Episode 986: Gad Saad on “Suicidal Empathy”

Summary

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Newt’s World Episode 986: Gad Saad on “Suicidal Empathy”

Date: June 7, 2026
Host: Newt Gingrich
Guest: Dr. Gad Saad

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Overview: The Dangers of “Suicidal Empathy” in Modern Society

In this thought-provoking episode, Newt Gingrich welcomes Dr. Gad Saad, acclaimed scholar and author of the bestseller Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind. The conversation unpacks the concept of “suicidal empathy” — an extreme, misplaced compassion that Dr. Saad argues is undermining Western societies across immigration, criminal justice, education, and more. Drawing on psychology, personal history, and contemporary culture wars, Saad and Gingrich dissect how well-intentioned empathy can go catastrophically wrong.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What is “Suicidal Empathy”?

[09:15]

• Dr. Saad asserts that humans, as a social species, need empathy for meaningful interaction, but warns that, as Aristotle taught, “too much of something is not good.”
• Quote: “If I have hyperactive empathy that is invoked in the wrong situations toward the wrong targets, you end up with suicidal empathy.” — Dr. Gad Saad [09:15]

[10:27]

• He illustrates the concept with the example of open-border immigration policies, criticizing the notion that all cultural groups are equally able or willing to assimilate.
• He traces this tendency to “parasitic ideas” such as cultural relativism, arguing that these ideologies render nations powerless to maintain sane policies.

2. The Consequences — “Galloping Toward the Abyss”

[12:26]

• Saad describes how an inability to exercise judgment leads to societal unraveling:
• Quote: “Many Americans are sort of in an apathetic stupor where they think that some of the things that folks like me escaped from 50 years ago in Lebanon won't happen here... It just takes a bit of time.” — Dr. Gad Saad [12:26]

[13:52]

• Using Islam as a cultural example, Saad claims that dominant ideologies with incompatible values, when unchecked, predictably erode freedoms in Western societies.

3. Immigration, Assimilation, and the “American Contract”

[15:31]

• Gingrich notes that “those people are explicitly rejecting the American contract. It's not that they don't care, it's that they regard us as the problem.”
• Saad affirms, using his personal story as an immigrant who has “internalized American freedoms,” and stresses how dangerous it is to bring in large populations who lack such commitment.

4. Policy Examples: Homelessness, Crime, and “Misplaced Compassion”

[19:42-21:48]

• Saad connects “suicidal empathy” to homelessness and “soft on crime” policies. He contends progressive politics are driven by hijacked affective systems (emotional, rather than rational) susceptible to ideological “brain worms.”
• Quote: “For me to completely own your ability to engage in critical thinking, I also have to hijack your affective system. And so in suicidal empathy, what I'm arguing is I am parasitizing your affective system through pathological, dysregulated empathy.” — Dr. Gad Saad [21:48]

[30:31]

• Discussing criminal justice, Saad explains how “blank slate” ideology treats offenders as products of society rather than agents responsible for their actions, with empathy weaponized to excuse repeated harmful behaviors.

5. The Roots: Academia and Parasitic Ideas

[24:43–26:45]

• They critique the intellectual origins of these trends, including cultural relativism (Franz Boas), postmodernism (Foucault, Derrida), and academia’s detachment from reality.
• Notable moment: Saad humorously quotes E.O. Wilson: “Great idea, wrong species,” explaining why communism goes against human nature [22:44].

[27:12]

• Saad describes the personal cost of holding dissenting views in academia: “It must be one of the great miracles of life that I've been able to actually exist and not be canceled... If you see the unhinged hysteric hatred, it’s simply astounding.” [27:12]

6. Personal History — Lessons from Lebanon

[36:14]

• Saad recounts his family’s escape from the Lebanese Civil War, subsequent emigration to Canada, and his family’s kidnapping by a terrorist group, giving first-hand perspective on what happens when tolerant societies unravel.
• Quote: “The things that people now have top of mind in terms of October 7th is basically called my childhood. So that's the world I come from.” [36:18]

[39:27]

• He offers poignant stories of normalized anti-Semitism, pushing back on Lebanon’s reputation for tolerance even before open conflict.

