I have watched and read Dr. Gad Saad, a recognized intellectual who possesses common sense and analytical skill and understands human behavior and the human psyche. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary psychology and is a competent and eloquent moral philosopher and epistemologist—a student of knowledge who searches for the truth.
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I chose to review his three recent books, although his earlier research and writing also concerned psychology, economic activity, and behavioral psychology. One example is his 2011 book, The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature.
Saad released three important books in 2020, 2023, and 2026, all pertinent to today’s social and political dynamics.
In 2020, The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense argued that the promotion of socialist ideas in Western societies must be opposed or Western civilization will succumb to totalitarianism. It is as simple as that.
Saad goes down the list of lies, pathological ideas, and attitudes that will destroy Western civilization through death by a thousand cuts: radical feminism, postmodernism, social constructivism, political correctness, cultural and moral relativism, nihilism, racialism, echo chambers devoid of intellectual diversity, a culture of perpetual offense and victimhood, identity politics, and progressive self-flagellation.
He devotes the middle of the book to these irrational and harmful attitudes. Emotional capture is the enemy of rationality.
Self-censorship is an impediment to defending rationality because the proponents of socialist ideas have created an aggressive, harsh, censorious environment for their opponents. Examples of this intolerance and cancel culture are easy for Dr. Saad to display because he is in academia and lives close to intolerant groupthink.
Racialist identity politics and affirmative action are presented as irrational activities justified by the DEI environment. Rational scientific approaches are rejected. Meritocracy is deemed racist.
In the middle chapters, Saad expands on the problem of postmodernism and the pathogens that masquerade as “my truth” and other inanities, such as the claim that men can be women. No matter the idea, each always circles back to postmodernism, which claims that there are no objective truths.
Saad declares, “In order to espouse their endless irrational positions while maintaining a straight face, social justice warriors must ignore, deny, or reject reality. Progressivism has become an enemy of reason.” In this regard, he explains the Ostrich Parasitic Syndrome—a collection of tricks designed to help the infected ignore or reject realities and truths.
The concluding chapters discuss how to find nomological truth—that is, truth grounded in real evidence—and how to fight for good ideas and a rational approach to the search for truth. Saad takes his proper place among other modern-day intellectual giants of good sense.
In The Saad Truth about Happiness: 8 Secrets for Leading the Good Life, Saad examines the universal quest for happiness. He’s a humanist, so he provides an inspiring and level-headed summary of what happiness is, as opposed to what one might think it is, and how to attain and retain it.
To that end, he writes about finding one’s way; the importance of flexibility, courage, and making adjustments; seizing opportunities; finding fulfillment in life and work; and why income is not as important as fulfillment. Saad explains that variety and new activities keep the fires burning, moderation is a rewarding virtue, and, when one is unhappy, one should find something that brings happiness.
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The last rule for achieving happiness is a winner: Pick the right spouse, or it is going to hurt.
Saad engages the subject skillfully. He is popular because he is not esoteric, yet he has great insights and explains them well.
And then there’s Saad’s most recent and, perhaps, most important book: Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind. In it, he addresses the inanity of emotion-driven sympathy and empathy, which he calls “suicidal empathy.” It could also be called pathological altruism, and, along with envy, it is a foundation for socialism and the willingness to jettison one’s own culture in favor of another, lesser culture.
Saad goes after socialist dreamers for their unrestrained emotional support for unfettered immigration; soft law enforcement and punishment; the enabling of unhappy, dysmorphic, gender-fluid people; support for welfare-state socialism and government expansion; and fanatical environmentalism. All these positions are energized by emotion and a refusal to assess rationally the truth and the consequences of some proposed socialist “solutions.”
Thomas Sowell, the famed philosopher and economist, said it well: “There are no solutions, just trade-offs.” The empathetic, however, reject such rationality.
I would add that the empathetic not only refuse to assess the consequences of their policies, but also refuse to demand accountability for the bad outcomes that result from crazed altruism.
Saad delivers a rapid-fire takedown of empathetic ninnies and their goals: replacing the Age of Reason with the Age of Empathy, replacing meritocracy with fanatical and insane egalitarianism, and freeing guilt-ridden narcissistic darlings from the bonds of rationality so that they can embrace feelings and a sense of goodness while ignoring the consequences.
He also takes a good swipe at junk scientists, the conduct of politically partisan scientists, and the public’s reaction to “settled science.” Suicidal empathy produces junk science and false truths and abandons rationality and common sense in pursuit of a supposedly noble goal. In doing so, it fools its advocates and, of course, deceives society as a whole.
One of the most interesting sections sees Saad discuss DEI and the demise of merit as the measure of success, along with all the torturous efforts to achieve equal outcomes in a world in which human beings are not equal in talent or character. Saad takes stupidity out of hiding and puts it on display.
In the concluding chapter, Dr. Saad provides a list of remedies for toxic or suicidal empathy:
- Resist the empathy hit. Consider the consequences of all empathetic actions, and do not seek cheap gratification.
- Do not be trapped by myopia when engaging in empathetic actions. Consider the second-order effects and consequences.
- Do not get cute by using singular-exemplar bias. Do not build a polemic around exceptional cases.
- Equality before the law—a civil right and equal opportunity—is not the same as equality of outcomes or status.
- Do not be a fence-sitter. There are truths, even when they hurt someone’s feelings.
- Expect and demand reciprocity, or you are in a parasitic relationship, as happens too often.
- Choose the targets of your empathy wisely. Make sure they deserve it.
- Adaptive empathy is noble, but emotionally driven suicidal empathy is wrong.
Dr. Saad concludes, “A society dies when it cares more about exhibiting infinite tolerance and empathy than invoking its survival instinct. It truly is that simple.”
Image created using AI.
John Dale Dunn, M.D., J.D., is a retired emergency physician and inactive attorney in Brownwood, Texas.
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