Gad Saad argues that empathy, when pushed beyond reasonable limits without trade-offs or self-protection, transforms from a virtue into a destructive force. In his latest book, Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind, released this week, the Canadian professor cautions that nations like Canada amplify this trait to extremes, turning it into an internal toxin. Central to his thesis: Does the West still claim the right to prioritize its citizens, culture, and institutions, or has boundless kindness become the ultimate moral guide?
Empathy’s Dangerous Misfires
Saad identifies multiple pitfalls. Bad actors exploit Westerners’ aversion to labels like ‘cruel’ or ‘intolerant.’ This dynamic stifles debates on immigration, crime, and extremism. Public policies shift from effectiveness to feel-good optics, prioritizing emotions over outcomes.
Born in Beirut in 1964, Saad escaped Lebanon’s civil war with his Jewish family and resettled in Montreal. This firsthand experience of a nation’s rapid collapse under ideological strains informs his analysis. He served 32 years as a marketing professor at Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business and now researches at the Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom at the University of Mississippi. As a prominent commentator, he hosts The Saad Truth podcast, appeared 11 times on the Joe Rogan Experience, and authored the bestseller The Parasitic Mind.
In Suicidal Empathy, Saad merges personal history, academic expertise, and cultural critique to question whether excessive niceness risks societal cohesion.
Announcing a Move to the U.S.
Saad recently shared on Joe Rogan his decision to relocate to the United States. “I love Canada but there comes a point where the abject antipathy that you experience from Canadian society forces you to look elsewhere to a place where you might be appreciated and allowed to flourish,” he posted on X.
Defining Suicidal Empathy
Saad defines well-calibrated empathy as essential for social species, encompassing cognitive understanding (‘I understand your pain’) and emotional sharing (‘I feel your pain’). “Empathy, when invoked in the right amounts, to the right targets, in the right situations, is perfectly relevant,” he states.
Suicidal empathy discards this balance, prioritizing inappropriate targets—like favoring Guatemalan gang members over veterans or homeless encampments in parks over taxpaying families’ children. It manifests individually, such as rape victims hesitating to report due to fears of Islamophobia, and scales to policies eroding Western stability.
Roots in Parasitic Ideas
Suicidal empathy emerges after ‘parasitic ideas’ weaken defenses, akin to aerial bombardment preceding a ground invasion. Cultural relativism demands silence on harmful practices like female genital mutilation, branding critics racist. Postmodernism erases absolute truths, while identity politics, radical feminism, and biophobia dismantle reason.
Self-flagellation portrays the West as uniquely evil—built on genocide, transphobia, Islamophobia, and misogyny—while idealizing other cultures. This sets the stage for excessive empathy toward the ‘noble other.’ Saad traces this groundwork to about 30 years ago.
Policy Trade-Offs and Realities
Saad highlights limits: Repeat felons forfeit endless chances after multiple offenses. Unlimited immigration clashes with resource constraints and value conflicts, like homophobia or antisemitism. “You can practise your homophobia and genocidal hatred of the Jews and cutting off of the clitorises in your own beautiful countries. We don’t want that here,” he asserts.
Call to Policymakers
Saad urges a return to liberty, freedom, and individual dignity that defined Western success. “All of the insane policies that are destroying the West are rooted in suicidal empathy,” he warns. Throughout history, few societies matched the West’s ethos—a rare miracle now at risk of swift loss.
