Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind

by Gad Saad

The bestselling author of The Parasitic Mind shows why empathy in politics leads to civilizational collapse. What happens when a society elevates victimhood to a virtue and decides that punishment is cruel? You get the disease Dr. Gad Saad calls suicidal empathy. And the West may be terminally infected. In his new book, Suicidal Empathy, Saad unleashes a blistering critique of maladaptively irrational altruism that has gripped our culture. This mind parasite hijacked the empathy module of our progressive elite, leading to a catastrophic miscalibration of moral priorities. The results are from coddling violent criminals to protecting rapists to branding self-defense as toxic behavior. We are witnessing a civilization in rapid decline. Lunatic policies are instituted because we prioritize the feelings of ostensibly marginalized groups over The Truth, criminals over victims, and squatters over homeowners. This is not humane; it’s an active dismantling of the pillars that keep us safe and free. This crisis of empathy creates a horrifying system of inverse morality where the strong and successful are demonized, and the destructive are celebrated. Just look at the insane inversions we tolerate we prefer illegal migrants over our own legal citizens and veterans, permit drug addicts to threaten children’s safety in parks, and elevate transgender 'women' above biological women in sports and safe spaces. Common sense is dying in a deluge of misguided compassion. Suicidal Empathy is your wake-up call. Stop ignoring your survival instincts in the name of political correctness. This isn't just misguided policy; it is the ultimate expression of a culture actively choosing its own demise.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Psychology, Philosophy, Sociology

256 pages, Hardcover

Published May 12, 2026

About the author

Dr. Gad Saad is Professor of Marketing, holder of the Concordia University Research Chair in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences and Darwinian Consumption, and advisory fellow at the Center for Inquiry. He was an Associate Editor of Evolutionary Psychology (2012-2015) and of Customer Needs and Solutions (2014- ). He has held Visiting Associate Professorships at Cornell University, Dartmouth College, and the University of California-Irvine. Dr. Saad was inducted into the Who’s Who of Canadian Business in 2002. He was listed as one of the “hot” professors of Concordia University in both the 2001 and 2002 Maclean’s reports on Canadian universities. Dr. Saad received the JMSB Faculty’s Distinguished Teaching Award in June 2000. He is the recipient of the 2014 Darwinism Applied Award granted by the Applied Evolutionary Psychology Society and co-recipient of the 2015 President's Media Outreach Award-Research Communicator (International). His research and teaching interests include evolutionary psychology, consumer behavior, and psychology of decision making.

Professor Saad’s trade book, The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature (Prometheus Books), was released in June 2011, and has since been translated to Korean and Turkish. His 2007 book, The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption (Lawrence Erlbaum) is the first academic book to demonstrate the Darwinian roots of a wide range of consumption phenomena. His edited book, Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences, was also released in 2011 (Springer), as was his special issue on the futures of evolutionary psychology published in Futures (Elsevier).

He has over 75 scientific publications covering a wide range of disciplines including in marketing, consumer behavior, psychology, economics, evolutionary theory, medicine, and bibliometrics. A sample of outlets wherein his publications have appeared include Journal of Marketing Research; Journal of Consumer Psychology; Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes; Journal of Behavioral Decision Making; Evolution and Human Behavior; Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics; Marketing Theory; Journal of Social Psychology; Personality and Individual Differences; Managerial and Decision Economics; Journal of Bioeconomics; Applied Economics Letters; Journal of Business Research; Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences; Psychology & Marketing; Journal of Consumer Marketing; Medical Hypotheses; Scientometrics; and Futures. His work has been presented at 170 leading academic conferences, research centers, and universities around the world.

Dr. Saad has supervised or served on the committee of numerous Master’s and Doctoral students, as well as one post-doc. He has been awarded several research grants (both internal as well as governmental). Using his own grant money, he created an in-house behavioral marketing lab. He serves/has served on numerous editorial boards including Journal of Marketing Research; Journal of Consumer Psychology; Psychology & Marketing; Journal of Business Research; Journal of Social Psychology; Evolutionary Psychology; Open Behavioral Science Journal; Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics; Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology/Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences; The Evolutionary Review; and Frontiers of Evolutionary Psychology; and is an associate member of Behavioral and Brain Sciences. He has consulted for numerous firms, and his work has been featured in close to 500 media outlets including on television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and blogs. He has been designated Concordia's Newsmaker of the Week five years in a row (2011-2015).

