Mark my words, “The West is dying and is bound to die unless a drastic course-correction is made immediately.” It is not dying in the sense of human lives being lost or that we are foreseeing a series of catastrophic events like the 9/11 attacks. It is dying in the sense of the Western civilisation undermining its own foundations, surrendering its values, relinquishing its identity and, ultimately, choosing its own socio-cultural demise. What has set the West to slide inexorably down the path of civilizational self-destruction? Two allied ideas: cultural relativism on one hand, and what Prof. Gad Saad calls “suicidal empathy” on the other.
Prof. Gad Saad (Concordia University, Canada), evolutionary psychologist turned cultural critic, argues that Western civilisation rests on a core set of internalised values: freedom of expression, individual rights, scientific rationality, meritocratic governance, rule of law, and self-defence of the polity. From these foundations come the achievements of liberal democratic societies.
Prof. Gaad’s views have taken the platform X (formerly Twitter) by storm and are finding resonance across the world in the wake of the recent electoral victory of Zohran Mamdani in the mayoral election of New York City.
The Fatal Fallacy of Cultural Relativism
Cultural relativism—the notion that all cultures are equal, and none can be judged by another’s standards—plus an ill-disciplined empathy that sacrifices self-interest and civilisation for all manner of external claims, together constitute two “parasitic ideas” that are sapping the West’s vital strength that has made it what it is today in terms of human intellectual achievements.
Empathy is vital. But when it goes unbounded, unmoored from reason, when it is deployed indiscriminately and especially toward groups whose cultural ethos is antithetical to the host society—then it becomes suicidal. As Saad wrote, “A society dies when it cares more about exhibiting infinite tolerance and empathy than invoking its survival instinct…Suicidal empathy will bring down the West.” Echoing this, Elon Musk publicly declared: “Western Civilization is doomed, unless the core weakness of suicidal empathy is recognized and actions are taken that are hard, but necessary for survival.”
In other words: the empathy of the Western liberal mind-set is being weaponised—by internal ideology and external demographic, cultural and migration pressures—and the result will be collapse of the host civilisation if it does not change how it thinks, acts and limits unbounded compassion.
Saad’s broader critique spans his earlier book, The Parasitic Mind (2020), where he describes “idea-pathogens” that infect minds and societies: post-modernism, radical feminism, cultural relativism, and identity politics. Cultural relativism holds that no culture is superior and that all value-systems must be tolerated as equal. This, Saad argues, is a cognitive surrender, an abdication of the very idea of civilisation and progress.
When a culture no longer assumes its values are better—or at least strongly defensible—then it ceases to protect them. It cannot say, “We will not host large numbers of people whose cultural values are antithetical to ours.” It cannot maintain internal coherence and trust among its citizens. It cannot defend its traditions, history, and institutions.
The Emotional Bug of Suicidal Empathy
Suicidal empathy finds fertile soil in a society that assumes all cultures are equal and that we must accept all cultural behaviours. Saad frames it as: “Cultures are neither equal nor indistinguishable. Cultural relativism (a parasitic idea) coupled with suicidal empathy eradicates this obvious reality. It is a form of lobotomy that immobilizes people from stating that they do not wish to host people who hail from cultures that are antithetical to their foundational values.”
We must grasp this: the claim is not simply that one culture is “better” than another but that the concept of cultural competition, of value-systems and civilisational selection, is real.
Saad writes: “A civilization is built on a set of internalised values. Numerous civilizations have developed radically different visions of how to organize societies, and these have competed in a process akin to Darwinian selection in establishing which civilisational ethos permits for maximal flourishing.”
Western liberal democracy is, in his view, one such successful system. But its Achilles’ heel is its tolerance. If you tolerate everything, you permit the infiltration of alternative value-systems that do not support the flourishing of the host civilisation—and eventually you undermine it.
Empathy is lauded in modern discourse as a positive virtue: feeling with others, refraining from cruelty, embracing the vulnerable. But Saad’s twist is that empathy’s evolutionary origin includes weighting our kin, our in-group, our immediate circle. We are not wired to unlimited global empathy, unbounded migration, endless resource obligations to outsiders at the expense of our own group. Thus he argues that when societies extend empathy indiscriminately— especially to outsiders or to groups who themselves reject the host society’s foundational values—they deploy their emotional resources against their own long-term interest. That is “suicidal empathy.”