7. How “Parasitic” Ideologies Infect the West

[42:29]

• Saad traces cultural relativism, postmodernism, and radical victimhood to academic origins, arguing that “each of those parasitic ideas started in academia... but then it becomes [politicians like] Mamdani, then it becomes Justin Trudeau.”
• He emphasizes how bad ideas, once confined to universities, eventually shape mainstream policy and politics.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On empathy’s sweet spot:
  “Too little of something is not good, too much of something is not good. And much of life is about finding that sweet spot... If I have no empathy, I'm likely to be a psychopath. If I have hyperactive empathy that is invoked in the wrong situations toward the wrong targets, you end up with suicidal empathy.” — Dr. Gad Saad [09:15]

• On immigration and cultural relativism:
  “If you internalize that parasitic idea, it then renders you impotent to have a sane immigration policy... All people are equally kind, equally good, equally likely to assimilate. And then you end up with all of the problems that we're seeing in the West.” — Dr. Gad Saad [11:34]

• On the collapse of education (Saad, on academia’s fantasy world):
  “Imagine being yours truly in academia for 32 years. I mean, really, it must be one of the great miracles of life that I've been able to actually exist and not be canceled.” — Dr. Gad Saad [27:12]

• On lived experience vs. theory:
  “Most professors exist in a bubble that is fully decoupled from the autocomplete corrective mechanism of reality. Right? So I can... pontificate about the fact that there are really 646 sexes, that's progressive science. And nobody will slap me back into reality.” — Dr. Gad Saad [25:17]

• On anti-Semitism in Lebanon:
  “When I grow up, I want to be a Jew killer. To everybody's raucous laughter and applause. That was fully normalized, right? The teacher didn't say, you are now going to be expelled from school.” — Dr. Gad Saad [39:27]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction & Book Overview: [02:40–09:15]
• Defining “Suicidal Empathy” & Immigration: [09:15–15:45]
• Policy Impacts—Crime, Homelessness: [19:42–32:54]
• Academia’s Role in Parasitic Ideas: [24:43–28:05]
• Saad’s Lebanon Experience: [36:14–39:27]
• Roots of Parasitic Ideologies: [42:29–43:50]

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Tone & Style

• Lively, candid, and unapologetic, with a mix of personal storytelling and academic critique.
• Saad employs humor and vivid examples, often with a biting edge. Gingrich offers a historian’s gravitas and concern for American principles.

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Conclusion

This episode is a deep dive into a provocative thesis: that extreme, unthinking empathy—what Dr. Saad coins as “suicidal empathy”—is weakening the West in the face of internal and external challenges. From immigration to homelessness, academic culture to public policy, Saad and Gingrich argue that well-intended but misapplied compassion now underpins some of the most pressing problems facing liberal democracies.

Book plug: Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind by Dr. Gad Saad is available now and topped the New York Times bestseller list.
Final words: “United States is an anomaly within the trajectory of human history... you're going to lose it.” — Dr. Gad Saad [38:44]

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For listeners seeking a bracing critique of contemporary Western policymaking and culture, this episode provides plenty of sharp analysis, personal testimony, and food for thought.

Transcript

[Podcast Narrator]

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this July 4th, come celebrate at America's Block Party hosted by America 250. America's Block Party is a can't miss 4th of July concert happening at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Experience music, performances from major artists, patriotic tributes and the kickoff to giving 4th, helping to make July 4th the largest day of giving in American history. It's more than just fireworks. Learn more about this landmark celebration at america250.org,

[Podcast Narrator]

based on the best selling novel from Carly Fortune, the new Prime Original series Every Year after follows Sam and Percy across six summers as they take a second chance at a love that never really let go. It's the kind of story that brings you back to a summer crush you never fully got over, or a friendship that almost turned into something more with slow burn tension, lakeside nostalgia and that lingering what if it's the kind of show people say they couldn't stop watching and we're a little emotionally destroyed by in the Best Way. Watch every year after streaming June 10th only on Prime.

[Parent 1]

With my mom and dad living in Orange county, when we bring my five and seven year old to visit, we are sometimes in for a two hour drive that could feel like 10.

[Parent 2]

Oh, as an avid camper, I know all about this. We'll pack up the RV and know this is either going to be the trip of a lifetime or a complete disaster.

[Parent 1]

Which is why we load up the iPads with Lingokids before we even pull out of the driveway.

[Parent 2]

It's what dreams are made of. Lingokids keeps kids engaged and quiet with over 4000 interactive games, songs and shows that kids simply cannot get enough of.

[Parent 1]

You can pack whatever you think you'll need, but Lingokids is the only entertainment you'll need for a stress free car ride.

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[Newt Gingrich]

