You can’t avoid the word “empathy” in our era. Talking heads, your mother, your brother, your wife, six women at an HR meeting and the two gay men on their team—everyone burbles about “empathy” all the time. It’s like an ASMR soundtrack. Apparently some people find that audio format “relaxing” as is the intention. I find it the quickest way to send me to Anger 11; all I hear is some smug broad coo-whispering about bullshit and I want to grab my fly swatter and swack at her.
The modern obsession with “empathy” isn’t about actual empathy; it’s about being seen to talk about empathy so that other people will think I’m empathetic, which means they will think I’m a Good Person. It’s just narcissism. We don’t have a dearth of feelings about feelings, as the empathy crowd insists. We have a surfeit. There are too many feelings, and too many conversations about feelings, and almost no actual effective communication.
“Have empathy for Palestinians/Mental Patients/The Homeless/Single Mothers/Black Men in America/My air-fryer journey,” we are perpetually exhorted. What this means is “perform that you have feelings that align with my interests, and do it repeatedly. Stroke my ego indirectly in such a way as to place a social halo around me.”
Whatever term we use, this is not a demonstration of anything we can reasonably call “caring” or “seeing from another person’s perspective.” It’s merely solipsism.
Let’s define empathy using the real definition, not bespoke-modern redefinitions.
First, empathy is not “sympathy,” though the two have become confused. “Sympathy” is “feeling bad for someone in their time of misfortune.” We’ve substituted “feeling bad for someone” as proof of our own moral rectitude. All we have to do is say “I feel your feelings and feel bad for you” and all of a sudden we’re Good People. We don’t have to do anything.
For most of my life I was a believer in this stupid idea; my narcissistic/borderline mother trained me into it. We children were required at all times to be sensitive to our mother’s emotions (and tantrums, and screaming, and crying, and fears, and anxiety, and, and, and. . .). We had to perform sympathy. We were “good” when we cried along with her, and “bad” when we didn’t feel exactly what she was feeling in that moment.
The brainwashing stuck through some of my 40s. I remember now (humorously) an exchange with my shrink about it. His answer was the obviously correct one, and it’s ridiculous that I asked the question that I asked, but it shows how this programming has distorted our sense of what “good” and “moral” really are.
Me: “I just can’t feel what they want me to feel, and I feel guilty about it. I’m trying to be a good person, but. . .how do I actually be a good person?”
Shrink: “By doing good.”
Feeling bad for others when they feel bad is sympathy not empathy. What is empathy? There are two kinds of empathy. The difference matters a lot.
—Affective empathy (feelings, emotions): This is close to sympathy, but it’s not quite the same. Affective empathy is the ability to feel along with another person. When they’re happy at a success, you feel happy and can imagine their pleasure. When they’re sad, you feel sad too, or you can at least emotionally intuit how a bereaved person feels.
We have plenty of affective empathy. Too much of it. And most of it is a performance of sympathy. We do not need any more of this. We’re choking on it as it’s been forced on us by the devouring mother gynocracy that rules American culture, business, education, and politics. The entire country is a fucking retarded preschool.
—Cognitive empathy: This is the ability to intellectually understand the needs and desires of another person. In plain language, it’s “putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.” Cognitive empathy is about thought, not feeling. It does not require you to “feel” Bob’s distress. It only requires you to understand that, given who Bob is and given what’s going on in Bob’s life, you understand why he feels as he does. You understand the sorts of helps and supports Bob might want in his predicament.
Cognitive empathy is necessary for any and all communication. Don’t mistakenly bind it up in your head with the notion of tragedy or misfortune. Cognitive empathy is necessary to have the simplest conversation about the simplest topics.
Here’s a toy example. You’ve invited Jane over for coffee. You put the cups on a tray to bring to the living room, but you realize that Jane might like her coffee a certain way. So you ask her if she wants it black like you take yours, or whether she wants cream and sugar. That was you doing cognitive empathy. Because you know that you like your coffee a certain way, you know that Jane will also like her coffee a certain way.
And here’s the important point: Jane did not have to ask you for coffee options, because you used cognitive empathy and anticipated her needs. You did tit-for-tat communication. You served her the question “how do you take your coffee” and she served back her answer, one for one. Normally. That’s key. Normal communication (prior to the meaning and sense-making cultural breakdown of 2015 to 2025) has always functioned on cognitive empathy.
This morning I had a frustrating phone interaction, the kind that is increasingly common. I was trying to put my finger on the problem, because I’ve noticed that this type of interaction has become so common it’s pretty much new normal.
I’m sorry to say it’s no longer restricted to the weirdly un-socialized Millennials and Gen Z (though it is obviously worse among them, and worst among the very youngest). It is now a problem for Gen Xers like me and older. It happens on the phone with the dentist’s office, it happens in person at farm and tractor stores—just about anywhere.
The problem is: how do you communicate with people who don’t seem to have any cognitive empathy? How do you talk to people who don’t understand what you need in your role (as a customer, or as a business) in order to complete a transaction? How do you communicate with people who won’t engage in the tit-for-tat information exhange necessary to get a task completed?
Telling the story will illustrate what I mean. Here is the back and forth over the phone with a small engine repair shop. More than a week ago I called them to have them order a drive belt for my riding mower. By the way, it’s one of the most popular and numerous mowers out there, but finding a basic part has taken almost a month. Don’t suggest “the internet.” Typing in specific names, years, and parts no longer returns sensible results on search engines I’m using.
So, a week ago, they said they would order it, and that it would arrive in 3-5 days. It is now day 8. Here’s the call:
Me: “Good morning. Eight days ago I spoke to a gentleman to order a belt for my lawn mower. It’s the drive belt on the mower deck.”