Elon Musk speaks of empathy as a “bug in Western civilisation”—an exploit that allows others (internal ideology, external cultural/immigrant flows) to leverage that weakness.
Here is how to understand the concept in simple terms. Imagine your home. You love hospitality. You open your doors. But you also have thresholds: you won’t let in someone who intends to molest or rape your wife and daughter; dismantle your home’s rules, steal your possessions or throw your family into chaos. Now imagine a society as a larger home. Hospitality and compassion are virtues, but unlimited hospitality to people who refuse to respect your home’s rules is self-destructive.
Empathy is the feeling you open the door with. But reason checks whether that door-opening will wreck your home for the sake of someone else. The West has the feeling of hospitality, but it has lost the reason to check the consequences. That imbalance is suicidal empathy.
Migration, Demographic Change and Civilizational Competition
Saad’s theory animates the larger debates about migration, Islam, multiculturalism and what is now perceived as Western compulsive desire of self-destruction—sort of ‘death drive’ (called thanatos in psychoanalysis by Wilhelm Stekel and Paul Federn, both influenced by the redoubtable Dr. Sigmund Freud). If cultures are unequal and not all value-systems are conducive to Western flourishing, then mass migration from cultures whose ethos diverges from those of liberal democracy presents not simply a humanitarian question but a civilizational risk.
Saad writes that Western societies practising unlimited openness and tolerance are effectively committing suicide: they allow the infiltration of non-assimilating groups whose values may run counter to the host. The empathetic instinct to give, absorb, host, without evaluating long-term consequences, becomes fatal.
When a society says, “We must accept everyone regardless of value-system,” that is cultural relativism in practice. When it says, “We will host migrants in large numbers even if it imposes cultural and economic stress on our citizens,” that is suicidal empathy in practice.
Thus when Saad claims “Demography is destiny” he is referencing the idea that the demographic composition of a society influences its values, its institutions, and its future. If the incoming population holds values inimical to those institutions, the host society is undermined.
European Context and the Migrant Crisis
Western European states have adopted policies of high-volume migration, large quotas for asylum, multiculturalism, and an ethos of tolerance above assimilation. Many arriving migrants (mostly from Muslim-majority countries) come from cultural milieus that emphasise different family structures, gender roles, religious norms, and sometimes harbour attitudes toward homosexuality or secular liberalism that conflict with the host culture. The incoming cultures are not required to fully internalise the host’s liberal values, leading to parallel societies, weak integration and eventually the erosion of the host’s value-system.
The host societies have been tolerating behaviours and preferences that undermine liberal secular values, and yet do not assert their own norms. This has led to social friction on account of unacceptable social behaviour of the migrants as well as downright violent crimes by them like rape on the native white women; identity fragmentation, and ultimately reduction in social capital and trust. Thus we find cultural relativism (the failure to assert one’s own culture as superior or worth defending) and suicidal empathy (the host culture sacrificing its own cohesion) hard at work.
Over time, the host’s number-one priority has become not protecting its own civilisation but showing compassion. According to Saad’s thesis, that inversion, the internal erosion of the host culture’s value base and ultimately civilizational decline, is fatal.
Explaining the Zohran Mamdani Phenomenon
Turning to the U.S., the election of Zohran Mamdani in New York can be interpreted through this lens: a native, liberal democracy society (the U.S.) is seeing increasing displacement of its traditional cultural majorities, migration flows, demographic change and ideological insistence on tolerance above defence of the host culture. From Saad’s standpoint, unless the host culture reverses course, the same process of self-undermining will occur: institutions will fail, values will erode, social capital will decline, and the society will be weaker.
For your edification, Zohran Mamdani is just 34 years old. He had attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he co-founded the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. In January 2014, he co-authored an op-ed in the Bangor Daily News, urging Bowdoin to join the American Studies Association’s boycott of Israel. He graduated in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree with a major in Africana studies. Before running for office, Mamdani worked as foreclosure prevention and housing counsellor, assisting lower-income immigrant homeowners in Queens, New York with eviction notices and efforts to remain in their homes. That’s all the work experience he has if that could be called work.
