I used to repeatedly read this essay by Joan Didion. This sentence sums up what is wrong with the fad for empathy: “We flatter ourselves by thinking this compulsion to please others an attractive trait: a gift for imaginative empathy.”https://www.vogue.com/article/joan-didion-self-respect-essay-1961 …
“The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others—who are, after all, deceived easily enough; has nothing to do with reputation—which, as Rhett Butler told Scarlett O'Hara, is something that people with courage can do without.”