Categories: Mark Steyn

What price our pseudo-empathy?

In a world of imponderables, some old-fashioned detachment might serve us better

by Mark Steyn on Thursday, June 4, 2009 3:00pm - 131 Comments

What price Condi’s empathy? In Clintonian pain-feeling terms, your average anguished Westerner can sympathize with Mrs. Farahat’s “loss” (must be terrible to bury three sons, etc.) but not empathize with it: after all, she doesn’t even feel it as a “loss” but as a source of family pride and her entree to parliamentary politics.

In a multicultural age, we suffer from a unicultural parochialism: not simply the inability to imagine the other, but the inability even to imagine there is an other. The President himself is the master at this, as in his frequent and weirdly narcissistic assurances to the Muslim world that he understands them because his middle name’s Hussein and he was at a madrasa in Jakarta for a couple of years.

Likewise, because he’s a community organizer who spent his entire adult life with a bunch of polytechnic Marxist “educators” and anti-American race-baiting hucksters, President Obama recently assured the massed ranks of the jihad that he understands them, too: he understands why they’re so affronted by the waterboarding of terrorists that these legions of hitherto law-abiding young Muslims have been driven to sign up for al-Qaeda and Co. That would make sense if an uneducated Yemeni youth had as exquisitely refined a sensibility as an ACLU lawyer in Chicago. But he doesn’t. Anybody who lives in the Middle East knows that, if he happens to be picked up by the authorities in his own town, he has a good chance of being physically tortured for even the most routine infraction. The Montreal photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was arrested by police in Tehran and, much to the “sadness” and “regret” of the Canadian government, wound up getting questioned to death. Nobody in the Muslim world is outraged by what happens in U.S. detention, only by U.S. detention per se.

Indeed, when the Egyptians and Jordanians complain about American activities far more benign than anything that goes on in their own dungeons, they’re playing the empathy game far more shrewdly than Obama. They understand the Western elites’ need to feel bad about themselves, and they’re happy to stir the pot. Likewise, the Iranians and the North Koreans instinctively grasp that, for the Americans and Europeans, the feeling that you’re engaging in talks far outweighs any purpose to or outcome of said talks.

Donald Rumsfeld famously spoke of the “known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” The old Cold Warrior’s cool detachment is unfashionable in an age of ersatz empathy, but it has an appropriate humility in a world of imponderables: how might the nuclear ambitions of Pyongyang, the millenarianism of Tehran and the death-cult of jihad play out in the years ahead? Who knows? But it helps to know that you don’t know—and that, even in a therapeutic culture, you don’t know how everybody feels.

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Tags: al-Qaeda, Chief Justice Roberts, Clinical Empathy, David Berger, Donald Rumsfeld, Goodyear Tire, Obama, Planned Parenthood, pro-abortion, Sonia Sotomayor

More by Mark Steyn

Thomas L.

I love reading the posts where "teh empathizers" get to tell Steyn how crazy and wrong he is. They're just so well schooled in Multiculti- Newspeak. Words just don't mean what they used to mean. I got it! I'm supposed to believe them, not my own lying eyes (and cold hands). It's teh nuance and teh warming! Hey, it's June 5th, anyone see my mittens?
nicholas

(cont.)

I miss that guy.

Would that we had more nominees of the caliber and judicial temperament as Clarence Thomas. Not because he is a classic American success story, or that his life repudiates the entire empty leftist politics of race entitlements, or that the nomination of a person of color makes me feel good about myself.

It is because he is a man of character.
bernard ross

scott tribes name calling typifies the lefts response to logic and evidence when these contradict their opinions. He didn't even read the paragraph he posted which contradicts his opinion. What is more interesting is that the Bush comments on his appointment are much more intelligent and reasoned than the so called messiah's.. So much for ignorant cowboys.
Jake20

Steyn, as usual, manages to smack a bunch of nails on the head. The touchy-feely ‘empathy’ favoured by leftists like Obama is useless delusional narcissism at best and dangerous delusional narcissism at worst.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Jack_Mitchell Jack_Mitchell

Spoken like a true coward.

Wakefield, Incarnate

Guilt speaks first.