In comparison Andrew Mark Cuomo, the 68-year old man who lost the election to Mamdani, is a graduate of Fordham University and Albany Law School. His job experiences include the following: assistant district attorney in Manhattan and founder of the Housing Enterprise for the Less Privileged (HELP); U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (1997-2001); Attorney General of New York (2007-10); and Governor of New York (2010-21).
So much so for the ‘enlightened’ electorate of the USA and their famed ‘political wisdom’! People unfairly ridicule the dumbness of the Indian electorate!
Did you notice a clever ploy of the Left-Liberal-Islamist cabal? The entire identity of Zohran is being derived from that of his Muslim father. The Hindu mother Mira Nair was on stage but in the narrative. I don’t have to explain how unscientific it is! What happened to the Left-Liberal’s slogans of women’s equality? Zohran might have chosen his father’s faith but the Left-Liberal cabal downplaying his being half-Hindu by DNA speaks for itself. His father Mahmood Mamdani’s both parents were from Gujarati Ismaili Khoja Muslim family. The Ismaili Khoja Muslims are a community of Muslims believed to have originated from Hindu trading castes in the Sindh and Gujarat regions of the Indian subcontinent who converted to the Nizari Ismaili branch of Shia Islam in the 14th century. The term “Khoja” is an honorific Persian word meaning “pious” or “respected one”. So, does the Left-Liberal cabal implicitly accept that women are like agricultural fields to be ploughed; however, it is only the seeds that matter?
Incidentally, Nupur J. Sharma of OpIndia pointed out on X, citing a piece from Mahmood Mamdani’s book ‘Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror’, wrote: “While Christian extremists were abusing Hindus and being Hinduphobic, their kids voted for Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim extremist, whose father defended suicide bombers and advocated for them to be called “soldiers”.
Approving Voices
Saad’s views have found resonance from diverse sections of the society. We mentioned Elon Musk above who has been warning of the collapse of Western civilization. Some conservative Christian commentators (e.g., Joe Rigney, Allie Beth Stuckey) have framed empathy as a weakness when untethered—aligning with Saad’s “empathy without boundaries” critique.
Amy Mek, Founder & Editor-in-Chief of RAIR Foundation USA (Rise • Align • Ignite • Reclaim) a grassroots activist and investigative journalism organization, wrote on X:
“AMERICA HAS BEEN BETRAYED!
President Trump—
In 2015, you warned the world:
“The United Kingdom is trying hard to disguise their massive Muslim problem. Everybody is wise to what is happening. Very sad! Be honest.”
I remember when you sent that tweet. I agreed then, and I agree now. I have always fought for you.
But today, a Muslim socialist more dangerous than Sadiq Khan has seized control of America’s most powerful city — and the silence from you, JD Vance, and the GOP is deafening.
Where is that same blunt truth you once spoke about Europe’s Islamic crisis?
Where is the courage to say, “It’s happening here — in America”?
Too many of our leaders, like JD Vance, point to Europe’s collapse, yet refuse to confront the same threat growing inside our own borders.
While they posture and hedge, Jews, Christians, Hindus — every non-Muslim American — are being left vulnerable and unprotected.
Mr. President, the bold truth you spoke about Europe must now be spoken — and acted upon — here at home.
Because the same ideology that brought London to its knees has now conquered New York City.
If we don’t face it now, there won’t be a country left to save.”
The Stakes Are Civilisation-Wide
This isn’t just about immigration policy or multicultural tolerance. It’s about the survival of a value-based civilisation. In his essay “Parasitic Ideas and Suicidal Empathy Are Killing the West,” Saad writes: “In the 21st century, it should not be a debatable issue whether men can bear children or have menstrual cycles, but once a mind is infected with a mélange of these idea pathogens, all epistemological bets are off!”
The infiltration of ideological constructs like cultural relativism, radical feminism, social constructivism into universities, media and institutions have weakened our cognitive defences: making citizens unable to defend their own values. Empathy without reason, tolerance without boundaries, openness without assimilation – these are “idea pathogens” in his framing.
