In 2022, Charlie Kirk, the CEO and co-founder of Turning Point USA, declared, “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new-age term that…does a lot of damage.”
I wasn’t aware of this quote until after Kirk’s assassination. The sentiment surprised me, since his mother was a mental health counselor.
Kirk became politically active in high school. He was denied acceptance to West Point and dropped out of community college after one semester.
Kirk counted himself among the audience of Rush Limbaugh’s radio broadcasts and once wrote an article for Breitbart News, asserting that high school textbooks had a liberal bias.
The University Experience: A Door to a Larger World
Higher education isn’t for everyone, but most universities open a door to broader experiences than what we encounter in childhood and adolescence. It’s true that some professors have an agenda, but it’s not always a nefarious one.
In a conversation with a young person about my time at Howard Payne University, I recalled a botany professor and later, an anatomy and physiology professor. The botany professor approached the class knowing we were there primarily to earn science credit, but taught in a way that made us want to become botanists. His stories illustrated his passion for the subject.
My other professor taught pre-med students who, at that time, had a 100% acceptance rate to further their medical education. His approach was much different: “I am going to treat you like you are preparing for med school, so buckle up, baby, because we are going to drill into the guts of this subject.”
I survived both classes and went on to seminary— nice try, but no cigar.
My studies challenged me to think more deeply and broadly. They coaxed me out of my small world into one of different ideas, cultures, and ways of experiencing our shared reality.
The experience of higher education helped me realize how little I knew about practically everything. It set me on a lifelong journey of learning and exploring global ideas.
One of the great lessons higher education can teach us is how little we actually know—and how much there is to know that remains just outside our grasp. Getting to those ideas requires a journey of learning.
The Ignorance of Rejecting Empathy
Charlie Kirk didn’t need or want that kind of educational journey. His advocacy with students was exemplified by a taunt: “Prove me wrong.”
His confidence made him bold. His ignorance made him dangerous.
Kirk seemed uninformed about human emotions and the complexities of living in a community. Empathy is not a new-age, made-up term.
Researcher Brené Brown, in Atlas of the Heart, a leading resource for understanding 87 human emotions, wrote, “Empathy is a tool of compassion. It is about being present to someone’s pain.”
She goes on to identify two elements of empathy. Cognitive empathy is the ability to understand another person’s emotions. Affective empathy is one’s emotional attunement with another person’s experience.
However, empathy is not about hijacking someone’s experience or overwhelming them with one’s own emotional baggage.
I can understand why someone would dismiss empathy as a made-up emotion if such an experience has never been part of their life. Generally, right-wing radicals are often clueless about the emotions that drive them and their positions.
Beyond anger and rage, the larger palette of human emotions is rarely engaged. Consequently, disappointment, hurt, or frustration is often channeled into anger and when weaponized, into rage.
Emotions are an intrinsic part of being human. When combined with our cognitive abilities—such as thinking, information gathering, and problem-solving —emotions enable us to transcend the animal kingdom.
The Necessity of Compassion
When we lack empathy for ourselves, our spouses, children, extended family, and neighbors, we become grievance machines operating without anything to moderate our frustrations and perceived injustices.
Compassion, of which empathy is a tool, makes life and community possible. It is one of the most obvious traits of the incarnated Christ: “He had compassion on the multitudes” (Matthew 9:6).
Compassion is the emotion his disciples should lead with. The gospels show us a messiah whose militancy occurred only once—when he overturned the tables of corruption and grift in the Court of the Gentiles, the place where God welcomed non-Jews to call out to their Creator. Instead, they took over that court, made it a market, and used it to steal from the poor.
If you call yourself a Christian and lack compassion, you have no idea what the gospel is about.
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A private practice counselor working with veterans and survivors of trauma. Previously, Chancellor served four churches in Texas for 33 years, then ran a Mental Health Department of Alan B. Polunsky Maximum Security prison which houses death row.
