No, Empathy Is Not a Sin | Sojourners

No, Empathy Is Not a Sin


"Make empathy great again" Anti-Trump protest in Brussels, Belgium. Credit: Unsplash/Floris Van Cauwelaert.

“The problem with the meritocracy ... [is that it] leeches all the empathy out of your society.”

The right-wing political commentator Tucker Carlson said that back in 2017 and, by my lights, there’s a kernel of truth there. It almost echoes the early 20th-century sociologist Max Weber’s critique of the Protestant work ethic, how Americans are trained to see wealth as a just reward for living a good life and poverty as punishment for living a bad one; an economic spin on Calvinism. Even if you think Carlson is a reactionary grifter (which I do), I think he’s onto something here.

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