# What Is Suicidal Empathy? The Golden Mean and Cultural Relativism

- Original post: https://www.twitter.com/i/status/2120541756622033345
- Source account: [@GadSaad](https://x.com/GadSaad)
- Source language: English
- Duration: 1:50
- Published: 2026-11-11
- Canonical URL: https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism

## Transcript

[0:00](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism) What is suicidal empathy? First, let me explain what I'm not arguing, because most of the detractors who've started to attack me have completely misconstrued my position.

[0:10](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism?t=10) Empathy is a wonderful virtue to possess.

[0:13](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism?t=13) We are a social species. For you and I to have a meaningful conversation, I need to put myself in your mind, and vice versa.

[0:19](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism?t=19) That's called cognitive empathy or theory of mind.

[0:22](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism?t=22) So empathy definitely serves as a social lubricant.

[0:27](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism?t=27) It helps us instantiate our human sociality.

[0:31](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism?t=31) But like most things in life, too little of something is not good, too much of something is not good, and much of life is about finding that sweet spot.

[0:40](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism?t=40) Aristotle had explained this to us more than a few millennia ago in his Nicomachean Ethics, where he talked about the golden mean.

[0:48](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism?t=48) If a soldier is not at all courageous, if he's cowardly, that's bad.

[0:51](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism?t=51) If he's too courageous so that he becomes a reckless martyr, he dies quickly, that's not good.

[0:56](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism?t=56) And so I apply that principle to empathy.

[0:59](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism?t=59) If I have no empathy or very little empathy, that's typically a trait of a psychopath. Right.

[1:05](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism?t=65) But if I have too much empathy, if it hyper fires in the wrong situations towards the wrong targets, I end up with suicidal empathy.

[1:15](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism?t=75) So let me explain how I would exhibit suicidal empathy from an open border perspective.

[1:20](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism?t=80) If I internalize the parasitic idea of cultural relativism, which basically argues that there are no human universals, everything has to be measured according to the idiosyncratic realities of that culture.

[1:33](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism?t=93) If some culture wishes to engage in child brides, shut up, racist.

[1:38](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/33YOPIy4iVpf/en/what-is-suicidal-empathy-the-golden-mean-and-cultural-relativism?t=98) So the parasitic idea leads to suicidal empathy