Charlie Kirk Didn’t Believe in Empathy or COVID!

Far-right propagandist often dismissed facts

Hopefully, this is the last article I write about Charlie Kirk, who was killed in a shooting about two weeks ago. Kirk was many things in his short life. In his death, however, a lot has been said that glosses over his many flaws. He was a white supremacist, a racist, a conspiracy theorist, and often just plain wrong. In effect, he was a BS artist.

Kirk vs. Empathy

One of his more absurd takes was his criticism of empathy. “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new-age term that does a lot of damage,” he once said.

That’s false. The term empathy was coined by British psychologists in the early 20th century, adapted from the German concept Einfühlung (“feeling into”), used to describe the experience of projecting oneself into another’s perspective. Far from being touchy-feely fluff, empathy has measurable benefits. This was documented in a 2021 Healthcare article that studied the outcomes of about 300 South Koreans who volunteered.

“Employees with empathic concern can gain numerous individual, organizational, and societal benefits. As the study found empathy to increase employees engaging in volunteering activities, which then increased…