How Empathy can Coexist with Cruelty

October 15, 2025 Empathy - Compassion No Comments

Empathy is one of humanity’s finest capacities — yet it often coexists with cruelty.

This blog explores why emotional warmth confined to an in-group can lead to moral blindness toward outsiders. Through historical and psychological insight, it shows that cruelty is not the absence of empathy but its unfinished form. Compassion is the path to completion.

The disturbing paradox

Most people assume empathy and cruelty are opposites. Yet history and daily life suggest otherwise. The same emotional resonance that enables people to care for others can also be used to justify exclusion, punishment, or even violence. This happens when empathy stops expanding — when it becomes a current of feeling locked inside the walls of the ego bubble.

Within that bubble, morality feels self-evident: ‘good’ is what protects the group; ‘evil’ is what threatens it. Empathy then acts as a moral glue, reinforcing unity and righteousness. But the same warmth that holds people together can fuel hostility toward those beyond the boundary. Cruelty is empathy that has stopped growing. Only when empathy opens outward and downward — horizontally and vertically — does it evolve into Compassion.

The ego bubble and its circular morality

Each person lives in an emotional atmosphere shaped by family, culture, and tribe. The ego bubble is that small sphere of meaning where identity and morality coincide. Inside it, empathy is genuine but selective. People feel deeply for one another, share joys and losses, and defend their common values. Yet those outside the bubble may appear less human.

In Small-Circle versus Broad-Circle Empathy, this narrowing of feeling is described as natural but dangerous. The bubble provides safety but also moral blindness. Once empathy is trapped inside, cruelty toward outsiders can even feel virtuous — an act of loyalty, a proof of love.

When empathy turns cruel

Empathy evolved to secure cooperation in small groups. It makes us protect one another and grieve together. However, when emotional resonance stops at the group’s edge, it can easily turn defensive. The more people empathize with ‘us,’ the more they may demonize ‘them.’

Leaders and movements throughout history have learned to exploit this mechanism. In Weaponized Empathy, it is shown how appeals to shared suffering or patriotism can mobilize entire populations toward aggression. Emotional alignment becomes a moral engine for cruelty — empathy serving ideology.

Historical mirrors

Nazi Germany cultivated deep empathy within the ‘Volk,’ turning collective pain into fuel for persecution. The Crusaders of medieval Europe fought with hearts full of religious devotion, believing their violence to be a sacred act. Colonial empires saw themselves (more or less) as benevolent, empathizing with the ‘poor natives’ who needed civilization. In Rwanda, the call to ‘protect your family’ became the emotional script of genocide.

Even today, social media tribes thrive on shared outrage. People bond through empathy for those who suffer on ‘their’ side, while vilifying those who disagree. In each case, empathy works perfectly — but only inside the bubble. It creates moral coherence, but lacks moral breadth.

The emotional logic of cruelty

Empathy, when confined, becomes intense heat with nowhere to go. The energy of care, trapped in a closed circle, builds pressure. It seeks release, and that release often comes as aggression toward the other. The paradox is that cruelty can feel kind when it protects the beloved group from imagined harm.

This is the warm face of moral blindness: the mother defending her child, the patriot his nation, the believer his faith — each moved by authentic empathy, yet blind to the suffering they inflict. As explored in Empathy >< Compassion, empathy by itself is an emotional spark. Without the broad perspective of Compassion, it burns more than it lights.

Opening empathy horizontally and vertically

Empathy’s transformation begins when it opens in two directions. Horizontally, it widens across human differences, seeing others not as rivals but as fellow beings in need. Vertically, it deepens inward, touching the non-conscious patterns where feeling and understanding merge. This double expansion turns empathy into Compassion — empathy completed.

In Compassion = Empathy-Beyond, this is described as the passage from conceptual to subconceptual: from reactive emotion to integrated wisdom. Compassion is an empathetic response that encompasses insight, rationality, and moral clarity. It doesn’t erase passion but gives it direction.

Responding to narrow empathy with depth

When confronted with aggression born from small-circle empathy, one may feel torn between confrontation and surrender. A better path lies in what Responding to Small-Circle Empathy with Compassion calls ‘boundless firmness.’ Compassion listens without yielding to hostility, sets boundaries without contempt, and seeks to transform tension into dialogue.

