Why Gad Saad Is Wrong — Transcript

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1. 0:00Hello. On this channel, I usually do not
2. 0:02comment on the work of contemporary
3. 0:04writers and thinkers. But the reason I'm
4. 0:07making an exception for this book,
5. 0:09Suicidal Empathy by Gad Saad, is because
6. 0:13of its thematic closeness with my own
7. 0:15work. Since I myself have produced a lot
8. 0:17of work on oikophobia or cultural
9. 0:19self-hate, more so in fact than has
10. 0:21anyone else in the world, and foremost
11. 0:24in my book Western Self-Contempt from
12. 0:27Cornell University Press, it has
13. 0:29happened quite often that readers and
14. 0:31viewers have asked me about Gad Saad's
15. 0:33concept of suicidal empathy, what I
16. 0:36think about it, whether it's the same
17. 0:38thing as oikophobia, whether it explains
18. 0:41better what's going on, and so on.
19. 0:43I've commented publicly on these
20. 0:45questions a little bit here and there,
21. 0:47foremost in some interviews recently.
22. 0:49But since the issue keeps coming up, I
23. 0:51decided to make a separate lecture video
24. 0:54about it. Now, before I proceed, I
25. 0:56should point out that I like Gad Saad.
26. 0:58I've never met him in person, but he and
27. 1:00I are definitely on the same side in the
28. 1:03question of the large civilizational
29. 1:05struggles and fault lines we're facing.
30. 1:08And I'm sure that he and I have a lot
31. 1:10more agreements than disagreements. But
32. 1:12I am a philosopher, and my job is to get
33. 1:15at the truth to the best of my ability,
34. 1:17and so for the reasons I stated, I have
35. 1:19to explain why the analysis, such as it
36. 1:22is, of suicidal empathy
37. 1:24is wrong.
38. 1:26Here are two clips in which I made some
39. 1:28brief remarks on the subject before.
40. 1:30>> Since I've written about oikophobia,
41. 1:31people keep writing me about Gad Saad's
42. 1:34notion of suicidal empathy. And says,
43. 1:36"Hey, listen, isn't this the same
44. 1:38thing?" I said, "Well, not really." And
45. 1:39I think that suicidal empathy, of
46. 1:40course, there is such a thing. But I
47. 1:42think that that is often has less
48. 1:44explanatory power because very often it
49. 1:46isn't genuine empathy, rather it is a
50. 1:48compensatory act for the fact that we
51. 1:50have lost the ability to
52. 1:54to
53. 1:55to be proud of our own tradition. And so
54. 1:56we want to be proud of somebody else's
55. 1:58tradition and promote that tradition.
56. 2:00So, it's not genuine empathy. It's
57. 2:02>> And
58. 2:03>> there is a concept doing the rounds
59. 2:05right now known as suicidal empathy.
60. 2:08>> Um
61. 2:09>> Yeah.
62. 2:09>> And from from Gad Saad
63. 2:11>> Yeah.
64. 2:12>> There is some truth to that, but the
65. 2:13reason why oikophobia is the more
66. 2:15accurate concept is because most of the
67. 2:18time when people do feel this so-called
68. 2:20suicidal empathy, it's not really
69. 2:22empathy. It can be in a few isolated
70. 2:24cases, but most of all, it's actually a
71. 2:27hatred or a fear dislike of one's own
72. 2:29culture, which translates perhaps in its
73. 2:32outer expression to empathy of other
74. 2:34cultures.
75. 2:35>> pity those who also hate your home or
76. 2:37>> Yes, exactly. That's right. So,
77. 2:40>> Yeah.
78. 2:41>> Exactly. So, the explanatory power of
79. 2:43the idea of of suicidal empathy is very
80. 2:45limited because when we talk about the
81. 2:48people who are like this, they are much
82. 2:50more motivated by antipathy toward their
83. 2:52own culture than by love for somebody
84. 2:55else.
