Ben Shapiro Doesn't Want You To Have Empathy

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:08]Things have not been going well for Ben Shapiro lately to the point where he's inviting Gad Sad onto the program and is titling his video how empathy is destroying Western civilization. He has 7 million subscribers, 14,000 views, not doing great. I don't normally do this at the beginning of videos, but I'd like to show you the comments. Without empathy, we are no longer humans. Zero empathy is bad as well. These video views are sad.

[00:00:40]Evil is the absence of empathy. Oh, one guy amazing video. Hell yeah. All right.

[00:00:45]His first top four comments are negative. So, love it. Okay. Tell us why empathy is bad, Ben. Is it because we're Zionists? And if we have empathy, we'll throw up and gag at ourselves.

[00:00:59]>> For a lot of people who speak in terms of empathy, they actually are speaking in the language of deontological ethics.

[00:01:05]They think that more empathy.

[00:01:06]>> What is this [ __ ] tone?

[00:01:09]Is he giving us brown noise to sleep to >> equals good? And so that it's very hard to shake that by pointing to consequentialism. How do you argue people out of the idea that their empathy is some sort of absolute good?

[00:01:20]>> Yeah. How do you argue how how do you argue somebody out of the position that considering somebody else's perspective would be good when understanding what's going on, you know, in the world? Why would it be why would it be good to understand somebody else's perspective? [ __ ] empathy. And that's why I'm not going to listen to a goddamn word Ben Shapiro says, "Free Palestine from the river to the sea." Godamn it.

[00:01:48]All right, Ben. Is this from Tel Aviv?

[00:01:50]Where is he?

[00:01:51]>> Line is Gad Sad. He's a Lebanese Canadian. Gad. Holy [ __ ] >> Evolutionary behavioral scientist and professor of marketing. And he has a brand new book out called Suicidal Empathy, which of course is a massive bestseller. Gad, thanks so much.

[00:02:04]Suicidal Empathy. Two of the worst guys you ever knew are here to tell you YOU SHOULDN'T CARE ABOUT other people. All right. Convince me >> for the time. Really appreciate it.

[00:02:14]>> Oh, good to be with you, man.

[00:02:16]>> So, let's talk about this concept, suicidal empathy. Obviously, I've mentioned it on the show before.

[00:02:21]Basically, the idea seems to be that your levels of empathy.

[00:02:25]>> I think this is just a racist dog whistle and it's like if we're empathetic to Mexicans, they're going to come in here and they're going to, you know, you're not going to see white people anymore. It's just not they're all everyone's going to be brown. It would happen and that would be that'd be bad. Oh, >> they at a certain point may lead you to do things that actively harm you because you care so much. You care so much about people who actively hate you that you're willing to do things that end up putting you in harm's way. Maybe you can explain where this concept comes from, how you came.

[00:02:53]>> So that's not what empathy is. What?

[00:02:55]Being a pushover is not what being empathetic is. How >> So look, uh, empathy is a wonderful virtue to possess. We are a social species. For you and I, Ben, to have a meaningful conversation, I need to put myself in your mind and vice versa.

[00:03:10]That's called cognitive empathy or theory of mind. But Aristotle explained to us several millennia ago in his Nikcomian ethics, everything in moderation. Too little of something is not good. Too much of something is not good. And much of life is about finding that sweet spot. And that exact principle >> disagree. You can't really have too much fiber. You know, you're not [ __ ] enough, chap. Most Americans don't eat enough fiber. That's true. It's like something like 20% get enough of it. Get your get your fiber up. Eat some Eat some ruffage. Have some plants. You can have too much of anything. Of course, that's true. Except guns, which would be unconstitutional for me to wish a limit on. You cannot have too many guns. That is the one thing. Or free free, you know what? Free speech. That's also true. You can't have too much land that the state of Israel has annexed. Not a limit to that. Carbon emissions. Can't have too many of those. So yeah, I don't I'm not going to [ __ ] fall to your woke mind.

[00:04:12]Virus, chat. I'm [ __ ] on to you.

