Excellent article on the state of the democratic party.
https://www.realclearbooks.com/articles/2026/07/08/self-flagellation_nation_1193023.html
In his latest book, Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind, Gad Saad documents the myriad ways in which Westerners today engage in ethno-masochism and self-flagellation.
“The suicidally empathetic person,” Saad writes, “feels guilty that they were born in the West, whereas others were not as fortunate.”
To be sure, we do indeed have it good here. And there’s nothing wrong with having empathy for those who’ve never experienced Western living.
Under Maduro’s rule in 2017, starving Venezuelans were literally stealing animals from the Zoo with the intention of eating them.
That’s not a problem we have here in the West. It’s natural to pity such people.
It is when our pity becomes excessive, to the point where we are hurting our own in the pursuit of altruistic ends, that we encounter civilizational decay.
While reading Saad’s book, which relates dozens of stories of “privileged” white Westerners forgoing their own welfare to appear morally virtuous, I recollected the now-famous tiff between Trump advisor Stephen Miller and then-CNN journalist Jim Acosta, wherein Acosta basically argues that our immigration policy should be dictated by the Emma Lazarus poem tacked onto the Statue of Liberty.
Self-Flagellation Nation
https://www.realclearbooks.com/articles/2026/07/08/self-flagellation_nation_1193023.html
In his latest book, Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind, Gad Saad documents the myriad ways in which Westerners today engage in ethno-masochism and self-flagellation.
“The suicidally empathetic person,” Saad writes, “feels guilty that they were born in the West, whereas others were not as fortunate.”
To be sure, we do indeed have it good here. And there’s nothing wrong with having empathy for those who’ve never experienced Western living.
Under Maduro’s rule in 2017, starving Venezuelans were literally stealing animals from the Zoo with the intention of eating them.
That’s not a problem we have here in the West. It’s natural to pity such people.
It is when our pity becomes excessive, to the point where we are hurting our own in the pursuit of altruistic ends, that we encounter civilizational decay.
While reading Saad’s book, which relates dozens of stories of “privileged” white Westerners forgoing their own welfare to appear morally virtuous, I recollected the now-famous tiff between Trump advisor Stephen Miller and then-CNN journalist Jim Acosta, wherein Acosta basically argues that our immigration policy should be dictated by the Emma Lazarus poem tacked onto the Statue of Liberty.
