240 You can take on maybe their justified fear, but their justified fear doesn't necessarily speak to what

00:25:44.240 is objectively true. And that's the other main, maybe other major, maybe the main problem with

00:25:52.300 empathy. It can wreck a person's theology. And I'll get to that in just one second.

00:26:02.260 Because not only does prioritizing someone's feelings of pain cause us to deprioritize objective

00:26:08.120 facts, but it also causes us to deprioritize or abandon biblical truth. I think, again, the best

00:26:15.480 example of this is the issue of race, because I see even Christian conservatives abandon all reason

00:26:24.020 and all logic and all commitment to objective reality and adopt narratives and ideas that are

00:26:27.680 simply not true, which leads to theological claims that are not biblical. So the conversation starts with

00:26:32.820 things that are true. That a white person cannot understand what it means to be black in America.

00:26:38.020 True. That black people in America have been oppressed and unjustly discriminated against.

00:26:42.240 True. That that is a sin. That racism should be opposed. All of this is true. So we accept that which

00:26:49.000 is true, which I think that we should. We move into conversations about these truths, which I think

00:26:56.200 is good. We seek to understand. We seek to listen. We seek to defer to experiences that,

00:27:02.820 we haven't had ourselves. I think all of that is good. That could be an example of empathy that is

00:27:08.540 actually productive. But just like any other value, just like, as we've talked about before,

00:27:15.600 autonomy, authenticity, and as we may talk about today or another day, inclusion, when empathy is

00:27:22.960 not subject to truth, both theological and factual truth, then it becomes, that's when it becomes harmful

00:27:29.520 because it is not a good rudder for your ship. It could be a good part of your cargo. It could be

00:27:36.920 a good part of your ship. Or maybe cargo isn't the right metaphor. It could be like a part of what

00:27:43.800 guides you. It cannot be your rudder. It cannot be what the deciding factor in where you actually go.

00:27:52.660 The truth has to be. God's truth has to be. So when it comes to approaching conversations about race

00:28:01.340 with empathy, what tends to happen among Christians who mean well is that they then move to embrace

00:28:07.500 claims that are arguable at best. So for example, that every disparity in outcomes between white and

00:28:13.680 black Americans are because of injustice and white supremacy. That every negative outcome for a black

00:28:18.440 American is the result of unfair treatment or an unfair system. Why? Because very often the same

00:28:24.520 people that are saying or talking about their pain are also making these objective claims. So because

00:28:30.820 we want to be empathetic, we agree with them. It's not empathetic to argue. And if a white person has

00:28:36.880 already acknowledged the reality that they will never know what it's like to be a black person in this

00:28:41.200 country, it can feel like it's not their place to argue that or that they have or they feel like they

00:28:47.020 don't have the ability to even talk about it. So what happens is we as Christians move from empathy,

00:28:52.100 feeling someone's pain, trying to understand their perspective, listening to them, which again is all

00:28:56.140 good, to simply accepting every claim and argument, even if they're not objectively true, which again

00:29:01.120 can be disastrous. So that means we've moved into an unloving territory because it is not loving

00:29:07.040 according to scripture to lie. And as we've already established, accepting lies has policy consequences

00:29:12.200 and policies affect people. In the case of defunding the police and much of so-called criminal justice

00:29:17.880 reform, the consequence is more black people dying by homicide. And here's why empathy can be so

00:29:24.940 blinding. It is true that we don't have access to someone's personal experience, but we all have

00:29:29.840 access to facts. You don't have to be a certain skin color to look at data, to look at history.

00:29:34.900 So when someone claims that there is institutional racism against black Americans today,

00:29:38.780 we can ask how, let's look at the specific examples and where there are specific examples.

00:29:44.440 Yes, let's look to dismantle it, but let's look at those specific examples before accepting the claim

00:29:48.620 because every single official policy and program in place right now from colleges to corporate America

00:29:53.380 discriminates in favor of black Americans, not against them. When people say that there is an epidemic

00:29:58.340 of police officers shooting unarmed black men, we can point to the numbers and say, well, we don't know

00:30:03.320 if that's really true. When someone says that the reason for fatherlessness among black Americans

00:30:07.220 is because the state is unfairly imprisoning black men. Well, we can point to the fact that

00:30:13.940 the fatherlessness rates started to increase not in the 1980s when there was a rise in policing and

00:30:21.880 these tough on crime policies, but actually in the 1960s at the start of the welfare state. And by the

00:30:27.240 way, the rate also increased at the same rate among white families. It's not empathetic to ask these

00:30:33.940 questions. It's not empathetic to bring things up, but it is right. Again, because the truth or lie

00:30:40.600 will determine not just the narratives and not just what people believe, but also what the people in

00:30:45.620 charge decide and what the people in charge decide then will affect people. You know, whenever these