[00:04:14]Okay, I'm wisening up. Okay, no more empathy. Applies to empathy. If I have no empathy, I'm likely to be a psychopath. If I have too much empathy, if if empathy hyperactivates in the wrong situations toward the wrong targets, you end up with suicidal empathy.

[00:04:32]>> What does empathy define it?

[00:04:34]>> So, yeah, this manifests in a bunch of ways. Most obviously, it manifests, as you talk about in your book, with sort of an open immigration protocol on on the part of the West.

[00:04:42]>> Oh, you open your book with racism.

[00:04:43]Isn't that [ __ ] crazy that I called that? I didn't even read this book. I didn't have to because it's brainmelt right-wing nonsense. All you got to do is put some words on paper and go, "Yeah, buy the book." And then people buy the book. By the way, I'm writing a book, a fantasy book. It's a fantasy heist book. I will let you know when it's available for sale and you should buy it because it's good and you like me.

[00:05:06]>> People care so much and they're so empathetic to people outside the West that they say, "Come on in. You know, enjoy all of the benefits, all the goodies. We don't vet people. They come in, they take advantage of our civilization, and that's how you end up with hundreds of thousands of people marching for Hamas on the streets in London.

[00:05:20]>> Oh, marching for Hamas on the streets.

[00:05:22]Actually, they're marching for Palestinian uh citizens, not all of which are, of course, Hamas. Even if I were to grant you, which I will not do, even if I were to grant you that every Hamas super soldier deserves imminent drone bombing death, there would still be marches in the streets against the apartheid and genocide. uh that you and your uh nation state of choice because it's not America, it's definitely Israel. Your number one is committing a genocide. I mean, and you Aiden Abett and I think frankly that Ben Shapiro and many other Western uh people who are banging the drum and trying to uh persuade politicians and nations to continue to funnel this war machine should be tried uh reasonably. uh similar to Nuremberg prosecutions for propagandists because it's it's not different. You descend from a group of people who were genocided and in the name of that you have committed it again. Uh Ben Shapiro, it's disgusting.

[00:06:25]What a disgusting thing to do. And to hide behind the religion to put to to wrap the country in the flag just just absolutely absolutely disgusting. So, I guess it's suicidal empathy to think you should stop murdering people. And in the case of the United States, suicidal empathy to think you shouldn't dispossess people of their livelihoods, homes, families, uh, because they have been born on some kind of artificial border that white guys have decided for, you know, millennia or whatever. Super dumb. I mean, really since the 40s.

[00:07:00]>> Exactly. Right. So in in my previous book in the parasitic mind I talk about how many parasitic ideas can hijack our ability to reason. So take for example >> racism, zionism, nationalism, religion, >> cultural relativism which is a parasitic idea.

[00:07:17]>> Cultural relativism to have the idea that our cultures are relative to our experience. What? I can't believe the idea that cultures differ. What? To enforce a monoculture is bad. What? So, let culture be what it is and it'll mingle as it mingles. To try to enforce any culture on another is dumb. You can have conduct. I don't think it's anticultural to be like you can't kill each other and like sexually assault one another. I think that's fine. Don't think that's anyone's culture necessity, but like, you know, he just called everyone who politically disagrees with the state of Israel's genocide of Palestinians, Lebanese people, Jordanian, you know, etc. Just Middle Eastern counterparts in the area, Iran.

[00:08:08]If you're against that, then you're Hamas. Eat eat dicks. Eat a bag of dicks.

[00:08:14]>> It basically says that you're not allowed to draw any negative porative judgments of other people's cultural beliefs. That is not true. Cultural relativism has no claim that you can't say someone's culture bad. No, it's it's it's when racist old [ __ ] like this say, "You know what? Sure, we have been colonizing the Middle East for a 100 plus years, not including the [ __ ] crusades and all that [ __ ] Just counting them like modern history. Let's say the last hundred years of repeated humiliation and murder and stealing and [ __ ] like literal [ __ ] rape, literal [ __ ] apartheid, genocide, all of these things. And then you go, you know what's really disgusting about when they just call them Arabs? Of course, they just all call them Arabs. It doesn't matter where they're from.