85. 2:56>> So, let's flesh this out a little bit.
86. 2:58The explanatory model of suicidal
87. 3:00empathy is wrong for most instances. It
88. 3:04is in fact oikophobia that explains
89. 3:06them. That is most of the people Gad
90. 3:08Saad criticizes are motivated more by
91. 3:11antipathy than by empathy, which one can
92. 3:14see on the specific examples he
93. 3:16discusses.
94. 3:17Saad writes on the first page of the
95. 3:20preface, Roman numeral 11,
96. 3:22that
97. 3:24whether when dealing with immigration,
98. 3:26the justice system, the homelessness
99. 3:28crisis, or transgender rights in women's
100. 3:31sports, outlandish policies are
101. 3:34instituted precisely because of suicidal
102. 3:37empathy.
103. 3:38This results in a wide range of
104. 3:40misguided empathetic inequalities.
105. 3:43But, this is plainly incorrect.
106. 3:46If one studies the psychological
107. 3:47motivation of most of the people
108. 3:49involved in these things, one will find
109. 3:52far more hatred than love, far more
110. 3:54antipathy than empathy. That is, far
111. 3:57more ergophobia.
112. 3:59Let's look at three examples among many
113. 4:01that Gad Saad brings up.
114. 4:03On page 22,
115. 4:05he writes in reference to the former
116. 4:07president of Harvard, Claudine Gay, that
117. 4:11in supporting a serial plagiarist,
118. 4:13Harvard was willing to damage its
119. 4:15reputation, a clear form of
120. 4:17institutional suicidal empathy.
121. 4:20This is wrong because the reason someone
122. 4:22like Claudine Gay ever became president
123. 4:25of Harvard in the first place, and for
124. 4:27some time received support from the
125. 4:29academic establishment in spite of her
126. 4:31shortcomings,
127. 4:32was not because of genuine empathy for
128. 4:35black people,
129. 4:36but because the academic establishment
130. 4:38prides itself on tearing down what they
131. 4:40consider to be an overbearing white
132. 4:43elite, and on tearing down our academic
133. 4:46and social traditions.
134. 4:48But an even clearer example is the
135. 4:50second one that I want to talk to you
136. 4:51about, which is on page 74.
137. 4:54Here, Gad Saad writes about the case of
138. 4:57Daniel Penny, the white man who was
139. 4:59accused of manslaughter after having
140. 5:01subdued the rowdy and threatening black
141. 5:04man Jordan Neely in the subway, right
142. 5:06here in my own city of New York.
143. 5:08Saad writes, again on page 74,
144. 5:11that Penny was charged in the first
145. 5:13place speaks to two realities. One,
146. 5:16Penny was white, whereas Neely was
147. 5:18black.
148. 5:20When a few weeks later a black man
149. 5:22killed another black man who was
150. 5:24harassing people on the New York subway,
151. 5:26the perpetrator was not charged.
152. 5:29Two,
153. 5:30the reflex of suicidal empathy toward
154. 5:32Neely, who was black, mentally ill,
155. 5:35homeless, and a repeat criminal.
156. 5:39Once again, this is wrong. And this
157. 5:42example is especially striking.
158. 5:44By juxtaposing the two different cases
159. 5:47of black men being killed in the New
160. 5:49York subway, where the judicial result
161. 5:51was different because of the different
162. 5:53identities of the so-called
163. 5:54perpetrators,
164. 5:56Gad Saad is unwittingly showing that it
165. 5:58has nothing to do with empathy for a
166. 6:01poor dead black man because one of them
167. 6:04was completely ignored,
168. 6:05but that it has everything to do with
169. 6:07hatred of the white man. That is, once
170. 6:10again, antipathy, oikophobia, not
171. 6:14empathy.
172. 6:16Finally, a third example is on page 105,
173. 6:20where Gad Saad writes about the
174. 6:22attitudes of the cult of climate
175. 6:24alarmism.
