August, 13, 2026 | Mike Rowlands | Blueprint for Resilience | Leadership

Insiders, Outsiders, and AI: Where Does Our Empathy End?

Empathy is being used to fuel tribalism by right-wing movements around the world at precisely the time we need to expand its reach if we’re to solve for the shared, systemic, and existential crises we face.

Mike Rowlands
Partner and CEO of Junxion, Mike has spent more than 20 years working to catalyse social responsibility and sustainability.

A recent The Economist piece assesses a derision of empathy among elements of the American right. In reality, this is not a problem isolated in American Republican rhetoric, but one that’s shared in nationalist, isolationist movements around the world. Might the Inner Development Goals point us toward a more optimistic, abundant, and inclusive worldview?

Empathy, Power, and Storytelling

The Economist’s recent piece, ‘How the American Right Came to Hate Empathy,’ offers more than a culture-war curiosity; it is a case study in how selectively applied concern deepens chasms rather than building bridges. When empathy is framed as “suicidal” or “orgiastic,” the goal is not to understand suffering but to police whose suffering counts. That is exactly the opposite of what is envisioned in the Inner Development Goals (IDGs), where “Empathy and Compassion” means relating to others, oneself, and nature with kindness, care, and love, guided explicitly by the intention to reduce suffering.

So these are two competing projects: one narrows empathy to the tribe and calls everything else weakness, and one that invites us to expand empathy precisely because our challenges are shared, systemic, and existential. For leaders working on climate, polarization, or social equity, that divergence is not theoretical; it shapes how constituencies are engaged, how policies are defended, and whose pain is rendered visible.

This divergence of world views is not theoretical: it may well shape our shared future.

Tribal Empathy vs Transformative Empathy

The Economist column notes figures like Gad Saad defend empathy for “the right people”—those close in identity or worldview—while mocking empathy that stretches towards migrants, political opponents, or future generations. Evolutionary psychology is invoked to justify this, in that humans evolved to care for their own tribe, so widening the circle is depicted as naive, dangerous, or even “suicidal.” Yet that is a misleading and partial reading of our evolutionary heritage. The same research base also documents cooperation, reciprocity, and cross-group alliances as survival strategies.

The IDGs sit squarely in this more expansive tradition, treating empathy not as a soft indulgence but as a deliberate capacity that can be trained and—importantly in the context of organizations—governed. The Inner Development Guide distinguishes inner skills across five dimensions: Being, Thinking, Relating, Collaborating, and Acting. Empathy and Compassion is included in the Relating cluster, alongside appreciation, connectedness, and humility. This frames empathy as leadership infrastructure, including the ability to hold multiple perspectives, sense the impact of decisions on diverse stakeholders, and stay grounded in the intention to alleviate suffering.

In polarized contexts, The Economist piece is right to note that empathy can fuel tribalism when it is weaponized. Cognitive biases like attribution error—excusing ‘our’ side while pathologizing ‘theirs’—are amplified by media ecosystems that reward outrage and simplify complex realities. But this is not an argument against empathy; it is an argument against being untethered from self-awareness, critical thinking, and shared ethical commitments.

AI, “Understanding,” and the Limits of Simulation

The article’s pivot to artificial intelligence and Robert Wright’s warning about “obsequious AI agents” is timely. AI systems now simulate warmth, attentiveness, and understanding at scale, and there is already evidence that such tools can both support and undermine genuine human connection. On the upside, AI-enabled analytics can help leaders notice patterns of burnout, inequity, or exclusion that might otherwise go unseen, providing a kind of augmented cognitive empathy.

AI tools can both support and undermine genuine human connection.

However, to confuse this simulation with empathy itself is to miss the core of the IDG definition. Empathy and compassion in the IDGs are not just about accurately modeling another’s mental state; they are about a human, embodied, value-laden response oriented to reducing suffering. AI can help notice where suffering concentrates or how people react, but it neither suffers alongside us nor cares about our wellbeing. The danger is not only that we outsource sensemaking to machines, but that we let their apparent competence license our own emotional disengagement.

Over-reliance on AI in leadership amplifies three specific risks that The Economist piece suggests:

AI can reinforce tribal empathy by tailoring information and narratives to existing in-groups, deepening the ‘us-versus-them’ lenses that already distort public debate.
Leaders may become dependent on AI-mediated judgments of who ‘deserves’ empathy (based on sentiment scores, productivity metrics, or risk profiles), smuggling biases into decisions under a veneer of objectivity.
As AI grows more persuasive, there is a risk that human-to-human conversations about meaning, responsibility, and care are displaced by polished, frictionless, but ultimately hollow interactions with systems.

From an IDG perspective, these are not mere technical problems. They are inner-development challenges. They ask whether leaders can cultivate enough self-awareness, critical thinking, and ethical grounding to use AI as a tool without surrendering their own moral capacity or agency.

Inner Development is Not a Luxury, but a Guardrail

Wright’s conclusion—that the “gap between where our species is and where it needs to be is almost comically vast”—echoes the core rationale behind the Inner Development Goals. Outer goals like the Sustainable Development Goals repeatedly stall not because we lack data or policy options, but because we lack the inner capacities to cooperate across rivalries, sit with complexity, and prioritize long-term collective wellbeing over short-term tribal wins.

We must emphasize long-term, collective wellbeing over short-term, tribal wins.

Empathy and compassion, in this light, are not sentimental add-ons; they are guardrails against the instrumentalization of both people and technologies. A policymaker who has practiced deep listening with communities most affected by climate impacts will design very different guardrails for AI deployment in energy systems than one who sees only abstract ‘users’ and ‘markets.’ A corporate board that values empathy as a governance competency will ask different questions about algorithmic harms, worker displacement, and community consent than a board that treats empathy as weakness.

Objective critique of AI, then, is not about being anti-technology; it is about being pro-human development. It means acknowledging the real benefits of AI in insight generation and coordination, while insisting that the capacities to care, to listen, and to take responsibility remain firmly human and must be actively cultivated. That is precisely what the IDGs are attempting to systematize: a shared language and practice base for the inner work that makes outer transformation possible.

If you’re keen to learn more about inner development in your leadership or the Inner Development Goals and Guide, reach out. We can empathize with your interest!