"Kumbaya" and the Anti-Empath

The United States is a culture so rooted in the isolation of the individual and the disdain for community and social values that people's attempts to bond with each other and to express empathy have earned their own derisive idioms – such as, "holding hands and singing Kumbaya," "social justice warrior," and "do-gooder." What has always remained in fashion in the United States is the detached and glossed stare of the anti-empath. Whether in his guise as a CEO, political operator, gunslinger or gangster, this emotionally wretched creature is held up as the model human we must all aspire to become. It is no wonder that those of us who reject this mad archetype are relegated to the margins of society and often exist in a state of bewilderment and unease.