176. 6:26He says,
177. 6:28"In the empathetic quest to protect
178. 6:30Mother Earth from being raped by
179. 6:32capitalism,
180. 6:34it is vital to protect the Chinese
181. 6:36Communist regime from climate scrutiny.
182. 6:39All attention must be focused on the
183. 6:41white Texan cattle farmer who has sired
184. 6:44six children. His cattle and his white
185. 6:47children are killing Mother Earth."
186. 6:50Once again, Gad Saad unwittingly shows
187. 6:53that it's not a question of genuine
188. 6:55empathy, in this case for the
189. 6:56environment and endangered species,
190. 6:59because if it were, the Chinese would
191. 7:01also be condemned by the climate
192. 7:03alarmists. Rather, it is a question of
193. 7:06despising Texan farmers and the like.
194. 7:09So, once again, we are dealing with
195. 7:11antipathy, with oikophobia, and not with
196. 7:14suicidal empathy.
197. 7:17A few times, Gad Saad even comes quite
198. 7:19close to acknowledging this fact, but
199. 7:21he's not quite able to get there. For
200. 7:23example, on page 72, he writes,
201. 7:28"Civilizational seppuku requires not
202. 7:30only that one empathize with violent
203. 7:33criminals more so than their victims,
204. 7:36but it also demands a hostility toward
205. 7:39those tasked to protect us from such
206. 7:41criminals.
207. 7:43Okay, so here he comes close to seeing
208. 7:46what it's actually about, the hostility.
209. 7:48But unfortunately, like I said, he
210. 7:50doesn't quite get there. If he had, he
211. 7:52would have had to rewrite the entire
212. 7:54book.
213. 7:55This fundamental error leads to one
214. 7:58additional problem.
215. 8:00Gad Saad ends up portraying many of the
216. 8:03people under discussion as mistaken but
217. 8:06well-motivated because a lot of people
218. 8:08would say that empathy is a virtue. I
219. 8:11personally am not one of those people.
220. 8:13But that's a different story.
221. 8:15As well-motivated, the people under
222. 8:16discussion thus become at least capable
223. 8:19of garnering the observer's sympathy.
224. 8:22Which is almost certainly contrary to
225. 8:24the outcome that Gad Saad himself
226. 8:26desires since he seeks to ridicule them.
227. 8:30They would become a lot less sympathetic
228. 8:32to the observer if we realized right
229. 8:34away that they are not motivated by
230. 8:37empathy but by antipathy and oikophobia.
231. 8:41Now, as I said in the two clips in the
232. 8:43beginning of this video, one can find
233. 8:46some individual instances of genuine
234. 8:48suicidal empathy. I myself have known a
235. 8:51couple of people over the years who were
236. 8:53truly empathetic for other peoples and
237. 8:55cultures but who did not hate their own
238. 8:58culture. They were simply just clueless.
239. 9:01But those people really are a minority.
240. 9:03And if we wish to understand why things
241. 9:06are going so poorly with our
242. 9:07civilization right now, we must properly
243. 9:10understand the underlying concepts. And
244. 9:13there, oikophobia features much more
245. 9:16strongly and frequently than suicidal
246. 9:19empathy.
247. 9:20So, there you have it.
248. 9:21As I said in the beginning, I generally
249. 9:23prefer to offer my own philosophy on
250. 9:25this channel rather than commenting on
251. 9:27others.
252. 9:28But in this case, I felt I had to make
253. 9:30an exception due to the thematic
254. 9:32proximity of Gad Saad's work to my own.
255. 9:35But uh this is of course a purely
256. 9:37philosophical discussion. We have to
257. 9:39understand what's going on.
258. 9:41But, it's worth pointing out again that
259. 9:43I certainly support Sargon in his
260. 9:45efforts in favor of Western
261. 9:47civilization.
262. 9:48Thank you.