Welcome to Newtsworld Podcast on the iHeart Podcast Network. A number of interesting things going on some good, some bad. It's been a very interesting competition between Elon Musk with SpaceX, who's believed in the launch them quickly, let them blow up, learn from it, launch again, keep going, to break through. And the approach that Jeff Bezos has taken is much slower, much calmer, et cetera. And Bezos unfortunately, just had a brutal introduction to reality. He's building a huge rocket. Not as big as the starship that Musk is building, but a very, very big rocket called the New Glenn. And it exploded during a test. It wasn't taking off yet. They were testing all the parts of it and obviously they had a problem because it just blew up on the test pad. That's a real challenge because this is an integral part of getting to the moon with people. And it is also the key to the future of Blue Origin, which is Beezus company. Now, it's not financially a problem. Beezus's enormously wealthy and they're going to go back. They think they'll launch again another version of the rocket in the very near future. But they were hoping to launch 48 satellites into low Earth orbit to help Amazon expand its broadband capabilities, sort of in competition with Elon Musk and the work he's been doing. Earlier this month, NASA announced that it awarded Blue Origin a $188 million contract to deliver lunar terrain vehicles, that is, vehicles that can run around on the surface of the moon. That's still in place, but I think people were a little sobered. Jared Isaacman, the administrator of NASA, put out a note saying, this is a reminder of how difficult and how challenging getting to the moon and to Mars is, and that we have to persevere, but we have to be a little humbled to realize just how complicated and how difficult it is. On a different front, there is a new executive order on artificial intelligence. President Trump signed an order, quote, promoting advanced intelligence, innovation and security, essentially asking the tech companies to voluntarily submit their new AI models for government cybersecurity test before releasing them to the public. This is an area which I'm writing in, actually on a book that will come out this fall called America's Golden Age. And it's a very complicated area and I think that we are just scratching the surface of how challenging artificial intelligence is going to be. This new executive order gives the government a 30 day window to review new artificial intelligence models before they're publicly released. So we'll see what happens. Coming up, I'm joined by Dr. Gad Saad, scholar at the Declaration of Independence center for the Study of American Freedom at the University of Mississippi and author of the New York Times bestseller Suicidal Dying to Be Kind. That's next.

[America 250 Announcer]

This July 4th, come celebrate at America's Block Party hosted by America 250. America's Block Party is a can't miss 4th of July concert happening at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Experience music, performances from major artists, patriotic tributes and the kickoff to giving 4th, helping to make July 4th the largest day of giving in American history. It's more than just fireworks. Learn more about this landmark [e-mail]

[Podcast Narrator]

based on the bestselling novel from Carly Fortune, the new prime original series Every Year after follows Sam and Percy across six summers as they take a second chance at a love that never really let go. If you love a slow burn, friends to lovers, romance that stays with you, this is absolutely your next obsession. It captures that feeling of long summer days where everything is golden and unhurried and one person just means more to you than you know how to say. It's the kind of story that brings up memories, like a place you return every summer or someone you think about every time a certain song plays. There's that quiet tension, the what if, and the emotional pull that builds over time and really sticks with you. Whether you've read the book or are coming in fresh, it's the kind of series you won't want to stop watching. Watch every year after streaming June 10th only on Prime.

[Dr. Gad Saad]

Mom, can I have Lingokids? Dad, Lingokids, please. When did we become the Lingokids House?

[Parent 1]

No idea.

[Podcast Narrator]

Last week it was dinosaurs, this week it's Lingokids.

[Dr. Gad Saad]

Why Lingokids?

[Newt Gingrich]

Because it's the best thing ever.

[Dr. Gad Saad]

We can play games with astronauts, wild animals and superheroes.

[America 250 Announcer]

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[Dr. Gad Saad]

entertainment platform for young kids.

[Parent 1]

So no dinosaurs and dinosaurs.

[Dr. Gad Saad]

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[Firestone Tires Announcer]

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[Newt Gingrich]

I am really pleased to welcome back my guest and good friend, Dr. Gad Saad. He is currently a scholar at the Declaration of Independence center for the Study of American Freedom at the University of Mississippi. He's also a professor of marketing at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and former holder of the Concordia University Research Chair in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences and Darwinian Consumption. His new book, Suicidal Dying to Be Kind, is a New York Times bestseller. Gab, welcome and thank you for joining me again on Newts World.

[Dr. Gad Saad]

Oh, thank you so much for having me back on Speaker Gingrich.

[Newt Gingrich]

Your new book, Suicidal Dying to Be Kind, debuted at number one on the New York Times for Nonfiction Bestseller list. What do you think explains the strong reaction the book has received?

[Dr. Gad Saad]

I think it really puts the finger on the exact reason that we are seeing all of the domestic and foreign policy fiascos right Empathy is a wonderful virtue to have. We are a social species and therefore it makes perfect sense that we have certain traits, certain virtues that oil that serve as a social lubricants for our interactions. For you and I to have a meaningful conversation, I need to put myself in your mind and vice versa. So that's called cognitive empathy or theory of mind. So there's nothing wrong with well modulated empathy. The problem is that as Aristotle explained to us several thousand years ago, too little of something is not good, too much of something is not good. And much of life is about finding that sweet spot. And that's exactly what applies to empathy. If I have no empathy, I'm likely to be a psychopath. If I have hyperactive empathy that is invoked in the wrong situations toward the wrong targets, you end up with suicidal empathy. And I think that's why the book is resonating with people.

[Newt Gingrich]

Describe for me, how does suicidal empathy manifest itself?