Dr. Saad holds a PhD (Major: Marketing; Minors in Cognitive Studies and Statistics) and an MS from Cornell University, and an MBA (Specialization: Marketing; Mini-Thesis: Operations Research) and a BSc (Mathematics and Computer Science) both from McGill Uni

Reviews

[Jay Cresva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely potent, high-octane rage fuel.
Orgiastically cathartic.
Chilling.
Sure to be hated by 1) White liberal women 2) Radical Islamists


They are coming, and they will conquer the west through the wombs of your women and you might just offer them up in fears of being labelled a racist.


This is an extremely difficult read/listen. Not because it's complicated, filled with difficult academic jargon, but because of the subject matter it covers. It's filled with sarcasm and dry humor, reads like pop-psychology book, sure, but you can't laugh because it's no laughing matter. Each example of suicidal empathy and how it manifests itself hits you like whip on raw flesh; each lash enrages you.

Probably not for everyone. White liberal women won't touch this book because they will never be open minded enough. Radical Islamists won't touch this book, this is written by a Jew, it's more haram than a slab of delicious bacon, surely. Leaving Gad preaching to the choir, a Saad truth.

As a person who was born in an 'religion of peace'-country, but as a Christian, I cry for the west and the cancer it self-inflicted with. it starts with a self-assuring vowel, but ends with (almost) government sanctioned jew hunts (synagogue shootings, with slap-on-the-wrist punishments), grooming of the young (Pakistani grooming gangs, grooming white young girls in UK), and rape of innocents (rape of Europeans, they are 'Kaffir' and thus literal f-holes).
It is societal cancer, and always comes as stage IV, there is no 'moderate' or stage I, II, III..it skips all stage to stage Iv terminal cancer; they forever complicit, never condemning crimes committed in the names of their God, all participating in destruction of the host..which are mainly western Christian nations (is that odd?).

The most pathological thing about suicidal empathy for these people are pathological acceptance of their own cognitive dissonance; even rape victim starts to defend their rapists, in this bizarre, twilight-zone of a dimension where suicidal altruism is the religion.
One example that stuck with me, and will probably forever haunt me is BLM advocate in an African country getting raped repeatedly in a balcony, while she tries to convince her rapist that she's a specialist in Malcolm X and the black struggle, only to be slapped as he enters her repeatedly. She then blames the rape as the fault of white colonization instead, saying she's glad to have had this experience.

It's nothing short of being infected with those parasitic brain-eating Ophiocordyceps fungi that hijack the nervous systems of insects, primarily ants, forcing them to behave like zombies to spread spores to spread more of themselves.

The book goes into detail of how suicidal empathy normalizes crime, radicalism, over-taxation, with examples from all corners of the world. Canada and Justin Trudeau gets special mentions because Canada is a literal example of what suicidal empathy does to a nation. Only in Canada you find these:



In a suicidal empathetic Canada - it is totally normal to offer kids pamphlets on how to snort crack cocaine..

This book does not really offer any hope, because there probably aren't any for the west. It is dying a slow, sure death.

[Eri Bastos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great book from Gad Saad.

Following him on X gave me a pretty good idea of what to expect, and I was not disappointed. The book is full of real-life examples, many of them recent enough to still be fresh in my memory.

As an immigrant to Canada, like the author, I found parts of the book painful to read. Not because I disagreed with him, but because I kept nodding along as he described the civilizationally suicidal path our country seems determined to follow.

The delusions currently gripping Western society are already producing disastrous consequences. I will leave the reader to go through the book and draw their own conclusions.

My only frustration is that, like his previous book and others with similar warnings, it sometimes feels like preaching to the choir. The people who most need to read this book are almost certainly the least likely to pick it up.