00:30:53.160 situations happen after George Floyd or after any of these conversations, which by the way, the empathetic

00:31:00.500 side sometimes is right. Sometimes it's true. Like the accusations that they make are sometimes

00:31:06.280 accurate and that's fine. All I'm saying is we have to subject ourselves first, not to how we feel,

00:31:11.220 not to empathy, not how someone else feels or what they say, but what is actually true. But whenever we

00:31:17.200 do that, whenever we ask the questions, whenever we give statistical context, you're told that you're

00:31:23.220 unloving, that it's wrong, there's not time, that you're racist, you're called a bigot and all of

00:31:27.700 these things when really all you're trying to do is help and understand people see what is actually

00:31:33.240 true so we can make reasonable decisions. I think about this, I think about this metaphor and I ask

00:31:40.440 people like, what is loving in this situation? If your toddler tells you that they think that there

00:31:46.860 is a monster in their closet or they think that there's a monster in the corner of their room and

00:31:52.220 you actually know, and this is just a metaphor, don't read too far into this, like which part is

00:31:57.040 which here? I'm just talking about empathy versus the truth. And they see like a jacket over the lamp

00:32:06.380 in the corner of the room and they think it's a monster and they call you to their room. What is the

00:32:10.960 more loving thing to do? Is the more loving thing to do say, yes, you're absolutely right, your fears are

00:32:17.220 valid? That is a monster. Good luck. Or is the more loving thing to do to turn the light on and say, I

00:32:24.940 totally understand your fear. And I see why you think that. And I'm sorry that you feel that way. For your

00:32:30.800 experience, that must be really scary. But let me show you what is actually true. Let me show you what is

00:32:35.680 real. If you were to justify your toddler's fears and to say, yeah, there is a monster in your room, your

00:32:41.240 feelings are valid. They're absolutely right. You're just perpetuating more fear. Who knows what your

00:32:46.780 child is going to do? That would be irresponsible. That might be empathetic to try to validate their

00:32:53.260 fear in that way, but it's not actually truthful. And it could lead to bad outcomes, psychological

00:32:58.680 outcomes, or who knows? Maybe they try to break the lamp. You understand the metaphor. Truth is not

00:33:06.420 always empathetic and it is not always soft and it doesn't always come across as compassionate. It

00:33:12.700 isn't always well received, but it is important, especially when we're talking about things of

00:33:17.720 such great confidence. I think empathy so easily manipulates Christian women into accepting narratives

00:33:26.200 and accepting things that aren't true. Because we, of course, are all attracted to someone's feelings,

00:33:33.440 to someone's fears, to someone's experiences, to someone's stories. And that's fine. I think we

00:33:38.640 should be. I think God created us like that, especially Christian women like that. I think

00:33:43.020 that we should lean in to those natural feelings of compassion and nurturing and understanding that

00:33:49.240 we have and not arguing that we should be calloused, that we should shut someone down and we should

00:33:53.520 question someone's experiences. All I'm saying is that we cannot allow our empathy to listen to

00:33:59.020 someone's experiences and say that that is the objective fact and the rule across the board that

00:34:04.320 should then lay the basis of future policy and our understanding of how the world works.

00:34:10.160 What I'm saying is that we have to be a little bit more critically thinking. We have to not only

00:34:15.200 ask, well, what does God say justice is? What does God say truth is? What does God say love looks like?

00:34:21.140 But we also have to be reasonable and logical, use the minds that God gave us, the resources that God

00:34:26.980 gave us to research ourselves, to look into the numbers, to look into the claims, and to really second

00:34:31.900 guess a lot of what the mainstream social justice narratives tell us, not just about this, but about

00:34:37.320 anything. I use this example simply because I think it's the one that trips us up the most, because we

00:34:44.620 have good intentions to understand people and to understand their concerns. But it can also be the thing

00:34:54.720 that allows us to believe things that just aren't true. This is one example of how empathy can harm.

00:35:01.460 Empathy, as I said, just like autonomy, just like authenticity, just like any other virtue has to

00:35:08.860 be subject first to God's word, has to be subject first to theological truth. And I'll explain a little

00:35:18.560 bit about what I mean. Authenticity being yourself can be a really good thing. It is a good thing in the

00:35:24.680 sense that you don't want to be fake. You don't want to pretend to be something or someone that you're

00:35:28.100 not. But authenticity, when unbridled by a value system that is bigger than you, that is bigger than

00:35:37.080 yours, it can lead to the justification of all kinds of sin and selfishness. You can do whatever

00:35:42.780 you want to do because you're just doing you. Autonomy is the same way. We've seen autonomy use as

00:35:48.400 justification for abortion. If all that matters is that you're in control of your body and your life,

00:35:53.520 then you can justify any kind of sin and selfishness. But autonomy over your life and your

00:35:58.940 body can be a good thing. Authenticity being yourself can be a good thing as long as they are

00:36:03.720 subjected first to your submission to Christ and his word. The same thing is true of empathy. Empathy

00:36:10.540 can be a good thing as long as it is subjected first to the truth. And I've got more to say about that.