[Dr. Gad Saad]

Much of the book is about precisely demonstrating many, many cases, some of which seem like they are out of a mixture of Orwellian and Kafkaesque dystopia. I mean, really, they're just unbelievable. But let's discuss arguably the most nefarious form of suicidal empathy, although we can drill down to a whole bunch of other examples if you'd like. Having an open border immigration policy where your starting position is all immigrants are equally likely to assimilate. It is wrong for you to argue that this group is less likely to contribute to the whole society than that group is a form of suicidal empathy, and it originally stems from what I talked about in one of my previous books, the Parasitic Mind, where I talked about how parasitic ideas can infect the human mind. So take for example, cultural relativism. It purports that you're in no position to judge the actions and beliefs and practices of another culture. If they wish to engage in female genital mutilation of five year old girls. Shut up, racist. If they wish to have child brides, shut up, racist. Well, if you internalize that parasitic idea, it then renders you impotent to have a sane immigration policy. Because then I could no longer say that the average person from Waziristan is less likely to assimilate in the United States than a person from Denmark. All people are equally kind, equally good, equally likely to assimilate. And then you end up with all of the problems that we're seeing in the West. So that would probably be the worst manifestation of suicidal empathy.

[Newt Gingrich]

You suggest that this inability to have some kind of judgment has resulted in a society, and this is a great quote, galloping rapidly toward the abyss of infinite lunacy. What do you mean?

[Dr. Gad Saad]

I'd like to say almost an American because I'm on my way to becoming one. God willing. Many Americans are sort of in a apathetic stupor where they think that some of the things that folks like me escaped from 50 years ago in Lebanon won't happen here. Well, that's just because you need to give it enough time for it to happen. Right. We now do have Dearborn, Michigan. We now do have Patterson, New Jersey. We now do have some of the dynamics that are happening in Minnesota. And the reason why those things are happening is that once you get beyond a tipping point of a concentration of people that don't share your deontological, foundational principles, you, you will be galloping eventually towards the abyss of infinite lunacy. Right. I mean, the United States is not magical because it has the Rockies or because it has the Grand Canyon. It's because it has internalized as part of its ethos a set of principles that make the United States an exceptional society. If you bring in people into your country that do not in the least bit share in those foundational principles, you will fall off the abyss of infinite lunacy. It just takes a bit of time.

[Newt Gingrich]

Those people are explicitly rejecting the American contract. It's not that they don't care, it's that they regard us as the problem.

[Dr. Gad Saad]

Exactly. So let me give you an example of that in the context of Islam, which is the worst manifestation of suicidal empathy in terms of an open border immigration policy? Islamic breaks up the world into two camps. And I'm going to say them in Arabic and then I'll translate in English. There is Dar al Harab and Dar al Islam. Dar al Harab means the house of war. Dar al Islam is the house of Islam. So the world is broken up into countries that are already under the full dominion of Islam, in which case they are at peace. And then all of the other countries that have yet to fall under the dominion of Islam, and therefore they are literally in the house of war. Now, that doesn't mean that every Muslim invokes that principle as they go about their daily lives. But it does mean that once Islam takes up a dominant role in a given society, I can predict for you with perfect certainty what will happen to the personal liberties and freedoms of those people in those societies. We've got 1400 years of data, right? Most of the scientific studies that have ever been published in any scientific discipline don't have the statistical power of looking at the last 1400 years. And what happens when Islam takes over again? Individual Muslims are perfectly nice and lovely or not, Just like in any other grouping. We're talking about Islam as a codified set of ideas. Do we want more of it? If yes, bring on everybody. If no, maybe rethink your immigration policies.

[Newt Gingrich]

Well, and I think you then also have to rethink your education policy. There are a whole range of things here that fall into place once you decide you're explicitly going to be American.

[Dr. Gad Saad]

Exactly right. I mean, look, I'm Canadian, born in Lebanon, Jewish. I'm. Now, as you kindly stated in the introduction, starting in August, I will be the distinguished professor at the Declaration of Independence center for the Study of American Freedom. Now, why does it take a Canadian to be holding that position? Because I internalized within the ethos of my personhood all of those American freedoms. I don't come to the United States to then rail day in and day out with a keffiyeh on campus about how evil the United States. To the contrary, I'm infinitely grateful that I've been allowed to flourish in the United States. And I will do whatever I can to defend those freedoms. So imagine if you let in millions of people who in no way share what I just said. It doesn't take a fancy professor to predict what will happen long term.

[Newt Gingrich]

When we come back, we'll discuss how suicidal empathy shapes real world policy, from crime to homelessness.

