Dear Kiki,
When are things going to get better?
Many thanks,
Worried and Tired
Dear Worried and Tired,
My friend (I call you, a stranger, my friend because we all need as many friends as we can get at this time), I have been wondering the same for quite a while now. And there are so many platitudes aimed at moments such as these, aren’t there? Sayings and truisms and even comforting art that helps us navigate the day-to-day blows that keep knocking us back. But your question is bigger than that, and I’m going to turn to a rather unlikely source to find an answer.
A few months ago, delusional DOGE daddy Elon Musk went on The Joe Rogan Experience and told the podcast’s millions of listeners that, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” There was all sorts of context to the quote that isn’t really relevant to my answer to you, including references to marketing professor Gad Saad and his philosophy of “suicidal empathy.” But the quote itself exploded over the internet, fertilizing countless minds beyond its pronatalist progenitor’s wildest dreams.
The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.
Here’s the thing, W&T. I think he’s right. And I think it’s beautiful.
Championing the primacy of “Western civilization” and ostensibly protecting it against the influences of other civilizations are at the center of the horrors that you and I are hoping will someday get better. Making America “great again” is intrinsically tied to a return to a time before we strayed so far from our European founders—before the Internet showed us that American exceptionalism was myopic. The push against DEI is, at its core, an argument in favor of radical assimilation to a culture that few still believe is inherently superior.
I believe that things will get better when we are finally ready to let go of the idea that the West is best. And Musk has helpfully told us how to accelerate that process: Empathy.
Musk’s quote, his own relative lack of empathy, and his evident fear of the power of empathy, led me to return to one of the most quoted, most treacly, most insipid-seeming platitudes of all and view it in a whole new light. I’m talking, of course, about the proclamation from Dr. Seuss’ Lorax that, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot / Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
Aren’t you sick of hearing that? Worried and Tired, aren’t you fed up with the implication that we who care and are exhausted from caring should somehow care more? I know I was. But it works. It truly does.
It’s up to each and all of us to continually practice the choral breathing of caring, resting when we must, trusting others to sustain the note, and adding our voice back in when we’re able. When enough of us do it together, people like Musk start realizing that empathy really can topple civilizations — and build them.
xoxo, Kiki
This article was originally published in Little Village’s May 2025 issue.