BlackLadsteak

Steyn,like all neo-con artists,pines for the days when women were barefoot and pregnant,blacks were shining his shoes,clea-
ning his home,and he did not have to worry about his blonde daughter-if he has one-bringing a classically handsome black lad(yours truly?)home and introducing him as her boyfriend.
Also,Aboriginals were strange-looking and-speaking,comic "Indians,"(light-skinned)Latins were hot-tempered lovers,Asian men inscrutable,Asian women pliant and gorgeous,and Arabs were rich shieks lusting after blonde Canadian and American
women.In short,a bigot,which is why neo-conservatism is moribund as 2010 approaches.

Thomas L.

You know all this do you? In that case, may I, using some of your irrefutable "logic", assume that you pine for the good old days of Comrade Stalin?
richfisher

Nice act Kresgin.
Project much?
nicholas

Steyn hits a little too close to the mark for the Black Lad, therefore he must be impugned with a totally fictional construction. Easier this than actually considering the argument and its necessarily frightening implications for our future. No question the Islamists care little for who the President happens to be, or whether or not his middle name is Hussein. Wandering about in a narcissistic fog conjured up by the slavish adulation of the mainstream media ain't gonna get it done, nor is brushing aside analysis you find troubling by decrying the author of the analysis must cringe in fear at the supposed sexual proclivity of black dudes. What the …? Hello! Time to push back the comforter and face the daylight.
scf

Nothing you've said is true, even remotely.

http://theheelersdiaries.blogspot.com James Healy

Another good un by the Steynervortzel.
James
Carole

Those two pictures — aaaarrrrgggggh. Now I'll have to gouge out my eyes. Mark, you're brilliant and right on as usual. I always save your posts to use as references in my graduate program! Thank you.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Jack_Mitchell Jack_Mitchell

"I always save your posts to use as references in my graduate program!"

That's a new one: Steyn the scholar!

Gaunilon

I empathized (?) with this line:
"In a multicultural age, we suffer from a unicultural parochialism: not simply the inability to imagine the other, but the inability even to imagine there is an other. "

I've lost track of the number of times I've been at dinner with someone, listened as they spouted some typical leftist cant as incontestible fact(e.g. Cheney started the Iraq war to reap profits via Haliburton), offered an obvious counter-argument (e.g. Cheney donated all his profits from Haliburton to charity), and realized that not only had they never heard the counter-argument, but they'd never even thought to wonder whether there might be a counter-argument.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Jack_Mitchell Jack_Mitchell

My guess is they'd never even thought that could possibly be proposed as a counter-argument and were trying to figure out how to let you off gently. Defending Dick Cheney at dinner is about as tasteful as ripping a series of explosive farts between courses.

http://www.wakepedia.blogspot.com Wakefield Tolbert

..all too true, but only because the perception as intimated by the slipstream of consciousness media has made sure that his very visage is about on par with gas passing at weddings, spitting in someone else's yard, and the inability to hold your beer at dinner. Thus for example one COULD point out that the usual peanut gallery had it as read (back in the day…) that between one million and two million human beings got nixed by Saddam Hussein during those wondrous years of containment and the seedy Oil for Food scandal, and it turns out that Steyn is correct when he says it takes no such retrospect even as this to figure out that the lofty inertia and timidity of "containment" is at best a theoretical world of academics guessing how to make strong men uncomfortable and at worst a very very very very expensive dictator management program. Depending on whose stats you thought were handiest in slamming the West in general and the US in particular (with the UK being a sidekick in the pants), "we" killed two million Iraqis due starvation and privation of services.
Wakefield, at dinner

Now that the glory days of Hussein's 80's Vegas splendor are gone, never to return, we find out from the Left that "containment" was a masterstroke bit of genius from George Kennan-eque notions that worked wonders in Iraq back in those good old days after all.

I'm guessing that boorish people pointing this out in the Beltway region these days would spill more than a few glasses of wine at the table. And may God help the man who gets the earful or eyeful of the liberals' quotes–said quotes who pined for the war as well.

scf

Mitchell is good at inadvertently confirming a point like yours.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Jack_Mitchell Jack_Mitchell

"if he was reporting critically from the front lines during the Bush darkness"

LOL, that would be NO. His whole career has been built on stoking unmanly fear in his fanbase.

nicholas

Nope. His career and writing interests have been extremely broad. His interest in demographic changes in the West and their implications stemmed from his surprise at the observable response of fairly broad sections of the populations of Western nations following the attacks of 9/11.

kcm

nicholas
Steyn's a demographer like i'm a pundit – difference is i know it!