[America 250 Announcer]

This July 4th, come celebrate at America's Block Party hosted by America 250. America's Block Party is a can't miss 4th of July concert happening at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Experience music, performances from major artists, patriotic tributes, and the kickoff to giving 4th, helping to make July 4th the largest day of giving in American history. It's more than just fireworks. Learn more about this landmark [e-mail]

[Podcast Narrator]

based on the best selling novel from Carly Fortune, the new prime original series Every Year after follows Sam and Percy across six summers as they take a second chance at a love that never really let go. If you love a slow burn, friends to lovers, romance that stays with you, this is absolutely your next obsession. It captures that feeling of long summer days where everything is golden and unhurried and one person just means more to you than you know how to say. It's the kind of story that brings up memories, like a place you return every summer or someone you think about every time a certain song plays. There's that quiet tension, the what if, and the emotional pull that builds over time and really sticks with you. Whether you've read the book or are coming in fresh. It's the kind of series you won't want to stop watching. Watch Every year after streaming June 10th only on prime with my mom and

[Parent 1]

dad living in Orange county, when we bring my five and seven year old to visit, we are sometimes in for a two hour drive that could feel like 10.

[Parent 2]

Oh, as an avid camper, I know all about this. We'll pack up the RV and know this is either going to be the trip of a lifetime or a complete disaster.

[Parent 1]

Which is why we load up the iPads with Lingokids before we even pull out of the driveway.

[Parent 2]

It's what dreams are made of. Lingokids keeps kids engaged and quiet with over 4000 interactive games, songs and shows that kids simply cannot get enough of.

[Parent 1]

You can pack whatever you think you'll need, but lingokids is the only entertainment you'll need for a stress free car ride.

[Parent 2]

Or really any ride, plane, train, hovercraft, whatever.

[Parent 1]

Download Lingokids for free today or unlock

[Parent 2]

even more amazing content with LingoKids.

[Parent 1]

Plus choose the yearly plan and save up to 60%. Search LingoKids in the App Store or Google Play.

[Parent 2]

Lingokids Everything kids love.

[Firestone Tires Announcer]

Your vehicle doesn't just get you from here to there. It's a bridge to the people and places that matter most. It's how you show up for your family, your community and everyone else that depends on you. That's why for 125 years Firestone has been building tires with one thing in to deliver products that are as reliable as you are. Firestone always dependable since 1900.

[Newt Gingrich]

One of the major themes of your book, which I will remind people say New York Times number one bestseller already, is that a lot of the West's most controversial policies are in fact driven by this Misplaced compassion, which goes way beyond just the border. But you end up with things like homelessness and a whole range of other issues. How did you come to that conclusion?

[Dr. Gad Saad]

Let me explain the narrative of how these two books, the Parasitic Mind and Suicidal Empathy, go together as a sort of unified narrative. We are both a thinking and a feeling animal, right? Both our cognitive system shapes the decisions we make, but so does our emotional system. So, for example, we know that in advertising, if you wish to convince someone to persuade them to buy a product, depending on the type of product, I will either invoke your cognitive system or your affective system. So, for example, if I'm trying to sell you a mutual fund, I will develop an advertising campaign that caters to your cognitive system. Here are the seven rational reasons why you should invest in my mutual fund. On the other hand, if I'm trying to sell you a hedonic product like a perfume, I don't tell you this is what Harvard physiologists think about the science of olfaction. I will show you a beautiful girl on a horse with luxuriant hair, and I will give you a brand name that's French sounding. I am trying to invoke your affective system. So now let's apply this to what we're talking about. I argued in the parasitic mind that in the same way that the human mind can be parasitized by actual physical brainworms, it can also be parasitized by ideological brainworms. But that's only half the story. For me to completely own your ability to engage in critical thinking, I also have to hijack your affective system. And so in suicidal empathy, what I'm arguing is I am parasitizing your affective system through pathological, dysregulated empathy.

[Newt Gingrich]

In some ways, your argument's very similar. There's a book called the Tragedy of American Compassion, which also makes the argument that, starting with the Great Society, we went to a model of how humans function, which is just plain wrong. In a sense, you now have this weird combination on the left of people who are committed to programs that don't work, so they can't really look at them because if they looked at them, they'd have to change them. And they're committed to the programs combined with people who are profoundly anti American, and that that is the coalition of those two that makes them potentially capable of achieving power in the country. And when you look at it, I mean, I watched somebody like Mondamba in New York, or you watch the California primary, right? And you realize, you know, New York City is decaying, all of California is decaying, and people are going to go out and vote for the decay.

