Recognizing Weaponized Empathy

The False Kindness of Idiot Compassion

Kindness is widely considered to be one of humanity’s most important virtues. People generally want to be seen as “nice” and “compassionate.” Unfortunately, this leaves us vulnerable to something called “idiot compassion.”

Author Pema Chodron describes it this way: “In some ways, it’s what’s called enabling. It’s the general tendency to give people what …