The author and behavioural scientist, Gad Saad, has just published a book on what he calls “suicidal empathy”. He says that “a society dies when it cares more about exhibiting infinite tolerance and empathy than invoking its survival instinct”.
The key word there, in my opinion, is exhibiting. So much of the political grandstanding on display in relation to immigration and other issues are largely exercises in virtue-signalling: expansive, showy gestures which indicate superior moral character and warn that any divergence from the narrative will not be tolerated.
Anyone who questions spiralling migration rates is accused of lacking compassion – a deft move which tells the listener that not only is said questioner a cold-hearted bigot, but the accuser is also a better person and a morally superior one, and therefore above question.
A video which resurfaced this week of Micheál Martin’s response to Cork 96’s Neil Prendeville in a discussion on migration is a classic example of this nonsense. Prendeville had relayed much of the frustration his listeners were expressing in relation to what he described as the government’s open borders policy. He listed the billions spent on asylum seekers and refugees – included those coming from safe countries saying it was “an incredible amount of money”, raised the pressing issue of the enormous percentage being allowed enter the country without documentation, and said that many people felt that some of the enormous expenditure should be...
The author and behavioural scientist, Gad Saad, has just published a book on what he calls “suicidal empathy”. He says that “a society dies when it cares more about exhibiting infinite tolerance a...