DerekPearce

Two little things not relevant to the overall theme of this piece, but they must be noted: Steyn uses the old "pro-abortion" chestnut. There's a reason the term "pro-choice" is used. No one is "pro-abortion," as that would mean that one wants ALL fetuses everywhere aborted. It's not a subtle distinction for cryin' out loud.

The other is the use of the word "madrassa" for the school Obama attended in Indonesia as a boy. Steyn loses any claim to objectivity when he uses deliberately false language like this.

nicholas

On the first point, Steyn is free to assign the name of his choosing. The Pro-Choice name was coined after the Pro-Life movement gained momentum in challenging Roe v Wade. Prior to that they were simply abortion proponents. The Pro-Life movement's name is well founded and is clearly how the movement prefers to be called, yet they are commonly referred to as "anti-abortion rights activists". It's not fair, but the control of the language plays a big role in the left's efforts to achieve their objectives, characterizing their opponents in a fashion that marginalizes their legitimate viewpoints. Certainly two can play at that game.

I cannot speak as assuredly on the second point, but if you are claiming that President Obama was not schooled in Islamic religious beliefs it would seem the President himself would argue against you, as he listed it as a strength and resume enhancer in his speech in Egypt.
scf

You're wrong. Pro-abortion does not mean abortion everywhere, the abolishment of all fetuses, anymore that being in favor of public transportation means the abolishment of privately-owned vehicles.

Pro-abortion means exactly what it says, that abortion be freely and easily available to anyone who wants one.

If you were to take the term pro-choice to the same logical extremes, you'd conclude that it meant that we are free to choose anything, that it meant the eradication of all laws, because there is nothing in the word that suggests it has anything to do with killing fetuses.
scf

The term madrassa means a "Muslim school, college or university that is often part of a mosque." And Obama has acknowleged that as a child in Indonesia he did attend a "Muslim school."
http://www.wakepedia.blogspot.com Wakefield Tolbert

All too true, except for the nuts who wrote books in those heady days proclaiming titles to the effect of "Abortion is a blessing."

CHOICE is all the rage, and though I cannot prove it, it seems an Orwellian drift that the most vocal noises and gale force winds that wail about "choice" are not only one step away (if that much) in effectively making what turns out ot be a demographic "Sophie's Choice", but also these harridans of "choice" rarely feel the word should apply to some other human endeavor other than a backup for a one night stand when the young laddie blows town or little princess finds she needs the local clinic to help her fit into her prom dress.
Wakefield

Thus for example most "CHOICE" proponents have little but disdain for parents of those somewhat larger fetuses that did make full term and are now in school of one form or another. Preferably not the mire of the public schools, the reproductive system of liberalism and mutli culti mush. Would that choice on things like schooling and removal of oneself from the forced funding of the same be a viable option for the living, now that freedom to others has bequeathed us the dead.

As to schooling, funny that Obama should sex up his Muslim heritage based on what some consider rather thin freight when it comes to being partially schooled at a madrasa—-and yes, that is what it was…

Another skid gets greased by the Obots…

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nicholas

Exactly, thus my response above to your earlier comment appears to be re-enforced. That is why it is troubling for a judge to claim that advancement practices of a fire department based on the results of a competence exam are discriminatory and the test results are to be ignored, the better to create "fairness". This kind of ruling does not engender “fairness" at all, because the fire department is no longer allowed to advance candidates on the basis of their merit. Ultimately, the best treatment for all, including minorities, will be equal treatment.

Janice Rose

Good points Nicholas. If this objectivity and lack of empathy was across the board, then it might work. But this would never happen; in the meantime, I see having a little empathy, particulaly for those who have been historically discriminated against by the judicial system as a move to balance the scales. Yeah, it shouldn't be considered a bona fide occupational qualification for a judge, but since I am a guilty of empathizing with many of the underpriveleged, I'm pleased with the Obama's choice.

nicholas

A very keen rebuttle. The inference is that you both don't know what you are talking about. A bold argument, to be sure.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Jack_Mitchell Jack_Mitchell

I'm always impressed at how doggone smart the Steynettes are.

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Wakefield Tolbert

Bravo.

