Empathy, Culpability, and madness

Empathy, Culpability, and Madness

Is Trump mad? If declining to share the joys and troubles of the whole human race, to decline a seat at humanity’s common table is a form of madness – then yes - Donald J Trump is mad.

What is madness? To order the confinement of a person for their safety and wellbeing, as well as the safety of others, the medical profession is expected to competently diagnose a mental condition.  But is this all there is to it?  I have just re-watched a presentation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in which Hamlet is declared to be mad by others in the drama.  But was he?  Was his apparent ‘madness’ an expression of an all-consuming emotion of vengeance in reaction to the murder of his father by his uncle (his father’s brother), who then added insult to injury by taking his brother’s wife (Hamlet’s mother) as his wife.

Is Trump mad?  Is Netanyahu mad?  Is Putin mad? All men seem hellbent on vengeance and on determining the usefulness to them of others on the criteria of their cooperation with this emotion. Trump has said “I am your vengeance” and most clearly acts this out in both demolishing every domestic Biden legacy, regardless of its rightness, as well as wishing to destroy Zelenski (and Ukraine) for the lack of help he received from them in his desire to destroy Biden through the activities of his son Hunter.  What Trump cannot forgive, let alone accept, is any sense he lost the 2020 election, convincing himself that some were part of a conspiracy against him.

Netanyahu is clearly guilty of the security lapses that led to the October 7 atrocities.  He will not accept responsibility, and he will not allow an independent enquiry.   Instead, he unleashes unprecedented wrath on all Palestinian people and sacks any Israeli official who will not support his most extreme atrocities.

For Putin, the fall of the Soviet Union is clearly personal. He cannot accept or forgive peoples aligning with the West, whom he sees as part of greater Russia especially the Ukraine. Vladimir Putin destroys any dissenting voice.

This is by way of background to an extraordinary statement by the ‘deputy president’ of the US, Elon Musk who has said: “the fundamental weakness of Western Civilisation is empathy”.  This is clearly a view shared by the president himself who is drawn to people like Kim Jong Un who even lacks empathy for the poverty of his own people.

The statement that empathy is a fundamental weakness has been supported by leadership in the American Christian right.   How can this possibly be so?  Apparently, its origin lies within the form of Christianity that Trump has adopted, namely that power and wealth are a sign of God’s beneficence and conversely, misfortune is a sign of God’s displeasure and therefore undeserving of empathy.

Given common acceptance that a Judaeo-Christian ethic and western civilisation are intertwined, the Trump/Musk position is a shocking betrayal both of Christianity and Western Civilisation.

Empathy (mercy) is at the heart of Biblical faith.  Bishop Mariann Budde may well have been speaking to the famous Micah passage when she pleaded that Trump be merciful at his inauguration.  “What does the Lord your God require of you but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God”. (Micah 6:8).

The most well-known and quoted parable of Jesus is the parable of the Good Samaritan. It is the story of three men who find a man lying in the road. A teacher and a priest pass by on the other side.  The injured man was a Jew, the third passer-by was a Samaritan who had no responsibility to stop and help, but he did.  Jesus asked which of the three acted as Neighbour. They replied, the one who showed mercy, Jesus said: “go and do likewise”.

The Christian message is that every person is potentially neighbour to every other person. At its best, Western Civilisation is based in this ethic. 

This is not first and foremost about morality.  It is first and foremost about what it means to be human.  To be human means to live in a caring relationship with all others.  Madness could be defined as actions, or an intention of the mind, that withdraws the person from the human race.

It is on this basis that I would declare Trump, Musk and Putin to be mad.  They are acting in a way that defies humanity. To Trump everything is reduced to its transactional purpose or value.  Because everything is transactional, nothing has abiding value, its value only exists in this transaction – in the making of this deal.

Even democracy has no ultimate value.   If it serves a particular transactional purpose – good, if not it can, without compunction, be set aside.  What is goodness? The biblical view is that ‘good’ is an absolute value for what is common.  Goodness exists in and through the relationships we share with all other people and all parts of the created order.
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It is serious enough that Trump wishes to withdraw from all alliances and protocols that govern international behaviour and responsibility. But it is profoundly disturbing that he is collaborating to change what it means to be responsibly human, what it means to be accountable.   Christian leadership must stand up by word and action and declare “you are not part of our fold, and we do not wish to be part of yours”. World leadership and especially Western leadership must be less acquiescent and more courageous in saying we are not part of your deal.
 
Loss of empathy is not simply morally vacuous; it is a choice not to share the journey of life with the rest of humanity. The world cannot afford, or accommodate, leadership of this kind.