00:36:17.620 But first, let me tell you about our next sponsor. All of this is really tough for the Christian

00:36:27.120 because we have a high view of the individual. We have a high view of human beings being made in

00:36:33.160 the image of God. So that means we believe that their feelings and their stories matter. We don't

00:36:38.140 just look at people as data points or as statistics. We actually do care about their personal experiences.

00:36:45.180 And I think the desire to fix someone's circumstance or to assuage someone's fears or to link arms with

00:36:51.940 them and say, I will fight this battle with you is good. I think it is even Christ-like in some ways.

00:37:00.300 But again, when we are led by things and feelings that aren't true, we can actually be aiding and

00:37:07.720 abetting in someone's destruction and societal destruction rather than something that is good.

00:37:13.320 I think another example of this is with the death penalty. Let me just wade into all the most

00:37:20.240 controversial stuff today. But all of this made me think about this case in Texas

00:37:27.180 about a woman named Melissa Lucio. And she is a mom that was convicted of killing her two-year-old

00:37:38.100 child back in the early 2000s. And I've seen a lot of conservatives in Texas say that she is not

00:37:46.080 just that she shouldn't get the death penalty, but also that she is innocent and that she did

00:37:51.080 nothing wrong, that she didn't commit this crime. The Innocence Project, we've talked about the

00:37:55.280 Innocence Project. And I think that they have very dishonest motivations. I don't actually think that

00:38:01.720 they care about people's innocence. I think that they think that the death penalty in general is wrong.

00:38:05.580 So whether someone is innocent or not is not as much of a concern to them as it is that the person

00:38:10.820 isn't executed. And however, they often make the argument that the person is actually innocent when

00:38:17.860 they're not. And that is true about Melissa Lucio. A lot of conservatives, I think, have become

00:38:23.080 sympathetic to her cause and have also said that she is an innocent person because the Innocence Project

00:38:28.720 has said so. Innocence Project has said she's like this wonderful mom that times were hard. She was

00:38:33.920 sexually abused in her past, but she did the very best she could. And she's basically being framed

00:38:38.180 by this prosecutor who just wanted to appear tough on crime. And then, of course, there was this Hulu

00:38:43.340 documentary talking about her called Melissa versus Texas. And those documentaries are notoriously biased

00:38:50.340 and only really show you one side. And I did some digging into this and I can do more on this because

00:38:57.520 that's not what this episode is about. I'm trying to give you another example of how empathy can blind us to

00:39:03.380 reality. When we take on someone's feelings and story, it can blind us to what is actually true

00:39:09.080 or other competing facts that actually contradict their story and the feelings that we or they might

00:39:13.840 have. And so I won't get into all of the details of this particular case, but all I did was look at

00:39:20.640 the court transcript. So what did her attorney say? What did the prosecution say? What did the witnesses

00:39:26.420 say? What did the journalist at the time when she was being sentenced say? That tends to be far less

00:39:35.860 biased than the journalism that we are seeing today. And what I found is that the Innocence Project's

00:39:42.240 claims that she was a perfect mom, that there was no evidence of abuse, that there was no evidence

00:39:48.000 whatsoever that she could have possibly killed her child were simply not true. That her attorney in court,

00:39:54.820 her attorney who was trying to argue that she should not get the death penalty said,

00:40:00.340 look, Melissa Lucio abused her child. She bit her child. Yes, sure. She sexually abused her child.

00:40:06.100 Yes, sure. She bruised her child. She broke her arm. But his argument was that he did not she did not

00:40:11.780 push her down the stairs. And that was not how this child died. So even the defending attorney of

00:40:17.020 Melissa Lucio said, yes, she was an abusive mom. She was a terrible mom. She's admitted to being a terrible

00:40:22.340 mom. The Innocence Project and other conservatives in Texas who were trying to get Governor Abbott to

00:40:27.820 grant her clemency are all saying, no, she was a wonderful mom. She couldn't have committed this

00:40:31.340 crime. It was just because she had a bad past and she was poor. And that's why she's being picked on.

00:40:36.940 All you have to do is read the court transcripts. And you can see what her defending attorney admitted

00:40:42.300 to that the emergency room physician, that the paramedics who showed up said that this was the worst

00:40:47.860 case of child abuse that they had ever seen in their entire career. Those are the facts. That's

00:40:53.960 what the witness said. That's what her defending attorney admitted to. And not only that, not only

00:40:59.900 was she then sentenced to the death penalty in the original case, but also in 2011, the Texas Court of

00:41:05.540 Criminal Appeals upheld her conviction and death penalty in 2011. And so this has been hashed out.