And when that cognitive and emotional collapse happens, a civilisation cannot sustain. Just as a biological organism with its immune system compromised is vulnerable to parasites, a civilisation whose citizens no longer believe in its values, and whose emotional reflexes override its survival interest, becomes vulnerable to ideological and demographic parasites.
What the Critics refuse to understand
This line of thought has been traditionally criticised by the Left-Liberal cabal as xenophobic, racist, Islamophobic or alt-right. Some of them link Saad’s “suicidal empathy” framing to white-supremacist narratives or “great replacement theory.”
My view is that this is not about race. Racism is bad; but race is a fact of life. You cannot wish it away in the name of the farce of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). A black or brown man having citizenship of Japan can still not be called a Japanese man—as simple as that. It is about value-systems, culture and assimilation. When we say that cultures are not equal, it is not a moral condemnation of individuals from the migrant culture; it is a strategic observation about civilizational strength.
Justice Louis Brandeis (famous judge of the Supreme Court of the USA) had declared that Americanization meant the immigrants adopt Americanisms and renounce foreign allegiances, dual loyalties and nationalities. Samuel Huntington, American scholar and political scientist, also says that if millions of European immigrants and their children could achieve wealth, power, and status in American society, it was because they assimilated themselves into the prevailing core culture. The central elements of that culture are the Christian religion; Protestant values, including individualism, the work ethic, and moralism; the English language; British traditions of law, justice, and limits on government power; and a legacy of European art, literature, and philosophy.
In India, for example, Hindus’ misfortune and the font of the country’s unending communal problems is that the ‘cultural assimilation’ Samuel Huntington has talked about, was never allowed to take place—first by the Muslims’ own arrogance during the medieval period when they were inflated with the ego of being the co-religionists of the rulers of the theocratic States in the country; and later by the motivated machinations of the Left-Liberal-Islamist cabal and the political parties living on appeasement of the Muslims.
Nations are created primarily on the basis of race, language, and religion. In fact, the very word ‘nation’ comes from Middle English ‘nacioun’ which means ‘a race of people; large group of people with common ancestry and language’. ‘Nacioun’ comes from Old French ‘nacion’ which means birth (naissance). It, in turn, has its roots in Latin ‘natio’ which again means birth, race, tribe, etc. To this Ernst Renan had added the historical past of efforts, sacrifices, and loyalties also.
Saad argues that Western elites are paralysed by suicidal empathy: they cannot say “No” to the unconstrained influx of value-incompatible people. They cannot say “We will not host people whose values threaten ours.” That moral paralysis arises from cultural relativism and hyper‐empathy.
The Immediate Imperatives
There has to arise a civilizational survival instinct first. Societies must be alive to defending themselves, not merely invite, absorb and tolerate without limit. Musk similarly calls for “hard, but necessary” actions.
- Stop suicidal empathy—restore empathy to a bounded, strategic role. Caring for others is fine, but not to the point where your own civilisation’s survival is at risk. Emotion must submit to reason.
- Reject cultural relativism—affirm that your culture has value, that your value-system is superior in terms of flourishing, and that your institutions, language, norms and traditions must be defended.
- Assert assimilation and value-alignment—if you host immigrants, require them to internalise the host’s foundational values, not merely tolerate difference forever.
- Protect borders, identity and demography—recognise that demography matters: a culture without demographic dominance resigns itself to eventual irrelevance (“Demography is destiny”).
- Defend institutions rather than deconstruct them—challenge the university, media, NGO and political elites who propagate idea-pathogens such as radical feminism, radical diversity, limp tolerance, unlimited migration.
The Final Word
Societies must choose between value-defence and unlimited compassion; between assimilation and open-ended tolerance; between cultural identity and cosmopolitan universalism—this is exactly the tension playing out across Europe and the U.S. right now. Remember: “Demography is destiny.” And in a world of competing civilisations, values indeed matter. If you lose your value-engine, you lose your society. The only question left: will you fight the suicide of your civilisation—or sit back, watch your values erode, and claim you were just being kind?