[00:09:06]Doesn't matter what their culture is.

[00:09:07]They're Arabs. Arab culture. It's a monolith. Uh Arab culture, man. So they've been they've been experiencing all of this just for the hundred years.

[00:09:16]Don't count the beginning of that at our hands. And now oh a suicide bomber is like distasteful to your mind. And so that is now some kind of like savage thing when really when you think about it it's it's like a it's a political thing. Like yes for sure there's like you know religious zealots that have been talked into blowing themselves up or whatever. Uh, and I think in some cases maybe you need the religion to even let people think that what they're doing is something that they'll be personally rewarded for so you can get it going. Anyway, uh, religion plays a a dire role in all of these politics. And that's something I think is bad about your culture. How about that? All of your cultures, the religion, it's bad.

[00:09:55]So, you can say it. You can make quality judgments, but it's when you throw the baby out of the bathwater. It's when you say, "Oh, Arabs are bad because a guy suicide bombed someone and he was a religious zealot and he really, really just hated Jews. He was actually an anti-semite." And and then you blanket every other [ __ ] person that looks like them, that sounds like them, that is named the same thing as them, that comes from the same country or town or whatever. Same [ __ ] you do with Mexicans, you do with Cubans, you're doing it now. You do it with [ __ ] you know, Vietnamese people, [ __ ] everybody. It's all the same. It's just racism when you really boil it down and it's really [ __ ] stupid. That's a dumb thing about your culture, >> religious beliefs and so on. So if they wish to engage in uh honor killings, shut up racist. if they wish to engage in female genital mutilation of 5-year-old girls >> or children Jewish cultures they literally circumcise what hello yep it's bad I agree that that's bad these are just religious things by the way and you're also arguing that uh like honor killings which is usually when men kill female members of their family they do this in [ __ ] India and [ __ ] they do in America too by the way they just don't call it honor killings they call it domestic violence And you know, it'll be like some woman did something that embarrasses a man uh and makes him feel less manly and then they kill a woman and it's accepted in some societies and you're like, "Well, in the 50s is when America was great. We should go back to that and we can slap our wives around a little." And these guys are just like one step further than that. They're like, "Oh, aborant and we're so different and civilized." You're not. To even criticize this, you would have to criticize yourself and live apart from that. And you don't. None of you do.

[00:11:32]It's ridiculous. A MAGA dad just killed his daughter in Florida. Yep. And it's not the first at all.

[00:11:37]>> Shut up racist. So that then renders you >> So no, the shut up racist is when you say So there are honor killings in I don't know [ __ ] Iraq or something. I don't know. That doesn't mean every [ __ ] person or Arab or [ __ ] you know, Iraqi or [ __ ] you know, certainly doesn't mean the Palestinian people you're murdering are guilty of this, right? Let's steal man it. Even if your racism was correct, which it's not.

[00:12:01]Even if every single person in that country was in this religion and really believed that honor killings were fine to do and they lived full Sharia, I don't think you should be able to genocide them. I do think we can disagree with them. Cultural relativism does not say, "I can't do that." I think we can say your culture is bad. I think we can say, "Hey, don't do that." But we can't enforce it. We can't force them.

[00:12:23]We can't murder them. That's stupid. We can educate them. We can help women out of situations. We can educate the men.

[00:12:30]They don't have to be like this. And we can do it, but we don't have to invade their culture. We don't have to take them over. And eventually those lifestyles will just die out because they're bad for people. But you know where they persist? When people go, "Your culture is bad. I'm going to murder you." And then you [ __ ] kill someone's parents and then they're a kid and they're like, "No, my culture is [ __ ] great and I'm proud of it and [ __ ] you and I'm going to pick up a gun and I'm going to attack." And that's what happens every single time we do this. And it just entrenches people further and further and further and further. And no wonder they haven't had the time to unpack and deconstruct their [ __ ] religions when you're bombing them constantly. Let alone your own [ __ ] selves when you're so chuffed up with the violence you can't even [ __ ] deconstruct. Oh, are we doing genocide and aparttheid? Oh, is this an ethnostate? Hm. Are we Hitler's impotent? When you're standing there deciding on what type of immigration policy you should have, you then argue in a suicidally empathetic way that it is wrong for you to argue that not all immigrants are equally likely to assimilate within the American ethos.

