Exploring the Moral Dilemma in Blade Runner: Empathy as a Sin or Empathy Test?

Exploring the Moral Dilemma in Blade Runner: Empathy as a Sin or Empathy Test?

Having worked in health care for many years and also in public education empathy is a quality I look for in health care workers and in students.

But empathy has taken on a negative meaning recently.

In the past few years, Joe Rigney, among others, has identified 'empathy' as a female flaw, an overuse of empathy.

Empathy is generally defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

But can we twist our empathy? Is it an emotional overemphasis at the expense of our compassion?

In the video below, we are reminded of all of the many empathy tests we are subjected to, in this case, in watching the movie "Blade Runner."

Yet each of us is subjected to empathy tests every day in a myriad of ways.

Empathy as a female flaw leads to liberalism in the church and culture, according to Rigney.

Is this an overreaction or a bias?

Our entertainment is filled with scenes and stories of death, torture, and the destruction of other humans.

Have we lost our empathy?

The Empathy of Jesus

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.' Hebrews 4:15

As we can see from scripture, empathy is not a new concept. Our Lord currently empathizes with each of us.

The problem we all have is when we stray away from the Spirit in any of our thinking or emoting, we distort, which leads to sin. This applies to men and women as we are all sinners.

So watch the following videos and consider how you personally pass the empathy test.

(Joe Rigney left as president of Bethlehem Seminary due to his views (empathy, Christian nationalism, etc.) not aligning with the institution's.)

For further reading: Bethlehem Seminary president resigns over stances on infant baptism, church-state separation

Blade Runner (1982)

"A blade runner must pursue and terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.

In the early twenty-first century, the Tyrell Corporation, during what was called the Nexus phase, developed robots, called "replicants", that were supposed to aid society, the replicants which looked and acted like humans. When the superhuman generation Nexus 6 replicants, used for dangerous off-Earth endeavors, began a mutiny on an off-Earth colony, replicants became illegal on Earth. Police units, called "blade runners", have the job of destroying - or in their parlance "retiring" - any replicant that makes its way back to or created on Earth, with anyone convicted of aiding or assisting a replicant being sentenced to death..." from the article Blade Runner Plot

Blade Runner is an empathy test

Video from Science Fiction with Damien Walter

A Novelist Explains Blade Runner

"What is Blade Runner about?

Blade Runner is a meditation on what it means to be alive. Deckard’s character journey shows him transform from someone who doesn’t see the humanity in replicants, bioengineered humanoids, to someone who doesn’t care if there’s a difference. While the circumstances are science fiction in nature, the story is a familiar one about tolerance and understanding of the “other”. American History X, Crash, Magnolia (kind of), The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, I, Robot, all have similar stories where a “Deckard” starts off intolerant only to realize their prejudice was ignorant and wrong.

Beyond the idea of accepting others is a realization of our own mortality and the fight against death. It’s one we’ll never win, even when we have the opportunity to meet our maker. All we can do is relish in the time we’ve had and make the most of the things we’ve seen and experienced. Barbie and White Noise are two recent films that explore the same theme..." from the article: A Novelist Explains Blade Runner

The Sin of Empathy - A Conversation with Joe Rigney

Video from Plainspoken

"Empathy is generally seen as a universal good. Similar to love, we imagine it to be universally virtuous. Dr. Joe Rigney has recently published a book that questions this presupposition, arguing that empathy can be and has been used to co-opt and destroy institutions. In a recent development at Wheaton College, a rather innocent social media post resulted in a full blown crisis among the alumni. Rigney went viral on X when he was able to explain the mechanics of how this “steer” worked.

Joe was kind enough to visit with me about the substance of his new book in reference to my former tribe, The United Methodist Church, which was effectively overtaken by those who use empathy as a wedge. I seek his insight about how it is that institutions can be wise to such weakness, and how it is that we can guard ourselves against future incursion by these spiritual forces.

While Dr. Rigney represents a different strand of the Reformed tradition than I do, I found his contributions to this larger social question to be timely and helpful. How do we navigate a world of competing subjective interests without reacting towards sociopathy? How do we find a healthy and stable place in between the extremes offered? What does the ideal spiritual leadership look like? I hope you enjoy thinking through these questions with us, and that you might find helpful answers!

Links:

“Anatomy of a Steer” X Thread - https://x.com/joe_rigney/status/18883...

Dr. Rigney’s Faculty Page - https://nsa.edu/contributors/joe-rigney

Order The Sin of Empathy - https://canonpress.com/products/the-s...

For further reading: The Enticing Sin of Empathy How Satan Corrupts Through Compassion by Joe Rigney

The Godliness of Empathy by Murray Campbell

#extraordinarygod