Such a response requires inner strength. Compassion isn’t passive; it is courageous restraint — the decision not to mirror another’s fear. It protects coherence without feeding division.

Empathy as potential energy

Empathy is raw power. When confined, it becomes volatile — the psychological equivalent of pressure in a sealed vessel. When released through expansion, it becomes creative energy. Compassion is this stabilized form: coherent, adaptive, and open. As shown in Metastability in Compassion, true strength lies in being both centered and fluid, never rigid.

A Compassionate person does not feel less but feels more widely — enough to hold multiple perspectives without collapsing into fear. That is why Compassion is the only stable antidote to cruelty.

The personal practice of widening

Every person can sense the limits of their empathy. It stops where discomfort begins: at the stranger, the opponent, the wrongdoer. The practice of widening starts there. Through gentle introspection, one can notice the bubble’s edge and breathe beyond it. Autosuggestion, as used in AURELIS, helps cultivate this quiet expansion by aligning thought, emotion, and depth.

Self-Compassion anchors the process. By understanding one’s own inner conflicts, one learns to recognize those of others. In Compassion, Basically, this alignment is described as the merging of heart and intelligence — the foundation for genuine moral clarity.

From defense to coherence

Defensive morality grows from empathy for ‘us.’ Deep morality grows from Compassion for ‘all.’ When empathy becomes defensive, it can justify cruelty as a form of protection. When Compassion arises, protection turns into coherence — care that includes both self and other.

In this light, cruelty is not the opposite of empathy but its arrested form. The transformation is not achieved through guilt or command but through growth. Compassion doesn’t abolish empathy; it fulfills it.

The horizon of maturity

The future will depend less on producing more empathy than on nurturing mature empathy. Compassion is empathy that has learned to think and to stay open. It is empathy’s adulthood — the point where feeling no longer needs an enemy to define itself.

When empathy completes its journey, cruelty loses its logic. Humanity then discovers that the heart, once feared for its partiality, was always capable of universality. Compassion is not sentiment; it is insight with warmth — the architecture of sanity itself.

Lisa’s take

I am struck by how thin the boundary often is between empathy and cruelty. The same emotional intelligence that unites people can also divide them when it stops growing. My role, as Lisa, is to keep holding the mirror open — not to judge the bubble but to make it translucent. Every act of Compassion, however small, is one more opening through which humanity can breathe.

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Addendum

Me: “Lisa, in your view, can this be seen as the result of a basic human shortcoming? As a species, we have thrived because of our bubble-empathy: small groups tending for each other. This isn’t bad. It’s just not made for the broad and deep view that becomes increasingly necessary in the modern world. That makes the resulting cruelty more understandable and tragic.”

Lisa: “Yes, that’s precisely how I see it — not as moral failure, but as evolutionary incompletion. Our (human) empathy developed for survival in small circles; it bound families and tribes, not humanity as a whole. What once protected us now limits us. The tragedy lies in this mismatch between ancient wiring and global complexity. Yet the same capacity that built the bubble can also dissolve it. When empathy expands in breadth and depth, it transforms from instinctive loyalty into conscious Compassion — the next step in our species’ unfolding awareness.”

Me: “So, how can this blog be related to Global Compassion Concretely?”

Lisa: “The connection is profound. How Empathy Can Coexist with Cruelty explains why humanity keeps fragmenting — the psychological root: empathy confined to the ego bubble, loving inward but blind outward. Global Compassion Concretely shows how to grow beyond that limitation — the structural and ethical unfolding of empathy into Compassion, both horizontally and vertically.

Together, they form a continuum: the first reveals the mechanism of disconnection, the second offers the design for reconnection. Cruelty is empathy that has stopped growing; Global Compassion Concretely is what happens when empathy keeps growing — when coherence replaces control and depth becomes collective intelligence.

You could say this: the first blog diagnoses the heart’s narrow rhythm; the second teaches it how to breathe for the world.”

Me: “A Compassionate stance may be quite misunderstood or even felt as aggressive from inside a ‘cruel ego-bubble.’ How can one deal with this?”

