More from Friedman

More from Friedman’s “A Failure of Nerve.”

Actually this tendency to adapt to immaturity and to sabotage strength is so often characteristic of chronically anxious systems that a good rule of thumb for leaders who are trying to pull any institution out of regression is that when people start calling you “cruel,” “autocratic,” “heartless,” “hardheaded,” “unfeeling,” “uncooperative,” “selfish,” and “cold,” there is a good chance you are going in the right direction. (pg. 90)

The great myth here is that feeling deeply for others increases their ability to mature and survive; its corollary is that the effort to understand another should take precedence over the endeavor to make one’s self clear. The constant effort to understand (or feel for) another, however, can be as invasive as any form of emotional coercion. (pg. 176)

I believe that the increasing popularity of empathy over the past few decades is symptomatic of the herding/togetherness force characteristic of social anxiety. And I say this knowing that empathy has achieved such inviolable, holy status in the thinking of some that to even question its value would be considered irreverent, if not sacrilegious, as denying the Trinity or cursing the Land of Israel. (pg. 179)