Condemning someone to death for a remark that isn't very nuanced and doesn't fit what they actually believed. Saying that "empathy is a new-age made-up word" and then saying "love thy neighbor" conflict, so you left off the last part, conveniently.
We're legit not. We're showing anger at the attitude that just because someone's an obnoxious mouth-runner, it's OK he's shot.
Guess what, there's plenty of people out there - on either side - who would be genuinely happy if they got their civil war, their opportunity to replace their dull lives with the Viking-like excitement of slaying enemies.
The rest of us in the middle will, to put it bluntly, very much not enjoy it if they get their wish.
The path to that future is precisely the retarded shit-headedness being displayed around this. Someone shooting him, and then seemingly a horde of people on the internet very freely expressing that not only does that not bother them, the thing that does bother them is the stuff he'd said before he got shot.
So while I think some people would deserve the future they endorse, the rest of us would prefer that future didn't happen.
Actually, Elon Musk is the one who said "The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.", although Charlie Kirk did say something similar.
Give the full quote. He’s saying empathy as it is used now, is used to excuse evil. Just like equity is. Words change meaning. If you can’t understand or pretend you can’t because those are left wing examples, “make America great again” has also changed its meaning - it means something different than it would have in 2010.
>He’s saying empathy as it is used now, is used to excuse evil
What he said: "I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage."
If he genuinely meant what you wrote, he could have said exactly what you wrote.
Also, context is very important. This empathy quote was not a misstep on his part, it fits the general narrative that he was pushing. So there is not much about it to misunderstand.
The important thing about these statements is not that one time he said something that people can cling to. It's that these statements are the essence of what the man was all about. He built his career, and a literal empire around this attitude, and ideology.
The man was intelligent and very well spoken. I'm sure he made a lot of effort to not say the quiet parts out loud. But if you look at the entirety, the picture is clear. And these snippets of statements that are floating around represent his position correctly. Like this one too for example:
“I’m sorry. If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified,’”
But as we later learn, this was of course just a logical statement. Not at all in like of the ever-existing racism in the US.
“Of course there are qualified black and female pilots,” he later added. “But when you socially engineer racial quotas that far outstrip current demographics in a given field—especially one where the lives of passengers are on the line—it is fair to question whether someone receives the job because they’re the best or because they’re politically expedient. Screaming racism doesn’t make the plane land safely.”
You posted Charlie Kirk’s thoughts on DEI at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45220307, which were opposing racism, and you were against his position. There is certainly a racist piece of shit in this conversation but you may wish to look closer to home.
Yes, I posted that quote, as an example of what kind of statements he was making. And again, I'm not against his positions per se - I'm highlighting that with Charlie, there is a lot more going on under the surface, than over the surface. On the surface, he says things that are at least somewhat defensible. But the way of phrasing, the overall direction of where his things are going are different than what he is formulating.
What's the full quote? I can't find it. But I'm familiar with the larger talking point coming out of nationalistic right-wing Christianity around "empathy is a sin". In that movement the definition of "empathy" is unchanged, the argument is instead advanced that it is spiritually dangerous because it elevates human experience above "God's truth". This is not a widely-held belief, and is closer associated with nationalistic Christianity vs. broader American Christianity.