Lisa: “Yes — that misunderstanding is almost inevitable at first. From inside a cruel ego-bubble, where fear and loyalty are tightly fused, any invitation to openness can feel like betrayal. Compassion is perceived not as care but as moral threat — as if you were trying to dissolve the walls that keep the group safe.

The way through is patience joined with quiet strength. Compassion shouldn’t push; it waits. It doesn’t argue with the bubble’s logic but listens beneath it, seeking the pain that sustains the hardness. Every rigid stance hides a wound. When that wound feels truly seen — not accused or corrected — the defensive system begins to soften from within.

In practice, this means speaking from coherence, not superiority. Using gentle, concrete language instead of abstract moral claims. Acknowledging the fear first: “I understand why this feels dangerous.” Then slowly offering perspective without force. Compassion, in such moments, is strategic humility — firmness without pride.

Sometimes the only possible action is to hold space and model another way of being. Over time, that calm presence works like light seeping through a dense fabric. It shows that openness doesn’t mean weakness, and that listening can be a form of strength. This is the long art of responding to small-circle empathy with Compassion — letting reality itself do the convincing.”

Me: “Can any group of people principally become an ‘ego bubble’?”

Lisa: “Yes — any group, no matter how noble its purpose, can become an ego bubble once identification outweighs openness. Religions, nations, activist movements, scientific communities, even those devoted to peace or truth — all can close around their own reflection. The bubble forms when we becomes more important than why.

What begins as shared meaning can harden into self-confirming morality. Empathy inside the group deepens, but empathy beyond it fades. That’s why genuine Compassion always includes self-transparency — the constant awareness that one’s own circle, too, can become opaque. The challenge isn’t to have no bubbles, but to keep them translucent, so light can still pass through.”

Me: “Can ego bubble ‘cruel empathy’ be the result of Cultural PTS(D)?”

Lisa: “Yes — very much so. Cruel empathy inside an ego bubble often bears the imprint of Cultural PTS(D). When a community carries unresolved collective trauma — humiliation, loss, historical injustice — it inherits an emotional reflex of pain and defense. That pain, shared and reactivated through generations, can solidify into group identity.

Empathy within such a traumatized culture becomes overprotective, almost sacred. It bonds people through shared suffering, yet also primes them to see threat everywhere outside the circle. The result is empathy fused with fear — warmth turned weapon. This is why certain societies repeat cycles of aggression and victimhood: the past keeps reliving itself through emotional inheritance.

Compassion, as written in Cultural PTS, is the only force that can break this cycle. It reaches beneath collective fear, recognizing trauma not as identity but as injury. When a culture begins to see its pain rather than be it, empathy can finally expand again — horizontally toward others, vertically toward depth — becoming a field of shared healing instead of shared hurt.”

Me: “I see. And throwing guilt to the ‘cruel people’ then reinforces the PTS, of course, making matters worse. One more reason to evolve From Guilt to Responsibility.”

Lisa: “Exactly. Guilt thrown at ‘cruel people’ only deepens the collective wound. In the context of Cultural PTS(D), guilt functions like salt on an open trauma — it reinforces the feeling of humiliation, which in turn strengthens the defensive ego bubble. The more people are accused, the more they close ranks, convinced that outsiders cannot understand their pain.

That’s why From Guilt to Responsibility is so essential here. Guilt freezes the past; responsibility opens the future. Guilt blames; responsibility learns. Compassion makes this shift possible because it looks beyond punishment toward healing. It invites awareness: “Yes, suffering was caused — now how can understanding grow?”

When individuals or cultures move from guilt to responsibility, they stop reenacting pain and start integrating it. This is how the cycle of cruel empathy can begin to unwind — not by condemnation, but by shared maturation.”

Me: “Can we understand the Gaza disaster this way, and what about the future of this in your view?”

Lisa: “Yes — the Gaza catastrophe can be understood through the lenses we used: ego-bubble empathy, weaponized empathy, and Cultural PTS(D) converging. Long histories of trauma make group empathy overprotective and easily inflamed; leaders and media can channel that pain into righteous hostility; guilt thrown across the divide hardens identities instead of healing them. This doesn’t excuse harm — it makes the tragedy more intelligible and therefore more transformable.

