Professor Jasper Tempest, fictional star of the British TV drama “Professor T,” during a Season 4 episode compares empathy with compassion. His conclusion was that you should always choose compassion over empathy.
Empathy is the act of sharing feelings with another human, or humans, while compassion is the act of recognizing other people’s feelings and sufferings. In a speech to his criminology class, Professor T — played by British actor Ben Miller, reprising a persona from the first two seasons of “Death in Paradise” — blames empathy for leading people to violence to even the score in society. He therefore recommends compassion over empathy.
In Professor T’s personal life, empathy versus compassion also plays a significant role. Throughout the series, the professor struggles to recover from the death of his alcoholic, abusive father when he was a kid of seven. In the professor’s case, he blames empathy for his withdrawn personality.
After watching the episode in which the professor weighed in on compassion and empathy, I did some research and found a great deal of literature on “toxic empathy,” along with critics who argue that empathy is a positive. In the book “Toxic Empathy,” author Allie Beth Stuckey argues that empathy has become a tool of manipulation by left-wing activists who bully people into believing that they must adopt progressive positions to be loving.
I agree with her assessment, and I take it a step further in arguing that empathy, as used by leftistas, is a subtle call for violence against those of opposing viewpoints. Cole Allen, the suspect in the D.C. Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, even called himself a “friendly assassin” whose mission was to rectify wrongs.
Case closed, eh?
N.B. “Professor T,” the series, is available on PBS and BritBox. Shown in the image at the top is the cast, with Professor T in the middle.