I can't add much to that.

Well done.

The post has matched it's philosopher's heritage.

Except I'd comment on this:

Steyn has a talent for condensing spectacular insight into brief quips. Sometimes so brief, and so mildly tossed off, that the weight of wisdom is easy to miss. The whole latter half of his essay is nicely contained in this easily-missed gem:

True that a quip does not give the full monty.

And there can be much context in these quips.

But, like people tell me sometimes, Steyn is taking the modern journalist/writer's attack on things and has taken to heart the advice that if someone asks the time, don't tell them how to build a clock.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Archimedes2 Archimedes2

if someone asks the time, don't tell them how to build a clock.

Good point Wakefield. If you read lots of my comments here and elsewhere you'll find I have an awful tendency to tell people how to build a clock. It's a fault that maybe will get better the more I read from the works of luminaries like steyn. I appreciate your thoughts. Even so, at the risk of being accused of unwarranted dissection of clocks, I'll add to my comment only this: I believe that this peculiarly modern and western notion of "empathy" is not a thinking error on the part of its proponents, but a rhetorical device for making political points. To say "I empathize with [Palestinians/Aboriginals/homeless, whatever]" is a way to leverage a political discussion in one's favour; strictly speaking it has nothing to do with empathy–it has everything to do with painting a political opponent in a negative light; it is exploitive opportunism of the worst sort, and about spinning a lack of action as benevolence. In another article recently Steyn quipped of the western progressives' tendency to hold "bake sales for Sudan" while the genocide there goes on unhindered. "Empathy" versus action.
http://www.intensedebate.com/people/Archimedes2 Archimedes2

if someone asks the time, don't tell them how to build a clock.

Good point Wakefield. If you read lots of my comments here and elsewhere you'll find I have an awful tendency to tell people how to build a clock. It's a fault that maybe will get better the more I read from the works of luminaries like steyn. I appreciate your thoughts. Even so, at the risk of being accused of unwarranted dissection of clocks, I'll add to my comment only this: I believe that this peculiarly modern and western notion of "empathy" is not a thinking error on the part of its proponents, but a rhetorical device for making political points. To say "I empathize with [Palestinians/Aboriginals/homeless, whatever]" is a way to leverage a political discussion in one's favour; strictly speaking it has nothing to do with empathy–it has everything to do with painting a political opponent in a negative light; it is exploitive opportunism of the worst sort, and about spinning a lack of action as benevolence. In another article recently Steyn quipped of the western progressives' tendency to hold "bake sales for Sudan" while the genocide there goes on unhindered. "Empathy" versus action.
http://www.intensedebate.com/people/Archimedes2 Archimedes2

if someone asks the time, don't tell them how to build a clock.

Good point Wakefield. If you read lots of my comments here and elsewhere you'll find I have an awful tendency to tell people how to build a clock. It's a fault that maybe will get better the more I read from the works of luminaries like steyn. I appreciate your thoughts. Even so, at the risk of being accused of unwarranted dissection of clocks, I'll add to my comment only this: I believe that this peculiarly modern and western notion of "empathy" is not a thinking error on the part of its proponents, but a deliberate rhetorical device for making political points. To say "I empathize with [Palestinians/Aboriginals/homeless, whatever]" is a way to leverage a political discussion in one's favour; strictly speaking it has nothing to do with empathy–it has everything to do with painting a political opponent in a negative light; it is exploitive opportunism of the worst sort, and about spinning a lack of action as benevolence. In another article recently Steyn quipped of the western progressives' tendency to hold "bake sales for Sudan" while the genocide there goes on unhindered. "Empathy" versus action.
http://www.intensedebate.com/people/Archimedes2 Archimedes2

if someone asks the time, don't tell them how to build a clock.

