Show Notes
What is suicidal empathy — and why does Dr. Gad Saad believe it is the single greatest threat to Western civilization? Jeremy Boreing sits down with the evolutionary behavioral scientist and bestselling author of Suicidal Empathy and The Parasitic Mind for a wide-ranging, two-hour conversation about empathy, reason, immigration, Islam, free speech, and whether the West still has the will to survive.
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Gad Saad's story begins in Beirut. His family was one of the last Jewish families in Lebanon, and he lived through the first year of the Lebanese Civil War before they fled to Montreal when he was eleven. After years of threats and the post–October 7 climate at Concordia University, he left Canada for Mississippi, where he is now a professor at the University of Mississippi's Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom.
At the heart of the conversation is Saad's thesis: empathy is a noble, adaptive trait, but like Aristotle's golden mean, too little or too much becomes dangerous. Suicidal empathy fires in the wrong situations and targets the wrong people, the way cancer cells divide without stopping. He traces the "parasitic ideas" behind it — cultural relativism, postmodernism, identity politics — back to the university campus.
Jeremy brings a Christian anthropology, arguing the left promises the fruits of the Kingdom — "neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female" — while leaving out the "in Christ." Then he presses the hardest questions: how do we solve suicidal empathy without throwing out liberty? Where is the line on immigration? How should Americans talk about Islam without condemning the decent neighbor down the street? Is the First Amendment a suicide pact?
Along the way: civilizational seppuku, the wood cricket whose brain is hijacked by a parasite, the red-green alliance heading into the midterms, honor-shame culture online, and the grooming gang scandals in Britain. It closes on a challenge: Saad sees a cure for the West's condition but little evidence the West wants to take it, and Jeremy argues that being born on third base in the freest nation in history comes with a responsibility, and a privilege, to fight for what's good.
Get Gad Saad's book, Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0063446537
Jeremy's The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin is the #1 fantasy series on Amazon — watch it now on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0HFH7J5N3
Chapters:
(00:00:00) Cold Open
(00:02:27) Growing Up Jewish in Lebanon
(00:10:48) Can an Immigrant Defend America?
(00:14:31) What Is Suicidal Empathy?
(00:27:36) "In Christ": The Left's Utopian Promise
(00:36:51) Where's the Line on Immigration?
(00:47:04) Is the First Amendment a Suicide Pact?
(01:04:29) Is the West Becoming Honor-Shame?
(01:19:13) The Red-Green Alliance & the Midterms
(02:01:43) Jeremy Pushes Back: The Wins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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