[00:13:34]Everybody should have a chance and therefore your inability to discriminate between one set of cultural values and another leads to the disaster we see today.

[00:13:43]>> Very loaded.

[00:13:45]>> They fail to assimilate to American values. What's that [ __ ] mean, man?

[00:13:50]So, right now the American values are fascism and kleptocracy from an aristocratic upper class that owns just most of the wealth like like literally most of it. So, what are you talking about? Why why why do you think this is a valid way to think? So again, >> sell books.

[00:14:07]>> I I have a concept that I've posited before when I'm talking about your idea, extending it a little bit further, which is this concept that I've called homicidal empathy, which is basically the idea that you empathize with a group of people and your empathy with that group of people is so strong that you yourself join them in their murderous ideas. And I think you see this an enormous amount in the West. We were talking.

[00:14:25]>> Yeah. With Zionists, literally what you're describing the Zionist mindset.

[00:14:30]Hello. I don't know how you could possibly argue that someone else is doing this. Oh, their murderous mindset.

[00:14:34]You're killing kids, Ben. I know Ben Shapiro himself doesn't actually have the personal capacity to go to Israel and follow through on the first degree of his like obsession with murdering Palestinians, but he is more than comfortable with second and third degree experiences here. Third, like he'll he'll be one or two steps away from it.

[00:14:59]Keep his hands clean, nice and soft.

[00:15:02]talking a moment ago about the people who are sympathetic to Luigi Manion. And so >> I can't believe people are sympathetic to the victim class of a group of people who who were victimized by the upper class. Yeah. Well, I wonder why that's playing out in real time. Why are warehouse fires going up everywhere?

[00:15:22]>> Their basic idea is and Hassan [ __ ] has said this that he >> Oh, Hassan [ __ ] Luigi Manion, enjoy your Hassan [ __ ] Uh oh, don't make me like him more. is so empathetic toward people who have suffered under the American health care system that actually the people who are running that system, the people who are in the insurance companies, those people are guilty of what he calls social murder.

[00:15:42]So >> I agree like any of them that directly profit from the decision to not give someone care which is like the CEOs and invest like the the the board of investors and everybody like that. Yeah.

[00:15:54]Absolutely. Yes. Like robber barons.

[00:15:57]Absolutely. His empathy for people who are supposed victims of the insurance system is so strong.

[00:16:03]>> Supposed victims dying because they weren't given care. That's vict that's literally being a victim >> that actually it's probably okay to murder healthcare CEOs because that that's also coming from empathy. It's empathy for one group leads to murderous hatred of another group.

[00:16:19]>> Yep. So that's why we went and killed Nazis. You're welcome, Ben. Maybe we should have not killed whatever Nazi would have led to not Ben, but then killed him like right right after been like, "Okay, maybe not that guy historically for for a second. Another month, another month in the trenches, Johan or whatever the Nazis name was."

[00:16:39]Do they have Nazis named Johan?

[00:16:40]>> Right. And here, I mean, we can uh invoke the ten commandments that say it's a deontological rule. You cannot murder someone. Deontological ethics is absolute statements. It's it's never okay to lie would be a deontological statement. If you were to say it's okay to lie to spare someone's feelings that uh >> oh well that would be a sin though.

[00:17:03]>> That's a consequentialist statement. So the ones who as you say are suffering from homicidal empathy are applying a consequentialist ethic to murder. It's >> Yes. Correct. Yeah. So it's bad for CEOs to murder people. But you don't view withholding something from somebody as murder because you're sick and [ __ ] twisted. Like you're starving Palestinians and and like cheering that on. Right. And and think that that's fine.

[00:17:33]>> Okay to murder that guy because otherwise >> it's okay to lie to a Nazi to save a Jewish person. Right. Exactly. They are all they are all guilty of the correct thinking but only when it applies to themselves.

