Why Is empathy a four-letter word?

When did American society become so apathetic to one another’s death, pain, or sadness?

Think of the number of people online who cheered at Charlie Kirk’s assassination recently. Yet, Kirk, Turning Point USA CEO and co-founder, was widely quoted as saying “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that—it does a lot of damage.”

In the wake of Kirk’s death, President Trump was asked on Fox & Friends how to “fix this country” and “come back together.” His answer was “I couldn’t care less.”

Earlier this year, Elon Musk commented on Joe Rogan’s show that “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.”

Think of any time you’ve seen a post online that resulted in a pile-on of nasty comments. It begs the question how do we return empathy as part of our societal culture?

On the September 22 broadcast of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Jacinda Ardern, former prime minister of New Zealand, laid out how she thinks we need to change globally.

“We need more leaders who are willing to be humans on the job,” she said. “It takes courage to be empathetic in these times. It’s a courageous act to be optimistic in these times. But we need more of it, not less.”

Helen Riess, MD, has devoted much of her career to the role empathy plays in our lives. She is the founder and chief medical officer of Empathetics, Inc.. She is an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the empathy and relational science program at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Riess defined empathy as the ability to perceive the plight of others that motivates a response. The act or response to empathy is compassion. But she cautioned that people who demonize empathy are vilifying what she called the “connective tissue” of society.

“Now we have digital echo chambers and that leads to a societal empathy breakdown,” she said. “There are large groups of people who feel unseen and unheard.”

Riess further commented on how we got to this point. She said in a way, healthcare mirrors society. And within healthcare, we’ve seen the demise of the family doctor and the rise of healthcare professionals driven by patient volume.

She noted there is a parallel between healthcare and society. “Between the 1950s and 1970s, empathy reigned in family medical practices. They knew you and your whole family,” Riess said.

A combination of volume driving everything, lack of time and everything converting to electronic in the 2000s, led to doctors looking more at screens and less at patients, she said.

“Today, empathy is treated more as optional, and that’s why my team at Empathetics and I are dedicated to educating for improving empathy in healthcare with our evidence-based training,” Riess added.

Judith Orloff, MD, is an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA and author of “The Genius of Empathy, The Empath’s Survival Guide.” Her new children’s book, “The Highly Sensitive Rabbit,” helps kids welcome the concept of empathy as a strength.

She portrayed the societal lack of empathy as a sort of one-two punch. On the one hand, there’s been a gradual decline of empathy through the internet and social media. On the other, some public figures and people in positions of authority speak badly of empathy. That’s a perfect storm to form an “Us vs. Them” mentality, according to Orloff.

Both Orloff and Riess emphasize that education is important.

If people can lose empathy, they can get it back. It can be taught. However, that teaching, said Orloff, should start early.

“I think people do not understand what it is. If you have no role models or education, then you’re not sure what it is or how to use it,” she said. “I think there’s a spectrum of emotional intelligence. It doesn’t mean you’re not strong. It is about feeling for other people and it starts in the schoolyard.”