00:41:14.160 The evidence has been looked at multiple times. The witnesses said what they said. The defending

00:41:19.920 attorney admitted what he admitted. She actually confessed. Of course, the Innocence Project said

00:41:24.520 that that was coerced. But what happens in this case, also in the case of Julius Jones, which we did

00:41:29.180 an episode on, which the Innocence Project said that there's no way he could have been guilty, again,

00:41:33.460 just blatantly lied about that. What happens to Christians and even Christian conservatives? We hear

00:41:39.560 someone's story. We say, oh, we just have we have empathy for this. They must be innocent because

00:41:44.260 they came from a poor background or because of the color of their skin or because of these other

00:41:49.220 factors. And we won't even allow ourselves to look at the facts of the case because we don't want to

00:41:53.260 appear empathetic. So we self-censor. We don't even want to look at the truth. It's not just that

00:41:58.760 empathy is inhibiting us from looking into the truth. It's that we don't want to seem unempathetic.

00:42:05.240 So we're not looking into the truth because we're afraid of what people might say. That is not

00:42:10.320 Christ-like. That is not biblical love. Love does not rejoice in falsehood or rejoice in wrongdoing.

00:42:17.140 It rejoices with the truth. Now, we've also talked about the death penalty and whether that is a

00:42:22.580 just punishment. Of course, I believe so because I agree with God and God created the death penalty

00:42:28.340 and he didn't just suggest the death penalty. But before the creation of Israel and Genesis 9-6,

00:42:33.500 he demands the death penalty for murder. And if God is love, as 1 John 4-8 says, and he demands the

00:42:39.640 death penalty in cases of murder, then the most loving and just thing I can do is agree with the

00:42:45.480 God who is love and created justice and demands the death penalty for murder. I'm not going to out-love

00:42:50.260 or out-justice God. But again, empathy, which is only taking on the pain of the people who are telling

00:42:57.380 us their pain and their story, when that is supreme, that robs us of being able to look at justice

00:43:03.600 impartially according to what God says is justice and to love the way that God says to love, which is

00:43:10.180 in accordance with truth. What he says is truth and what is actually factually true. The death penalty

00:43:17.140 is another instance of this. We cannot allow empathy to rob us of that, which is true. That is my charge,

00:43:26.040 my call, my heart for Christian women. Not that we would stop loving people. Not that we would stop

00:43:32.020 having soft hearts for people's stories. Not that we would stop trying to understand people's experiences

00:43:37.040 and pain, because I think that's really important. But gosh, that we wouldn't allow that to make our minds

00:43:42.980 mushy too. Like that's what ends up happening is that our hearts are so soft that our minds actually become

00:43:49.120 like oatmeal. Like and we stop thinking. We stop asking questions. We stop caring about the facts. We only

00:43:56.220 listen to people's experiences. We don't even ask ourselves, but what does God say is true? What did the

00:44:01.180 statistics say? What does the data say? All of that matters. In fact, if you care about people, if you care about

00:44:06.040 really loving people, you'll care about all of those things more than you care about feeling someone's

00:44:11.100 pain. That's the hard truth of it. And we don't have time to get into the dangers of unfettered

00:44:17.300 inclusion today, but I have a lot to say about that. And so maybe I'll do that on Thursday or maybe

00:44:23.800 I'll do that next week. I'm not sure. And maybe I'll get into more of this Melissa Lucio story on

00:44:30.260 Thursday. Y'all tell me what you're interested in hearing. Before I close this out, let me tell you

00:44:35.020 about our last sponsor of the day. All right. That might seem kind of random. I'm not really

00:44:43.680 sure why I decided that was the thing that I want to talk about. I think it's because we talked about

00:44:47.360 it at Auburn and I've been writing about that and thinking about that a lot recently, just how this

00:44:54.360 trips us up as Christian women so much. And I think it's an impediment to wisdom. It really is.

00:44:59.420 It's an impediment to discernment. And let me pull up James 4, because this verse just came to mind.

00:45:11.280 Oops. No, it's James 3. This is verse 13. Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good

00:45:18.160 conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish

00:45:22.920 ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes from

00:45:28.120 above, but is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist,

00:45:33.260 there will be disorder in every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable,

00:45:40.080 gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial, and sincere. And a harvest of

00:45:48.620 righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Wisdom from above is open to reason.

00:45:56.500 It creates good fruit, and it is impartial and sincere. That is the wisdom. And not just the

00:46:03.800 wisdom, but I would say also the love from above. Very different than the vitriolic, unreliable,

00:46:09.920 worldly, superficial empathy that we see touted by the world today. All right. Thank you guys so much

00:46:17.160 for listening. If you love this podcast, please leave us a five-star review. We will be back here tomorrow.

00:46:24.060 We will be back here tomorrow.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - April 04, 2022

Ep 593 ｜ Is Empathy Making Us Stupid？

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