ArcaMax

There is always a moment after tragedy when the public is told to summon empathy, usually for the person who caused the tragedy. But this week the ask for empathy was for someone who many felt didn't deserve it and who wouldn't have offered in return. Many people bristled, asking why they should care about someone who actively promoted damage in an already damaged world.

That recoil reveals something important in our culture. Extending compassion to someone who shows none feels like surrender. It can feel like letting them off the hook or even betraying those they harmed. Yet empathy is not absolution. It is not forgiveness. It is a refusal to allow another person's cruelty to set the boundaries of our own humanity. And empathy, despite the weight it carries, is a testament to our personal strength. It asks us to carry a burden that does not feel like ours to bear.

The request feels heavy because extending empathy toward those who inflict suffering seems to violate our sense of fairness. Offering it to the cruel feels like a violation of justice. Fairness, though, has never been the point of empathy. If compassion is reserved only for those who earn it, then it ceases to be empathy at all. It becomes partisanship disguised as morality.

Withholding empathy may feel righteous, but it comes at a cost. Anger locks us into the story of those who caused harm, tying our energy to their cruelty. Empathy, on the other hand, is a form of resistance. It declares that no one else determines how fully human we are willing to be. It prevents our compassion from shrinking to match the limits of another person's hatred, thereby empowering us to resist the pull of their cruelty.

This is not a call for the victimized to forgive. Empathy does not erase harm or absolve responsibility. It prevents damage from corroding those who remain. Without it, cruelty multiplies because the refusal of empathy can mirror the very disregard we condemn.

Culturally, our reflex against empathy also exposes discomfort with ambiguity. We crave a tidy ledger in which harm and punishment balance neatly. Human lives are rarely so orderly. Recognizing that tension requires a strength we often resist or just don't have in the moment.

Empathy is also costly because it demands our pride, our tidy stories, and a sense of justice that we cling to. It asks us to acknowledge pain without denying the pain inflicted. It pushes us beyond instinct into a space that feels undeserved. That difficulty is precisely why empathy is so important.

It denies cruelty to dictate the shape of our humanity. Extending it, even when undeserved and perhaps only to a wife and children, prevents us from being defined by the indifference or violence of another. It cannot undo what has been done, but it can stop harm from multiplying through us, making us responsible for preventing the spread of cruelty.

The measure of empathy is found in ourselves, in the willingness to hold onto our own humanity even when doing so feels impossible. Each repetition of this cycle of violence places that choice in front of us. We can allow cruelty to echo, or we can refuse to let it diminish us.

========

Cassie McClure is a writer, millennial, and unapologetic fan of the Oxford comma. She can be contacted at cassie@mcclurepublications.com. To learn more about Cassie McClure and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Copyright 2025 Creators Syndicate Inc.