[00:17:45]>> The world will be much darker. So therefore, murder is allowed for that guy. It's a very very uh dangerous way to think.

[00:17:53]>> No, it isn't. That's how he decided Nazis were bad. They're doing bad things and murdering people. And you go, you know what? I think it would be more beneficial to kill that guy than to not.

[00:18:06]Like obviously, hello.

[00:18:08]>> So again, in your book, Suicidal Empathy, obviously I think you're taking a pretty kind view of many of the people who who dislike Western Civilization. I think the two of you are very very stupid >> and so I wonder if you think that empathy is is really sort of the biggest problem here or do we actually have something that that's happening in the United States in Europe that that may be even deeper which is not even that this is driven by by empathy. People maybe want to flatter themselves and believe that it's driven by empathy but actually what it's driven by is envy and and actually dislike and hatred of particular groups particularly people who are successful or civilizations that are more successful. I wonder why he phrase it like that. Or civilizations that are more successful. What's success, man? So the success is that you victimize and use violence to get all the things and then benefit from that, but nobody else can do that. Like we just we we take viciously. We take and take and take and take. Ben Shapiro is blind to this [ __ ] >> And so it may not be that for example, left-wingers in Europe and in the United States want mass migration because they're so sympathetic to what third worlders are. No, [ __ ] I don't want mass migration unless people are like joyfully doing so. No, I don't want mass migration at all. Those people would prefer to have stayed at home where they grew up because that's where they're comfortable. But due to pretty much our and our allies destabilization of all of their worlds, they need somewhere to go. And the place with the most stability is the core of the empire, which is America right now for us. And even that's crumbling. Like it's [ __ ] man. It's literally they live insulated lives away from problems and they think, "Oh, people aren't just jealous." It's not jealousy. I have I want other people to have good stuff. I want to see everybody thrive and they ought to. We can make that happen.

[00:19:58]>> Claiming it may be that they actually want to bring people in because they themselves hate the civilization and believe that the civilization is bad.

[00:20:03]That are the revolutionaries, in other words, being driven by empathy or are they being driven by envy that is masquerading as empathy? the revolutionaries. I guess that's us, chat. We're like, "Hey, stuff should change for the better." And you're like, "No, I don't want to stop murdering people and stealing their stuff." Well, you're going to have to.

[00:20:24]>> I mean, I think it's a bit of both. So, take for example communism, right? The idea is that it >> this is just playing the hits.

[00:20:31]>> Is inherently existentially unfair that some of us make a lot more money than others. And so here comes the empathetic overlords who are going to equalize income distribution. That's not what communism is.

[00:20:47]You could still thrive doing your own thing. Like in communism, you could have people who spend their lives accumulating what for them would be considered a rich life. Like they want to buy they want to build a big house or something. and they go and they get all the stuff for to build the house and they get the guys together to build the house and they compensates them and like that can all happen like you can be compensated for your work in a communist society. It's just that you can't steal from people. You can't exploit other people to do that. Like there could still be a trade certificate, a dollar, a yen, a [ __ ] you know, whatever you got going on. A peso. Empathetic overlords. This doesn't mean anything.

[00:21:32]You don't know what communism is.

[00:21:33]Communism isn't we have the American structure as is, but if a guy makes a million dollars, he gets taken down to minimum wage until everybody gets put up. Like we just split up his money and then eventually everybody gets like [ __ ] a certain amount. I don't even know what it would be. How much money is is the is is the country worth?

[00:21:52]Trillions. How much would everybody make a year? 350 million divided by trillions. And not everybody because some of those are kids. So it may be that they have other nefarious reasons including pathological envy, but it is instantiated through an appeal to envy, right? I mean, communists don't say, "We're going to confiscate your private property because we're mean." They invoke this idea that, you know, it's inherently unfair. Capitalists confiscate your private property. What?

[00:22:21]I don't want to confiscate your private property. I want people to have healthcare, housing, and education and food. Seems easy. Let's do it. It's not even communism, man. Like, you'd still have all the guys you have now. You could still write books and be compensated for that by dummies, although you couldn't intentionally misinform people for profit.