[Dr. Gad Saad]

By the way, as a Jewish person, nothing upsets me more than what I call wood cricket Jews. These are the Jews that are standing in the line going, vote for Mamdani. Nothing gives me greater sort of repulsion than the sheep that are saying, you know, free the wolves. And in this case, it is, you know, super liberal Jews that can't see beyond their nose and their, you know, moral piety. But let me go back to your earlier point about something that enacting policies that are contrary to human nature. And by the way, that's very relevant to my work in evolutionary psychology, right? Because as you mentioned at the start of the show, I held the Chair Professorship in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences. Well, what does that mean? It means that to fully understand human behavior, you must understand the evolved biological imperatives that cause us to behave the way that we do. So now let's apply that to politics. E.O. wilson, the very famous Harvard entomologist who recently passed away, he studied social ants. Social ants are communistic in that there is a reproductive queen, then there's a bunch of worker ants and a bunch of soldier ants that are indistinguishable from each other. When he was asked once, Professor Wilson, what are your views on communism? He paused and said one of the greatest responses I've ever heard. He said, great idea, wrong species. Now, what is that saying right there? It's saying that you have to understand the philogenetic history of a species to know whether a particular social organization is congruent with its nature or not. So when you impose a sociopolitical economic system like communism on human beings that are not communistic, some of us are taller, shorter, harder working, less harder working. It's not surprising that it's always going to fail. But rest assured, Speaker Gingrich, Bernie Sanders and AOC are going to institute true communism once they get the power.

[Newt Gingrich]

After Gorbachev left power, he went on a speaking tour and he ended up at Stanford. And this guy was with him one night at a dinner at Stanford. And one of the Stanford professors said to him, you know, communism didn't fail. It was the Russian method of implementation. And Gorbachev stared at him and said, you would have to be an American professor to believe that.

[Dr. Gad Saad]

Oh, I love it. Is this published anywhere? Because I'd love to quote that story.

[Newt Gingrich]

The congressman who was at the dinner told me the story personally.

[Dr. Gad Saad]

To your point, by the way, I've often said that it uniquely takes intellectuals to come up with the most devastatingly bad ideas. And I mean, Thomas Sowell has made a similar argument in his work. Of course, George Orwell argued that 60, 70 years ago. And the reason for that is because most professors exist in a bubble that is fully decoupled from the autocomplete corrective mechanism of reality. Right? So I can stand on my pulpit, look at a bunch of 20 year olds who don't know anything, and I can pontificate about the fact that there are really 646 sexes, that's progressive science. And nobody will slap me back into reality. And by the way, that's one of the reasons why some disciplines are inherently less likely to be parasitized by all of that parasitic stupidity. Not fully inoculated, but less likely. And those are the applied disciplines. So the business school, the engineering school is less likely to have such stupidity. Because if I build a bridge using postmodernist feminist physics, well, the bridge is going to collapse. If I build an economic model of consumer choice using lesbian dance theory, well, I'm not going to predict much of what consumers do. So because those fields are inherently wedded to reality, you get less imbecility.

[Newt Gingrich]

I'm actually writing a book on 2076, and part of it is about the collapse of the classic education bureaucracies. And they got big enough to your point that they could create their own fantasy world and then they could punish you, not give you tenure, flunk you out of school, a variety of things if you did not concede that their fantasies were real.

[Dr. Gad Saad]

Exactly, by the way, exactly to what you just said. Imagine being yours truly in academia for 32 years. I mean, really, it must be one of the great miracles of life that I've been able to actually exist and not be canceled. I mean, just recently, just in the past day or two, if you saw some of the astounding venom that I've received from, quote, fellow academics who simply cannot stomach the existential reality that this dreadful monster, this neo Nazi Jewish professor, is at the number one bestseller on New York Times. If you see the unhinged hysteric hatred, it's simply astounding. So thank God I found an American university in the Deep south that actually is wedded to reason.

[Newt Gingrich]

You said to me years ago that you'd been as a very young person through the civil war in Lebanon and that in Montreal you would begin to see the same pattern on the college campus. And I think that's an important thing for people to realize for some reason the left has a hatred and a militancy which is not matched by the rest of the country. They dominate by sheer vitriol.

[Dr. Gad Saad]

They do. I'll tell you a quick story about the vitriol. I mean, it's the left, but in this case it's leftist professors. Most professors are astoundingly leftist, right? I mean, it depends on which discipline you're in. But in most of the activist disciplines, you know, you're much more likely to run into a unicorn than to run into a conservative professor. But in any case, a few years ago I was speaking a plenary lecture at USC University of Southern California. It was a event to sort of discuss the values of the Age of Enlightenment. And my lecture was on the tension between deontological versus consequentialist ethics. You know, so very academic talk. But of course, most of the professors who were in the audience knew my dark secret, which was that I actually had supported Donald Trump even though I was living in Canada. But I wasn't walking around all day screaming that Donald Trump and the Republicans are neo Nazis who are going to be an existential threat on humanity and so on. If you saw during the Q and A the incredible vitriol that I had now, I was very, very calm, very cool. And then my then daughter, who was 13 years old at the end of it, comes up to me. She was in the audience, my whole family was there. She says, I don't know how you do it, daddy. If I could do it, I would gouge the eyes of every one of those people. So the fact that a 13 year old innocent child can have this kind of invoked anger at how they're treating their dad tells you what the state of academia looks like.

