Empathy is not a “new age” idea. It is a hard, often uncomfortable discipline that requires patience, humility, and the courage to listen. Certain voices in our culture dismiss empathy as soft or naïve because they mistake it for agreement. It is easier to sneer at the idea than to do the difficult work of understanding another person’s experience without surrendering your own convictions. Yet that discipline is exactly what strong communities are built on.
Real empathy takes effort. It means slowing down long enough to ask questions instead of scoring points. It means holding space for someone else’s story even when it unsettles you or challenges your beliefs. Listening forces us to examine our own blind spots. It keeps us from reacting out of fear or pride. It is much simpler to caricature those who disagree with us than to face the complexity of their reasoning, pain, or history.
Empathy does not mean accepting lies, cruelty, or harmful behavior. It means recognizing the humanity of someone who thinks differently and starting from that shared ground. That recognition does not erase accountability. It makes accountability possible. We cannot legislate, shame, or shout our way out of polarization. We have to rebuild the civility of curiosity and honest understanding, conversation by conversation.
Empathy is not weakness. It is moral and intellectual rigor. It is the strength to confront difference without contempt and the only path forward for a divided nation that still hopes to call itself a more perfect union.
Ian Journey
Pismo Beach
This article appears in Nov 13-23, 2025.
Mr. Journey’s contribution is ridiculous and very patronizing. Written from Mr. Journey’s home in Pismo Beach, it might as well be Mt. Olympus. Pismo Beach, home to million dollar houses overlooking the Pacific Ocean, one of its residents, Mr. Journey, dares to write about the importance of “empathy?” If Mr. Journey is so concerned about empathy, perhaps he, as well as all of his well fed, well clothed, well housed, peers could manifest their “empathy” in upward mobility for the rest of the U.S. “Empathy” isn’t something one can eat on one’s dinner plate. It’s not something one can shelter in and call one’s own home. At this point, Mr. Journey’s concern for “empathy” is yet again, more empty words from another member of America’s privileged class. Try wasting your entire life trying to get ahead only to experience more bank collapses in the last roughly 15 years and so much money printing that our dollar basically is worthless, and see just how “empathetic” one really feels. As someone basically raised in hotel rooms, tents, and cars by drug addict and alcoholic parents living double lives, I for one can smell B.S. a mile away. If Mr. Journey is so concerned about “empathy,” put it into action. I can only presume he is a member of the Democratic Party, after all, Bill Clinton deregulated banks but made damn sure we knew he “felt our pain.” Where is our national healthcare? Where are our good jobs? Why are we 40 trillion dollars in debt? Why was our industrial base sent overseas? Why was the Democratic Party through its Commander-in-Chief, Joe Biden, giving MLRS rockets to corrupt dictator Zylyenski last Fall to fire into the Russian heartland and risking nuclear war? Why is our country broke? Why do Democrats insist on blaming it on Trump, as if prior to his election our country was just brimming with prosperity?
Thank you Mr. Journey, it’s 5:00am and I have to wake up to yet another liberal failing to get it. America doesn’t want more “empathy,” what we need are well paying jobs and a future where college matters and our kids won’t be living in cardboard boxes. In a nutshell, Mr. Journey, you can shove your Buddhist nonsense about “empathy” where the sun doesn’t shine. Show America the money, where the f__k are our jobs?
Empathy is indeed a useful skill, but not always admirably utilized. For example, it is useful for a litigation attorney to understand “where the opposing party is coming from” in order to more successfully fight them. A predator who understands the instincts and urges of his prey is less likely to go hungry. Those who are successful in running scams, like shady psychics, are usually especially adept at discerning and understanding the desires and weaknesses of their victims, and playing to them.
CNN II:
I don’t believe you are the real John Donegan, he spells his name right and speaks in plain English. Not too sure what your point is. Care to elaborate?
The “CNN II” was some extra text which snuck in from autocorrect or something. It’s me, pointing out that empathy is not just a touchie-feely “kumbaya” thing.
John:
I thought it was a parody account from a disgruntled lib. It was unusually cryptic. I’m looking forward to responding to The Shredder after I get off of work.
Have at him.