Empathy as the Antidote for Emptiness: And Appreciating Nick Cave as the Epitome of "Tonic" Masculinity

Nick Cave continues to evolve into a sort of postmodern mensch, someone whose abilities and success have obliged him to dig deeper, and do more; not out of some sense of obligation or self-aggrandizement, but because he’s come to see that his talent and wherewithal for empathy and connection can do good (for others, and –here’s the secret– for himself). He tries to help others because he can and, he’s found, he wants to; he needs to. Like any ability one nurtures and respects, he’s become good at it, and this expanding capacity for kindness and insight have prompted larger capacities for engagement and solidarity.

This is inspiring on artistic and spiritual levels, obviously; but I find him a helpful antidote to so many of the soulless cultural icons of our age who, in their (paltry) defense, were inculcated to participate in a zero sum game system, believing their advantages (if they acknowledge them at all) are inherent, that their good fortune is a direct correlation of how hard they’ve worked, and that the world’s spoils are the natural prize for the taking (to be taken). These immoral cretins have always been amongst us, but it seems to me, in the 21st C –and abetted if not encouraged by our rapacious and shameless mass media– they lack the capacity to connect the dots as to why they are so unhappy, feel so lethargic and lonely, why they can’t communicate openly and honestly or establish genuine relationships (think Trump, think Musk), and rather than spend a second on self reflection (they don’t have the ability, or the interest, and mostly, there’s no money in it) they lash out and attempt to damage the world they feel has somehow slighted them; incapable of joy they lash out against the joy they see in others — these pitiful men (invariably it’s men) who have the means and opportunity to heal the world and instead retreat into themselves and dedicate their time to further damaging it.

Here’s Cave, with a typical installment of his must-read Red Hand Files:

I don’t find the process of replying to these letters cathartic or therapeutic, although it may well have been when I started The Red Hand Files. Neither do I find writing my replies inspirational, in the sense that it does not inspire me, for example, to write a song. Mostly I see what I do as a human duty, I feel I am playing my part in what has become an ever-expanding and robustly vulnerable community of soul-barers. In this space I have come face to face with a kind of truth – a truth that has embedded itself in my life, and which demands something of me, whether I like it or not. I don’t mean that it is some kind of burden, it is anything but, for duty is often the very thing that ultimately bears the greatest rewards. To act dutifully is to acknowledge that things matter, that things have value and are worth caring for. The Red Hand Files have become a quietly instructive influence over the way I try to live my life, which is openly and with curiosity. They are a kind of existential condition, a means by which to navigate the world, a way to be.

This provides a timely opportunity to invoke the wonderful George Saunders (speaking of empathy), whose quote on gentleness I’m always happy to invoke (speaking of his one-time writing teacher, the author Tobias Wolff): It is powerful to call your son “dear,” it is powerful to feel that the world is dear, it is powerful to always strive to see everything as dear. Toby is a powerful man: in his physicality, in his experiences, in his charisma. But all that power has culminated in gentleness. It is as if that is the point of power: to allow one to access the higher registers of gentleness.

Like many, but, sadly, not nearly enough fellow Americans, I was relieved during President Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, but also exhausted. As I watched, it occurred to me: among the many thoughts I’d had during the last 4-5 years, ever since that media-created fake billionaire descended a fake gold elevator to greet a supine press ready, willing, and able to exploit and elevate him, two recurred most consistently: One, that despite everything we’ve seen and imagined, there never was a bottom—the capacity to go deeper and be increasingly depraved became more than performance art and almost an existential state—possessing no shame, with cruelty the point of each perverse act, to be incapable of hitting rock bottom seems to me the essence of the man himself.

But the other thing, more simple and profoundly sad: I’ve never detected in him anything approximating joy; not in his role, in his family, in anything. Here we had the pitiful desolation of the most powerful man in the world hating every second of his tenure. T.S. Eliot presciently described “the hollow men” as an epitaph-in-advance for those (invariably males) who would make the 20th C in their empty images, but Trump—all politics, prejudice, and spectacle aside—is without doubt the most barren husk of a human being I’ve ever witnessed, demonstrably devoid of insight, humor, empathy, curiosity, lacking the foundational ability to feel anything other than a lizard-like rage—to survive by consuming and devouring. And while, as a septuagenarian, he is entirely accountable for his myriad foibles and flaws, it has long since occurred to me that he was very obviously broken at a young age. This does not remotely excuse (or adequately explain) all the mendacity, his almost sui generis hollowness, but his every public act illustrates the tragedy of a damaged man who has never known love.

