The Empathy Candidate

As you know, empathy is all the rage. It drips off of everyone’s mouth, like drool. 

The psycho world has embraced it as the ultimate emotional panacea. They believe that good parenting and good neighboring and good job performance all depend on empathy. Heck you don't even have to communicate with anyone-- all you need to do today is to feel their feelings.

If you believe that, you have drunk far too much of the Kool-Aid.

For the counter view, I recommend Paul Bloom’s book: Against Empathy. And take a look at my post on the topic of sadistic empaths.

Bloom has argued persuasively that we should not confuse empathy-- which means, from the Greek root, feeling with-- with compassion-- which means feeling for. You can feel for someone and even come to his aid without feeling his pain.

As you know, Bill Clinton became famous for telling us that he felt our pain. A lot of good that did. Telling someone that you feel their pain is not only absurd-- you can only feel your own pain-- but, considering the proximate political source, you can be assured that telling a woman that you feel her pain is a pick-up line.

We might ask whether Clinton felt Juanita Broaddrick’s pain when he was raping her-- but that would be slightly impertinent.

In today’s political climate, the conventional wisdom, embraced by the most conventional minds, has it that Joe Biden is chock full of empathy while Donald Trump lacks empathy. Now, if only Trump had felt more pain he would have done a better job at dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. And yet, would you also say that the Lord High Executioner of the coronavirus, that would be New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, was lacking in empathy when he sent recovering patients to nursing homes. Thus, causing New York State to lead the nation in coronavirus deaths. All the while, empathetic Andy has written a book proclaiming his great crisis management skills. Some people have no shame whatever.

For the record, the countries which have done the best in dealing with the virus-- mostly those in Asia-- do not have the highest levels of empathy. As one Chinese citizen claimed, China has done well because its people know how to follow rules.

Anyway, we have been told, over and over again, that Joe Biden is chock full of empathy. He feels deep feelings for his son Hunter. We have even seen a picture of Joe hugging his wayward drug-addicted grifter of a son. If it means anything to say that someone's life is a trainwreck, Hunter Biden certainly qualifies.

Naturally, in our thoroughly feminized culture, people love it when they see men showing their feelings, their emotions and their empathy. They thrill to see macho man Joe Biden hug his loser of a son.

And yet-- what if the current presidential election were being decided in terms of parenting skills? 

Which candidate would have the advantage if we were to judge them by their children's lives. If parental and paternal empathy is the standard, doesn’t that imply that we ought to judge Joe Biden on the way his son Hunter’s life has turned out. 

Considering parenting skills, who has turned out better, the Trump children or Hunter Biden?

Keep in mind, Hunter had an affair with his dead brother’s widow. Most decent people mourn the loss of a brother. Hunter saw it as an opportunity to fuck his widow. Why not exploit grief?

Hunter was a crackhead drug addict who parlayed his father’s political position into lucrative business deals. He had no qualifications for any of the jobs he had; he is being investigated for money laundering and even child pornography.

Does he show us what a good thing it is to have an empathetic father? Or does he suggest that empathy is seriously overrated as a parenting and a governing skill?