[Jeffrey Horelick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Brilliant Wake-Up Call on Modern Empathy

Suicidal Empathy by Gad Saad is one of the most intellectually engaging and thought-provoking books I have read in years. I read several books every week, and very few stand out as true learning experiences the way this one did. From beginning to end, Professor Saad demonstrates an extraordinary level of intelligence, courage, and dedication in explaining the behavioral and psychological roots of many of today’s cultural and societal conflicts.

I would also like to thank Elon Musk for recommending this book. Without that suggestion, I may never have discovered such a fascinating and important read.

What makes this book so compelling is the way Gad Saad combines psychology, evolutionary behavioral science, current events, history, and real-world examples into a clear and understandable narrative. Rather than simply presenting theories, he carefully walks the reader through examples that illustrate how excessive empathy when detached from logic, self-preservation, and truth can become destructive both personally and societally.

The author discusses modern cultural events and controversies in ways that challenge readers to think critically. He references incidents such as the aftermath of George Floyd and the tragic case of Laken Riley to demonstrate how ideology, language manipulation, and emotional reasoning can sometimes overshadow rational discussion and accountability. Whether one agrees with every conclusion or not, the book succeeds in encouraging readers to examine difficult issues honestly rather than emotionally.

One particularly memorable section involved the manipulation of language itself. Saad explains how changing terminology can soften or normalize behaviors that society once clearly condemned. His examples were shocking at times, but they made an important point about how language shapes perception. The discussion about attempts to normalize even extreme behaviors, including cannibalism in certain academic circles, was especially disturbing yet eye-opening because it demonstrated how far ideological movements can go when boundaries are removed in the name of empathy or tolerance.

Another powerful analogy in the book is the classic story of the scorpion and the frog. The frog, acting out of compassion, carries the scorpion across the river only to be stung in the end. That immediately reminded me of the story often referenced by Donald Trump during his speeches about the kind woman who rescues a snake from the cold, only to be bitten after showing it mercy. Both stories perfectly illustrate the core message behind “suicidal empathy”; when compassion ignores human nature, danger, or self-preservation, the consequences can be devastating.


At the same time, what I appreciated most was that Gad Saad does not argue against kindness or helping others. In fact, the book indirectly reinforces the importance of altruism helping others without selfish intent, but with wisdom, discernment, and personal responsibility. There is a major difference between healthy compassion and self-destructive empathy, and this book explains that distinction brilliantly.

What truly elevates this book is its readability. Despite dealing with complex psychological and societal issues, the writing remains entertaining, engaging, and often humorous. Saad’s storytelling ability keeps the reader interested while gradually connecting all the individual examples into a larger picture. By the end of the book, the reader begins to understand how many modern problems originate, how emotional manipulation can distort truth, and how awareness and rational thinking may help society course-correct.

This is not just a political or cultural commentary, it is a deep psychological exploration of human behavior, ideology, and survival. Whether you agree with every argument or not, Suicidal Empathy forces you to think, question assumptions, and examine the consequences of valuing feelings over reality.

[Owen Zimmerman · Rating 1 out of 5]

conservative brainrot void of any material analysis. Claims to be fighting against the idealization of victimization, and then immedietely idealizes the "innocent", claims victimhood from anyone who poses any sort of violent threat that is not a straight white man with a millions dollars of bribe and coercion money, and devalues the "criminals" using racialized tropes to demonize anyone who does not obey the law, which he calls "The Truth". The law is not morality, we can have accountability and self defense that is not punishment without giving authority to sadists to be sadists. This book is narcissism through and through, a bitter attack on empathy, projection of "danger" from an inability to process fear, idealization of the "good" identity groups and devaluation of the "bad" identity groups. You want people off the streets, put them in homes not prisons. You want rapists to be punished, let the victims decide what punishment is necessary, not judges pretending to be neutral and objective. This is what happens when your worldview is built from right wing media and not anyones actual experience, but you wanna write a book for some rape money.

[༺ Jason ༻ · Rating 1 out of 5]

As an independent thinker and voter I’m proud to live in a country of free speech. That noted this book should be called When it’s ok to Hate because it’s full of rubbish.

[Ken Chaar · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very boring and terribly written book, everyone wants to be an author these days. Cannot recommend more to stay away.