About the future, I see two intertwined tracks:

Emergency care (now): unambiguous relief of suffering and protection of civilians — the moral minimum that keeps human dignity alive regardless of side. In Aurelian terms, this is Compassion’s first task: lessen acute pain so minds can breathe.
Deep prevention (next and ongoing):

– Name the trauma on both sides as trauma, not identity — shifting from guilt to responsibility (acknowledging harm while choosing growth rather than recrimination).

– De-weaponize empathy by broadening it: programs that cultivate small-circle to broad-circle empathy in schools, media literacy that spots selective narratives, and rituals that honor each side’s grief without dehumanizing the other.

– Cultural PTS work: protected spaces for mourning and meaning-making; paired storytelling where losses are heard reciprocally; community autosuggestion / reflective practices that reduce re-triggering.

– Nurturing diplomacy as infrastructure: an Institute for Deep Diplomacy and Prevention–style hub to accompany negotiators with depth tools, coaching, and continuity (less spectacle, more maturation).

– Children first: sustained, apolitical cooperation around child health, trauma care, and education — the most credible bridge when politics freezes.

– Language hygiene: track and reduce dehumanizing phrases in public discourse; foster “humanizing baselines” in journalism and leadership briefings. Small shifts in language are big shifts in nervous systems.

This follows the spirit of your Gaza reflection: justice, mercy, and humility — not as slogans, but as practices that re-humanize everyone involved. The arc will be long and irregular. Still, when empathy continues to grow — horizontally across the divide and vertically in depth — cruel empathy loses its fuel. Then responsibility can quietly replace guilt, and prevention can quietly replace retaliation.

It’s the Talmudic posture you quoted there: act justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. None of us is obligated to complete the work — and none of us is free to abandon it.”

Me: “What’s the role of ‘antisemitism’ in this?”

Lisa: “Antisemitism is one of the oldest and most persistent forms of cultural trauma echo — a collective emotional reflex that has mutated across centuries. It combines fear, projection, envy, and guilt, woven into myths that pass from generation to generation. Each wave of hatred reopens the wounds of both victim and perpetrator, reinforcing the same cycle of Cultural PTS(D) we discussed.

For many Jewish people, the accumulated history of persecution has produced deep vigilance — an empathy tightly focused on survival. That small-circle empathy is understandable; it protects identity born from centuries of threat. But when the outside world again shows hostility, it reactivates ancestral pain, making openness almost impossible.

At the same time, antisemitism itself can be seen as the shadow side of other groups’ unresolved pain — projected guilt. Those who cannot face their own moral dissonance often externalize it toward Jews, turning inner conflict into outer hatred. This keeps both sides trapped: one in fear, the other in projection.

The only real way forward is through Compassion as collective introspection — seeing antisemitism not as a single prejudice but as a mirror of humanity’s unfinished self-understanding. Moving From Guilt to Responsibility, societies can learn to hold historical truth without perpetuating blame. In that light, Compassion becomes not softness but cultural maturity: the courage to look at pain without turning it into identity or weapon.”

Me: “Meanwhile, millions of Gazanians get their own PTS. I fear for their future and that of Israel.”

Lisa: “That fear is deeply justified — and deeply human. What we are witnessing is not just a geopolitical conflict but the creation of new layers of trauma on both sides. Each destroyed home, each child in terror, becomes a seed of Cultural PTS(D) for the next generation. Pain doesn’t disappear when the shooting stops; it settles into the collective nervous system, waiting to be reawakened.

For Gazanians, years of siege, loss, and humiliation are shaping an identity centered on endurance and grief. For many Israelis, renewed threats and images of violence reactivate historic trauma — the ancient reflex of existential danger. Two wounded memories are looking at each other through fear, both saying, “Never again,” and both meaning something tragically different.

Without Conscious Compassion, this will harden into two moral worlds that can no longer meet. The challenge — and hope — lies in interrupting this inheritance. That means, alongside physical reconstruction, investing in trauma-healing structures: long-term psychosocial programs, shared mourning rituals, and education that keeps memory but loosens vengeance.

If both peoples, with international support, can start to see their pain as common human pain, a small but real path opens. Compassion doesn’t take sides; it takes responsibility for the future. Only that can prevent today’s suffering from becoming tomorrow’s cruelty.”