Trump’s genius turned out to be the very imbecility that enabled him to connect with so many addicted to misinformation, talk-show carnival barkers, reality TV, and self-absorption as religion. His proficiency for embodying every vice defied literature, became biblical. But in order to become destroyed one had to have first been whole; as such, I think about his father, as well as the toxic culture that has bred generations of misguided men, their belligerence a mask for the frightened, unloved boys they’ve always been.

My thanks, again, to The Good Men Project , for publishing the poem I wrote that afternoon .

What Gets Heard When Men Won’t Speak

Clichés?come to being initially as truths,

derived from the first source: experience;

then as memories becoming re-enactments,

handed down and forever accumulating

their own congenital weights and meanings.

Rare is the man who can say the word?love

without feeling it, having never known it.

The father unable (or worse, unwilling) to say

these words to a son (or worse, a daughter) is

only partly to blame, he’s wounded by the ones

who didn’t (or worse, couldn’t) tell or teach him.

Thus we inherit a world where hardness is

inculcated and tenderness abhorrent; where

we countenance war; the atrocity of unfed babies

and grown-ups living outdoors, of those in need.

We’ve made a divine right of might, all in spite

of what could have been if those imitating acts

received as ritual had instead perceived softness;

were encouraged to find strength by seeing frailty

in others; had been taught that the more one takes

the smaller one becomes; the only hope for healing

is to purposefully give away all the precious things

those who can’t speak suffocate through silence.

Of course, I’ve recently taken a tolerably deep dive into these matters via my collection This Kind of Man (Unsolicited Press, May 24), which offers an unvarnished look at life in 21st Century America, excavating the complicated, tender, wild truth of what it is to be a man across generations and relationships. These stories interrogate the pressures and tensions of contemporary life, and the ways men grapple with them, often without success. Issues such as marriage, fatherhood, aggression, alcoholism, gender expectations, generational backlash, and the inexorable dread of death, abound. Many of these stories live within a slow implosion of coping, and often failing, as well as those who refuse to succumb, addressing concerns oft-discussed, or not discussed enough, in mainstream print: gun violence, the recent history of coal country Appalachia, sports-related concussions, illegal immigration (and the jobs many of these ostensibly unwelcome folks are obliged to do), homelessness, and the inability of men to honestly connect or communicate.

This collection seeks to pose a rhetorical question: how much of the anger and miscommunication?that prevails in America is the result of an outdated and dysfunctional notion of masculinity? How does not being taught to communicate openly or honestly, or show vulnerability, or cultivate empathy result in an inevitable feeling of alienation, loneliness, and despair? The stories are an extended meditation on the toxicities that fester in a late-stage capitalist?society, where aggression, competition, and selfishness breed violence and abuse.?We see that our received notions of manhood and masculinity are inculcated—from the beginning and by design—to ensure willing participation in a system where the overwhelming majority are excluded from the start. We witness the way these dysfunctions are handed down like inheritance, and how every cliché, from fighting to drinking to intolerance of dissent and distrust of others, is a carefully constructed trap, preventing solidarity, empathy, and love (for others, for one’s self).

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About Sean Murphy

I’m Sean Murphy, and you might have heard me on NPR’s “All Things Considered” or seen my name in The New York Times or The Huffington Post, among others. As a contributor to outlets ranging from The Good Men Project and PopMatters to The Village Voice and The Weeklings , my aim has always been to connect, provoke, and celebrate the stories that define us.

I founded 1455, a non-profit dedicated to celebrating creativity and community , and I direct the Center for Story at Shenandoah University, but I’ve been telling—and savoring—words for as long as I can remember. Since I first began writing, I’ve been obsessed with the ways powerful narratives explain our world while creating new possibilities, how art broadens awareness and builds empathy. I think we’d all agree that understanding how storytelling works—and why it’s important—has never been more critical, for our collective and individual well-being.