Empathy Battleground Map (Work in Progress)
Work in Progress: Empathy Battleground Map
I’ve avoided the dark side of empathy for reasons that have less to do with denial and more to do with survival. When you’re running a business built around empathy, telling leaders that they are the problem isn’t great for client retention. It’s hard to sell an empathy program by warning people that empathy itself can be manipulative, gaslighting, or self-serving. And it’s even harder when the toxic “elephant in the room” is the one signing the check.
Over the years, I’ve watched teams splinter under misguided leadership while being hired to “fix communication issues.” I’ve seen employees wake up to their own mistreatment, hand in their resignations, and get me quietly uninvited from the next engagement (I am proud of these metrics). Capitalism doesn’t reward you for showing decision-makers that they’re part of the harm. Capitalism and those that drive it just want more power, sales, and control.
So yes—maybe my approach to empathy hasn’t been lopsided, just protective. Protective of my ability to run a business while still trying to push the needle toward awareness. But it’s time to open that conversation up. The dark side of empathy is real, and pretending it doesn’t exist only gives it more power.
About the Empathy Battleground Map
I’ve approached empathy with a lopsided perspective that conveniently shoved its darker realities under the rug. Sure, I’ve talked about empathetic exhaustion and enmeshment, but I’ve mostly avoided the shadow sides — the space where empathy is used not to heal, but to control. Control is capitalism, capitalism is control.
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, then we have to admit that the path to power often begins with deep cognitive empathy. Understanding people — their fears, desires, addictions, and blind spots — is the first step toward influencing them. As a industrial + experience designer, this has always been my approach to understanding people so that I could create innovative products and experiences. What matters most is what we do with the empathetic knowledge we gather.
Empathetic knowledge is neutral. It’s a tool. Once you understand someone’s inner landscape, two paths open:
One leader might use that understanding to manipulate and oppress — to tighten control, to sell, to extract, to divide.
Another might use it to lift, to guide, to help others overcome their fears and fulfill their potential.
We live surrounded by both kinds of leaders and micro-managers — and most of us can’t easily tell them apart. The skillset looks identical; the intention does not.
Empathy has always been the tactic humans use to gather data about one another. It’s the foundation of both propaganda and peacekeeping, marketing and mentoring. The same sensitivity that builds trust can also breed exploitation. The question is not whether empathy is good or bad — it’s who’s wielding it, and why.
This new sketch — The Empathy Battlefield — is my attempt to visualize that landscape. Not as a diagram of perfection, but as a messy, living map of how empathy is being fought over in public life right now.
With books, podcasts, and pundits declaring empathy a sin, or “the weakness of civilization,” the battlefield has shifted from hearts to headlines. My goal isn’t to moralize but to illuminate — to help people see the terrain we’re walking across. There’s a light side and a dark side, a helping side and a hurting side. The battle ahead isn’t fought with our bodies, but with our capacity to understand, and to choose what we do with that understanding.
This is still a work in progress — visually and philosophically — but maybe the act of drawing it helps us see the fight more clearly. I plan on detailing this out in several focused acts.
The Manipulators — Empathy as Control
The Healers — Empathy as Understanding
The Bystanders — Empathy as Confusion
The Opportunists — Empathy as Brand
The Navigators — Empathy as Practice