[00:22:41]>> That person A has less than person B.

[00:22:43]Let me take from person B, redistribute it via an appeal to empathy.

[00:22:48]>> Yeah, that's not what it is. That's not He finishes every single thing he says with a big blink. Have you noticed that?

[00:22:55]I've paused many times and this has been the end of it because he's finished his sentence. It's a weird tick that he has.

[00:23:01]>> So, let's talk about solutions here.

[00:23:02]Obviously, very very difficult to convince someone out of what they believe is a moral virtue. A lot of >> Yeah, I agree. Zionist Ben Shapiro. I agree. It seems to be difficult to talk to you out of your position that actually murdering these kids totally fine. People believe that empathy itself is is a moral virtue and as you say not in a sort of moderate way. The more empathetic you are, the better a person you are. And so when when you're confronting someone politically when you're talking >> I don't even know how how can you be more empathetic. I think they're taking empathy and extrapolating out like acts to the to empathy like oh I'm so empathetic that I do x y z which lead to whatever outcome. But empathy is just like taking the other person's point of view as best you can, which is not going to be great. You're yourself and not the other person. But you could see how someone could be like, "Look, my situation is bad because I was born in an open air prison and I have not been allowed to move wherever I want and I have different rules than everybody because of where I was born and I can't make uh too much money and I have to, you know, I don't have certain opportunities because I am being bombarded all the time and sometimes my friends get shot and killed. Sometimes I get shot at, sometimes I die. Who knows?

[00:24:21]to have empathy for that position would mean that maybe we should stop doing the oppression, right? But if you do, then you stop thriving or your favorite nation does. And so it's like you can't square that. So, you know, yeah, I wish you would be able to do that, too.

[00:24:36]>> Talking about politics and public policy and you say, listen, the empathy that you're expressing right now is not is not actually ending up with good public policy that helps the the greatest number of people. It's actually an >> good public policy that helps the greatest number of people would provide them all with a baseline of healthcare, housing, and education >> up with with some pretty horrible results. You're you're speaking in a language that people don't actually believe. You mentioned deonttological ethics versus consequentialist ethics.

[00:25:02]For a lot of people who speak in terms of empathy, they actually are speaking in the language of deonttological ethics. They think that more empathy equals good. And so that it's very hard to shake that by pointing to consequentialism. How do you argue people out of the idea that their empathy is some sort of absolute good?

[00:25:17]>> That that's a great question and and and depending on which side of the bed I wake up on, I'm either optimistic that it can be resolved or I'm pessimistic and it becomes an intractable problem.

[00:25:28]One of the things that I've become quite >> it's an intractable problem that people will not let us commit atrocities without criticism. I don't know how to fix it.

[00:25:35]>> Quite adept at doing is when I'm engaging an interlocator, I gauge whether they are flippable or not. And if I think that the light of reason can enter them, I continue my engagement.

[00:25:48]Otherwise, I walk away. There is really no magic recipe. Uh, Ben, you really have to get people to have the administration of the mind vaccine to them. Uh, >> the mind vaccine. The way these [ __ ] idiots talk to each other, like it's all crumbling down around Ben and it's super hilarious. So, it's good to watch to have this [ __ ] tired old loser on.

[00:26:11]Can't believe he outlived Charlie Kirk though. That's crazy.

[00:26:13]>> And hopefully this book is one small step in trying to declutter people.

[00:26:20]>> Dude, Ben looks bloated and old and tired. You know what I mean? Like he just looks bad. It's not going great. He don't look like a guy who goes home and he's happy >> minds. But it is a very difficult problem.

[00:26:35]>> Well, that's Gad. His book is suicidal empathy. Dad [ __ ] >> Sorry, I zoomed in too far. I got a little carried away.

[00:26:45]It's not bad to have empathy for people.

[00:26:47]It's not bad to think Nazis are bad. You can tell the subtext here is I am really tired of being criticized.

[00:26:56]It's bad for you to criticize me.