[Newt Gingrich]

You make a point about public policy that the whole homeless issue reflects the kind of position you're describing where people at one level are supposedly empathetic, but the consequence of their empathy is a disaster. It actually makes life worse.

[Dr. Gad Saad]

Exactly.

[Newt Gingrich]

Could you describe that?

[Dr. Gad Saad]

Right, and it applies, as you mentioned maybe a few minutes ago, to homelessness, to the criminal justice issues, and, you know, soft on crime policies. So let's step back a second and discuss a really important phenomenon in psychology, and it's known as the self serving bias. The self serving bias basically argues that there are different ways by which I can ascribe causality to the successes and failures in my life. Most people attribute successes internally. I did well on the exam because I'm a smart guy and I studied hard. It's because of me that I did well. And they then attribute failures externally, I did poorly on the exam because Professor Saad is a mean bastard. Right. And for most people, that's a perfectly reasonable, albeit illusory, way to navigate through life. Because it protects my ego. Right. It's an ego defensive strategy. Now imagine if you have one party, in this case the progressives and the Democrats, whereby they ascribe all nefarious things that happen to society to external agents. Those who actually engage in those behaviors don't have personal agency. So the homeless person could never have done something that led to him being homeless. It's probably because he lives in a very unfair society. Now, don't get me going if I'm a progressive on felons of color, or as I call them, blank slate felons. Now, why do I say blank slate felons? Because there is a pervasive idea in the social sciences that human beings are born tabula rasa, empty minds with equal potentiality, and whichever trajectory their life takes could only be because of external factors. So if I am a black felon who's only been arrested187 previous times, don't you think I am deserving of a second chance? And by that I mean a 188th chance at kicking the can. Because I was born into a white supremacist society rooted in slavery. So I've already been punished. How mean must you be to then punish me by actually presuming that I have personal agency? An empathetic person would not do such a thing. There's your suicidal empathy.

[Newt Gingrich]

Yeah, I was going to say the degree to which the left is desperate to avoid holding people responsible is just, I think, one of the most astounding phenomena of our time. Coming up, we'll discuss his early life in Lebanon and his experience in the west and how it shaped his thinking about freedom, culture and the growing concerns he sees in Western institutions today.

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[Newt Gingrich]

You were born in Lebanon. When did you all leave?

[Dr. Gad Saad]

So we left at the end of the first year of the Civil War. So in April 1975, the Civil War broke out in Lebanon. And as you well know, Speaker Gingrich, the brutality of war is usually measured against the standard of the Lebanese Civil war, which was just a orgiastic bath of brutality. So we had been one of the last holdouts of the Lebanese Jewish community in Beirut. Much of our extended family had already sort of read the writing on the wall and they had all left prior to the civil war. Most of them had gone to Israel, some went to France, a few came to Canada. But my immediate family, my nuclear family, had stayed in Lebanon until it became impossible to stay in Lebanon once the war broke out. We were there during the first year of the civil war, and then we came to Montreal at the end of that year, in the mid-70s. And then for the next few years my parents ke going back and forth to Lebanon. A very ill advised decision. But it was very hard for them to assimilate in Canada. They were already well into their 40s. They still had business interests in Lebanon. And on one of their return trips to Lebanon, about four or five years after we had emigrated to Canada, they were kidnapped by Abu Nidal's group Fatah. And some really bad things happened to them. So the things that people now have top of mind in terms of October 7th is basically called my childhood. So that's the world I come from. And this is why, if I may just finish with this point, this is why some of the staunchest defenders of American exceptionalism are usually immigrants such as myself, because we weren't born with the default value of being in America. So we've sampled from the buffet of societies out there and we could then come to the United States and say, hey guys, don't take it for granted. United States is an anomaly within the trajectory of human history. And you're a historian, so you certainly know this as well as I do. And so it's people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Gad Saad that stand on top of the mountain and say, what are you guys doing? You're going to lose it. And as Ronald Reagan explained, and obviously you know this, he said something like, you know, every generation you're going to have to recommit to defending the freedoms. And yet most Americans are blissfully apathetic in their stupor.

[Newt Gingrich]

We are such a large country, it's hard to quite imagine the horror that is actually normal in large parts of the planet. Prior to the outbreak of the Civil War in 75, I think people thought of Lebanon as one of the most successful balancing acts between Islam, Christianity, Judaism and other sects that were existing. They'd found a, if you will, an architecture that enabled them to live with each other. And then when it did fall apart, I mean, it fell apart with a savagery that was, I think in 1970. If you'd said how bad it was going to get, no one would have believed you.

