Elon Musk, on Joe Rogan’s Feb. 28 podcast, announced, “The fundamental weakness of Western Civilization is empathy” (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elon-musk-empathy-quote/).
While admitting “you should care about other people,” he stressed “you need to have empathy for civilization.”
Musk treats civilization, or society, as a thing above and apart from the people who compose it.
He seems to believe that empathy, concern for the needs of others, threatens society’s survival by draining vital resources from it.
Musk, thus, claims to defend U.S. society by attacking, through DOGE, our institutions of care; cutting government programs that help the sick (Medicaid, Medicare), support retirees and the disabled (Social Security), and aid the destitute around the world (USAID).
What is a society, however, without mutual caring?
Musk’s answer closely follows the views of Ayn Rand who argued that achieving individual happiness is our primary moral goal (https://courses.aynrand.org/works/the-objectivist-ethics/?nab=0).
Driven by self-interest, we should accumulate money and the happiness we imagine it buys. Societies promote this morality by providing minimal constraints on, and maximum rewards for, interpersonal competitions over wealth.
The smartest and most industrious are thought to win these contests by their own efforts. Alliances among contestants are fragile because suspicion of competitors is pervasive.
Empathy is a weakness, a “bug” Musk calls it, because it dulls our competitive edge and wastes resources by caring for “losers” in this presumed meritocracy.
Contrasting with this dystopian view of all-against all is one that sees society as the product of many people working together, if not always in harmony, to make and remake institutions that serve the common good.
We decide together what constitute valuable goals and how to achieve them.
Accomplishing this aim relies on cooperation founded on mutual trust and respect. Empathy is the basis of these meaningful relations.
Without concern for one another, there can be no trust. Without trust, cooperation is impossible. Without cooperation in pursuit of shared goals, there is only endless competition, suspicion, and division.
Ayn Rand was right, achieving happiness is important. What she and Musk fail to understand is that we are never happy alone.
Wealth temporarily sates individual appetites. Engaging in meaningful interactions founded on empathy makes us whole. It is through those dealings, including helping people in need, that we know ourselves and our value.
This is the touchstone of our shared humanity, the foundation of a healthy society.
Succumbing to Musk’s vision of endless competitions for wealth encourages distrust, thus unwinding those interpersonal relations that constitute the society he claims to value.
No politician will save us from that fate. We must do this together.
Edward Schortman
Granville, Ohio