Good point Wakefield. If you read lots of my comments here and elsewhere you'll find I have an awful tendency to tell people how to build a clock. It's a fault that maybe will get better the more I read from the works of luminaries like steyn. I appreciate your thoughts. Even so, at the risk of being accused of unwarranted dissection of clocks, I'll add to my comment only this: I believe that this peculiarly modern and western notion of "empathy" is not a thinking error on the part of its proponents, but a deliberate rhetorical device for making political points. To say "I empathize with [Palestinians/Aboriginals/homeless, whatever]" is a way to leverage a political discussion in one's favour; strictly speaking it has nothing to do with empathy–it has everything to do with painting a political opponent in a negative light; it is exploitive opportunism of the worst sort, and about spinning a lack of action as benevolence. I personally feel that "having one's heart in the right place" is a good thing, but in and of itself it carries no moral weight; and merely to make claims to having one's heart in the right place is downright morally repugnant. In another article recently Steyn quipped of the western progressives' tendency to hold "bake sales for Sudan" while the genocide there goes on unhindered. "Empathy" versus action.

http://intensedebate.com/people/JustinWordswrth JustinWordswrth

Just Is Department

Justice doesn't need her blindfold removed, she knows to distrust whomever she hears with an accent.
Janice Rose

Steyn's lens' are so thick with cynicism it's often difficult to endure his rants. His mindset ensures his views of the world are reinforced and anything incongruous to it are ignored. He has made that apparent over and over again about his views of Muslims. He manages to infuse something negative about them into most of his columns. He' on a mission!

Ruy Diaz

"His mindset ensures…"

Yet another amateur psychologist.

Let's concentrate on Steyn, and not on what he says. If he brings bad news, by all means, let's shoot the messenger.

kcm

nicholas
Actually the latest demographic shows Steyn's" they're going to swamp us shstick" to be passe. But go ahead an seize on an inference that'll offer you the most comfort.

Wakefield Tolbert

False–but please continue anyhow–

the latest shows that for the plupart of his argument, Steyn is correct, and that this recent alleged uptick in birthrates in Northern Europe makes no clear distinction of the fact that most of the maternity ward noise is still comfortably made by those proclaiming Allah's will and wearing hajibs.

It does no good to render unto others the demographic finger and saying "you'll soon be where WE are", when YOU are already over the edge of the waterfall.

kcm

My real point is that demographics are by their very nature not a reliable foundation to build a monumental "end of civillization as we know it" theory. By the way Mr Steyn…er W.T. what's a plupart when it's at home?

http://intensedebate.com/people/td182a td182a

Macleans Magazine has a great asset in Mark Steyn. As long as they keep writers like him on the payroll, they will continue to prosper and make their mark (no pun intended!)
In the last few years they seem to have figured out that what people want is the unbridled truth, just the hard, cold facts. We will make our own opinions and decisions. I was a long term subscriber who canceled mid subscription a few years ago as they were getting so left wing and mushy. I now am an auto-renewing subscriber.
What I fail to understand or comprehend; is why the masses are so gullible, willing to fall for any smooth talking fool. Why does it take hard times of some sort in order for people to want to see below the surface issues to try to find the underlying problems.
As for OBAMA, he is a very intelligent, charming man, who seems to think that he has to have every one like him. He does not have enough life experience for his position. He stands for nothing, so he will fall for anything. It is very sad to see the USA becoming so irrelevant so fast. OBAMA is out to change the world, or at least the US, but he hasn't yet figured out that you can't spend more than you bring in. There is a reason why his Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, was openly and loudly laughed at recently in China.

Mr. Steyn, I have your book, (signed) and please keep the excellent commentaries coming. Breath of fresh air.
Thanks Macleans.
Kamel Krazie

The gold medallion necklace, the King Abdul Aziz order of merit, presented to President Obama by Saudi King Abdullah , now that's major Bling-Bling ! Honking huge chain links with an equally oversized, obnoxious medallion, gaudi-Saudi at it's best.
I half expected a chorus of Saudi princelings to break into a misogynic rap routine.A get down and dirty, crotch grabbing, I'm going to smack my Bi_ches rendition.
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Paul Monroe

Well, I might disagree here.
What I see is less empathy than the pr bs version of it.
You know, politicians and government officials displaying loudly their empathetic side.
Well, that's getting old.
One needs to just look at the facts.
Another one: I am an immigrant and I think there's nothing that much particularly unique about it (there are many of us here – and I for my part prefer to be called by my name). I would hate to be labeled something so that people would take pity on me. (It is not always the case) Many misfits , incompetent, lazy people like to hide their flaws behind some big-victmised term. And the pr bsters always fall for that (they are generally too lazy to go looking for the facts that would corroborate such "self-victmiser's" claim ).
Pr bsters and self-victmisers: GET A LIFE.