[Dr. Gad Saad]

Forgive me for pushing back a bit on your point. Yes, Lebanon was the model of coexistence in the context of the Middle east, and therefore it's the Paris of the Middle east and so on. That doesn't mean that it was as liberal in the capital, like in the sense of social tolerance as you would expect historically in the United States. So let me give you some examples of endemic Jew hatred that I experienced prior to the breakout of the civil war. So in 1970, when I was not yet six years old, is the first vivid memory that I have of having been exposed to Jew hatred. Gamal Abdel Nasser had just died. He was the Pan Arabist Egyptian president who, you know, was trying to unify all the Arab states into sort of one monolithic people. And so he was very much revered as a populist, blah, blah, blah. And then when he passed away, as often happens in the Middle east, people take to the street with full fervor, screaming incantations and so on. And as I was sitting there, a five year old boy, as they're proceeding down my street, all I'm hearing is death to Jews, death to Jews. So I turn to my mother and say, mom, why are they saying death to Jesus? You go, just put your head down, don't put your head up, you know, on the balcony. So that was the first time where I said, why are a bunch of people saying death to me? What do I have to do with this guy having been killed? Second story, I'll tell you maybe two more, just to kind of push back against the idea that Lebanon was a Kumbaya when I was about eight or nine years old. So about a year or two before the civil war started, the teacher asks us to each stand up and say what we're going to be when we grow up. I want to be a soccer player, I want to be a policeman, I want to be a doctor. Well, one kid gets up and I still have the class photo and I could point to that kid. He says, when I grow up, I want to be a Jew killer. To everybody's raucous laughter and applause. That was fully normalized, right? The teacher didn't say, you are now going to be expelled from school. Third, quick story, although I could give you many more. My brother was Lebanese judo champion many years in a row. He was once approached after he had done the very shameful thing of having a Jew win consistently the Lebanese championship. He was approached by some men who explained to him that he had to retire lest he might face an unfortunate accident. Well, he understood what that meant. He then moved to Paris, France, to pursue his career. This was prior to the Civil War. Now, the irony of life is that in 1976, the Summer Olympics happened in Montreal, which is the city where we had moved to. So he ended up representing Lebanon in the 1976 Montreal Olympics. So in 1973, he suffered from the fatal disease called being Jewish. In 1976, we can forgive the fact that you are Jewish as long as you carry the Lebanese flag on the world stage. So, yes, Lebanon was, quote, a model of tolerance, but not tolerance, as Americans would typically understand.

[Newt Gingrich]

When did you think it began to go sour?

[Dr. Gad Saad]

Yeah, fantastic question. So all of the parasitic ideas that I lay out in the parasitic mind. So postmodernism, cultural relativism, social constructivism, radical feminism, victimology, ethos, each of those parasitic ideas started in academia, depending on the parasitic idea, somewhere between 50 to 100 years ago. So, for example, cultural relativism, who are you to judge the cultural values of another society was actually started, regrettably so, by a Jewish anthropologist named Franz Boas. Postmodernism, which is the granddaddy of all parasitic ideas because it purports that there are no objective truth. Up is down, men are women, slavery is freedom. Right. Well, that was really developed by a bunch of degenerate French postmodernists. Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault. And so I would say it all went south, depending on the bad idea, 50 to 100 years ago. But then it takes time before the virus breaks out of the lab. It starts off in some nonsensical humanities department, but then it becomes Mamdami, then it becomes Justin Trudeau. So these things take a while before you see the nefarious consequences done.

[Newt Gingrich]

You know, you know so much when you've really thought about it so deeply. I find every time we have a chance to talk like this, I get an education. I want to thank you for joining me. I do want to remind folks that your new book, Suicidal Empathy, Dying to be Kind, is available on Amazon and in bookstores everywhere. And it is now the number one New York Times bestseller. And I think you're doing very important work, and I hope you'll keep doing it.

[Dr. Gad Saad]

Oh, you're too kind. Thank you so much for having me on again.

[Newt Gingrich]

Thank you. To my guest, Dr. Gad said. Newts World is produced by Gingrich360 and iHeartMedia, our executive producer is Guernsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. Special thanks to the team at Gingrich360. If you've been enjoying Newts World, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Join me on [e-mail] I'm Newt Gingrich. This is Newt's World.

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[Newt Gingrich]

mom,

[Dr. Gad Saad]

can I have Lingokids? Dad? Lingokids, please. When did we become the Lingokids house?

[Parent 1]

No idea.

[Podcast Narrator]

Last week it was Dinosaurs.

[Dr. Gad Saad]

This week it's Lingokids. Why Lingokids?

[Newt Gingrich]

Because it's the best thing ever.

[Dr. Gad Saad]

We can play games with astronauts, wild animals and superheroes.

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[Dr. Gad Saad]

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[Newt Gingrich]

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[Dr. Gad Saad]

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[Dr. Gad Saad]

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[Podcast Narrator]

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