Employee: “I’ve got a bunch of purchase orders here backed up and I haven’t seen anything from FedEx or UPS today. I don’t know where they are.”
Me: “Yeah, that’s frustrating. But do you want my name? I’m calling because I hope you can confirm, specifically for me as the customer, that you have a record of my order, and that you have placed the order. I get that nothing has arrived today, but what I can’t know is whether my specific order was placed.”
BREAKING IN-Reader, he didn’t bother to ask who I was or what my specific mower was. He just said “no parts have arrived.” I’m not interested in the state of his overall inventory. I’m interested in my specific order—this is normal. This is what customers do. In normal times, the first thing a staffer would do is get my name and then check on my specific order. You see?
Employee: “What’s your name?”
Me: “Josh Slocum”
Employee [shuffles paper, mumbles]: “I don’t see anything here. I’ll call you back.”
Me: “Great. I can hear that you’re busy and I’m sorry to add to it, but I don’t understand if we’re on the same page. Are you saying:
a. You don’t know whether my specific order was placed, but that you’re going to check on and and call me back
OR, differently
b. Do you mean that you have confirmed that my part was ordered, but you just don’t know where it is in the chain yet? I’m asking so I can anticipate how much more delay, even if it’s out of your control. I appreciate your time.”
Employee: “I’m trying to find out where it is and I’ll call you back [snappish tone].”
I just said OK and hung up. I don’t know. I can’t know. He wouldn’t tell me, and honestly, I don’t think he understood what I was asking.
Reader, do you understand what I’m seeking? I think what I’m asking for is normal, that it’s customary, that it’s not weird or intrusive, and that it’s reasonable and not asking too much. I really do. Because this is a normal request that always used to be treated normally before, say, the past 5 years.
I’m left baffled and frustrated so often with normal business transactions lately as so many are like this. And I hang up the phone or leave the store with this irritating feeling that the employees perceive me as “weird” or entitled, but honest to Pete, friends, I’m not. I’m really not. I’m just normal, I ask normal questions, and I’m polite.
Yes, I complain on here a lot about things like this, and I realize some of you reading have probably decided that indicates I’m the problem. You might think I’m much ruder in reality than I portray myself. You might think I’m yelling at employees, or pestering them above the norm. As God is my witness, I really, genuinely don’t think I’m doing any of those things [I just let out an audible frustrated sigh writing this!].
This really does seem to be lack of cognitive empathy.
What do you think?
UPDATE: I have the belt, finally. How did I achieve this extraordinary task? How was I able to get this belt when no one between four different stores (and three incorrect parts delivered to said stores) could even confirm that the common part exists and has a universal identifying number for easy location?
Found a mom and pop lawnmower repair shop I didn’t know existed.
The shop is 50 years old. Guy and Lisa are in their 70s, and have run the business their entire married life. You walk in and instantly know that if they don’t have it, the part never existed.
Read above. They’re in their 70s. This means they’re from the Before Times When Thinking Was Like A Thing? They looked at me when I spoke. They did not push me to “find it on my phone.”
I told them I was an ignorant city boy, and that I’d ask stupid questions, and please teach me like a five year old. I won’t be offended.
Lisa explained to me how lawnmowers are branded, which numbers are necessary in order to connect the model to parts, and where to find them. She cleared up all my confusion about this in one spoken paragraph. No one else I talked to could do this.
I took pictures of every single name, model number, serial number, or any sequence of letters and numbers on the machine that could possibly be necessary for this task. Lisa praised my organization and logical approach (she actually recognized that I wasn’t stupid, and that I was gathering information the right way).
No “Gen Z stare.” No “if we had it it would be [wave arm in general direction] over there.”
I must have sounded like a fool telling Guy and Lisa how grateful I was for their help. This is what they do every day, because it’s how normal business grownups act. But it’s almost impossible to find in most places, and you almost never find it in anyone younger than 45.
UPDATE: I have the belt, finally. How did I achieve this extraordinary task? How was I able to get this belt when no one between four different stores (and three incorrect parts delivered to said stores) could even confirm that the common part exists and has a universal identifying number for easy location?
Found a mom and pop lawnmower repair shop I didn’t know existed.
The shop is 50 years old. Guy and Lisa are in their 70s, and have run the business their entire married life. You walk in and instantly know that if they don’t have it, the part never existed.
Read above. They’re in their 70s. This means they’re from the Before Times When Thinking Was Like A Thing? They looked at me when I spoke. They did not push me to “find it on my phone.”
I told them I was an ignorant city boy, and that I’d ask stupid questions, and please teach me like a five year old. I won’t be offended.
Lisa explained to me how lawnmowers are branded, which numbers are necessary in order to connect the model to parts, and where to find them. She cleared up all my confusion about this in one spoken paragraph. No one else I talked to could do this.
I took pictures of every single name, model number, serial number, or any sequence of letters and numbers on the machine that could possibly be necessary for this task. Lisa praised my organization and logical approach (she actually recognized that I wasn’t stupid, and that I was gathering information the right way).
No “Gen Z stare.” No “if we had it it would be [wave arm in general direction] over there.”
I must have sounded like a fool telling Guy and Lisa how grateful I was for their help. This is what they do every day, because it’s how normal business grownups act. But it’s almost impossible to find in most places, and you almost never find it in anyone younger than 45.
Thank you so much for putting a taxonomic structure to something that has been vaguely bothering me for years if not decades. I have among my acquaintance several women who will cut loose with something like "It's SO EXHAUSTING being an EMPATH" and my inside voice is yelling "Honey, you are not an empath. You are an emotionally dysregulated neurotic who has mistaken substituting your own mental mayhem for understanding the interior lives of others." It doesn't help that they're a distinct physical type as well.