Teach Empathy

Learn more about empathy, and how empathy can enrich your life.

Posts Tagged ‘politics’

The Limits of David Brooks’ “Limits of Empathy”

November 13th, 2011

Here’s another critique of David Brooks recent NYT column on the limits of empathy, this one from Jason Marsh. I enjoyed his conclusion especially, worth a read…

Does empathy lead to altruism? The New York Times columnist gets it wrong.

Over the last few days, a lot of people have asked me about David Brooks’ Friday op-ed column in The New York Times on the “limits of empathy.” In it, Brooks argues that empathy is a “sideshow” to moral action. Considering the glut of recent books on empathy—such as Frans de Waal’s The Age of Empathy and Jeremy Rifkin’s The Empathic Civilization—Brooks writes that empathy “has become a way to experience delicious moral emotions without confronting the weaknesses in our nature that prevent us from actually acting upon them.”

Empathy, in other words, is little more than a fad.

Empathy and Good Judgment

April 22nd, 2010

From Miki Kashtan’s The Fearless Heart Blog:

President Obama ignited controversy when he named empathy as a necessary quality in a Supreme Court judge. Wendy Long, legal counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network and former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, said, “Lady Justice doesn’t have empathy for anyone. She rules strictly based upon the law and that’s really the only way that our system can function properly under the Constitution.” Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) referred to empathy as “touchy-feely stuff.” During Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) asked her, “Have you always been able to have a legal basis for decisions you have rendered and not rely on extralegal concepts such as empathy?”

Long, Graham, and Kyl understand empathy as an uprising of emotion that is irrelevant – even harmful – to sound reasoning and the application of justice. I see empathy as the capacity to understand the world from another’s perspective, part of what Daniel Goleman refers to as emotional intelligence. Empathic reasoning recognizes that others are human like us, thereby shedding light on the facts and making sound judgment more likely.

Empathy from Left Field

April 6th, 2010

This post from Miki Kashtan’s blog “The Fearless Heart” caught my eye. If you are concerned about the degrading state of political discourse in America, this is a must read post. It might not be what you expected.

I love a good challenge, and Helen Smith’s recent article immediately called my attention. As someone who’s dedicating my life, in part, to increasing empathy all around in the culture, I found some of her comments painful, because they matched my own experience with liberals.

The Missing Empathy for the Right
In the social circles in which I find myself, and in much of the Left media, conservatives are regularly referred to as stupid (at best), backward, uncaring, or unevolved. At every opportunity I have, especially in my workshops, I invite people to look at what might be the underlying values behind conservative positions, to imagine how a decent fellow human could arrive at such opposing views. I wish I could contradict Helen Smith, but my experience only confirms what she says.

I see a complete dearth of genuine, open-hearted empathy towards conservatives….

Read more… (And check out Miki’s follow-up post as well)

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Posted in Articles

Tags: empathy Highly Recommended politics

Jeremy Rifkin on Evolution, Empathy and Human Survival (VIDEO)

February 14th, 2010

From @Google Talks, Author Jeremy Rifkin addresses Google staff members…

I began watching this video and then realized it’s 50 minutes long, wondering if I would be able to last through his presentation. Although people familiar with Ken Wilber’s work might find his talk less illuminating, I was nonetheless impressed with Mr. Rifkin’s command of the material and noncombative perspectives about issues that others find extremely controversial. I watched the entire talk, and I’m glad that I did. I’ll be looking for more material to post from Mr. Rifkin.

The Empathic Civilization is the first book to explore how empathetic consciousness restructures the ways we organize our personal lives, approach knowledge, pursue science and technology, conduct commerce and governance, and orchestrate civil society. The development of this empathetic consciousness is essential to creating a future where we think and behave like the whole world matter.

Jeremy Rifkin is president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and the author of seventeen bestselling books on the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment. One of the most popular social thinkers of our time, Rifkin is the bestselling author of The European Dream, The Hydrogen Economy, The Age of Access, The Biotech Century, and The End of Work.

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Posted in Video

Tags: economics empathy jeremy rifkin politics worldcentric

Empathy Blogs for February 13th, 2010

February 13th, 2010

Here is an interesting cross-section of bloggers talking about empathy from various perspectives over the past few days…

From the HuffPost:
‘The Empathic Civilization’: Can Limbaugh and Obama Both Be Right?
In this post, Robbie Vorhaus attempts to compare Preident Obama to Rush Limbaugh. Good luck with that!

From the Feeleez blog:
toys for children in Haiti
The makers of an empathy game for children are looking for help getting their game to Haiti. (I admit I thought, let’s get food there first! I’m sure the people suffering in Haiti can use all the help they can get.)

Love and BLogic
Why leading with empathy works
A proponent of “love and logic” offers us a “neurological” reason to lead with empathy.

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Posted in Other Blogs

Tags: children empathy politics science

The Empathic Civilization: HuffPost Book Club Pick

February 13th, 2010

From Arianna Huffington: For this month’s HuffPost Book Club, I have chosen a big book — both figuratively and literally. Jeremy Rifkin’s The Empathic Civilization clocks in at close to 700 pages and sets out to present nothing less than — as Rifkin puts it — “a new rendering of human history and the meaning of human existence.”

This alternative history focuses not on the conflicts, antagonisms, and power struggles that have marked human progress, but on “the empathic evolution of the human race and the profound ways it has shaped our development and will likely decide our fate as a species.”

Empathy, Rifkin tells us — and backs up with new scientific data — is not a quaint behavior trotted out during intermittent visits to a food bank or during the Haiti telethon. Instead, it lies at the very core of human existence.

Tweets about empathy

@ulomiqe How Empathy Can Reduce Your Anger qCy: .Cbz http://t.co/tpQp67Mk
@TheLovelynda "@citizentvkenya PM Raila Odinga visits former Minister Njenga Karume who is recuperating at his Kiambu home" Empathy or newsmaking #ntvnews
@SantronTerrell God thank you for strength, empathy, endurance, understanding, passion, discipline, and above all..You
@_kanyeshrug @thuggnastycasie its dat empathy thing we have
@Alizayipqo Tired of giving empathy move forward or stay where yu at.
@ImFirst_YurLast Tired of giving empathy move forward or stay where yu at
@DevaToTheDivine RT @moonlightcougar: When we forgive, we are opening ourselves to compassion, love, empathy, and a new vibration of peace and harmony.
@FMKoh @sharonf On a positive note http://t.co/r4sIetIt
@KEYAsMamma RT @keyaspapa Whenever her feeling have been hurt, give her empathy n tell her "I'm sorry u feel hurt",then be silent.#101waytomakeherhappy
@keyaspapa Whenever her feeling have been hurt, give her empathy and tell her "I'm sorry u feel hurt", then be silent.#101waytomakeherhappy @KEYAsMamma

Living NVC – Daily
- Warmest Holiday Wishes and an Inspiration from John Lennon December 26, 2011
  Happy Holidays! This song / message from John Lennon and Yoko Ono was inspiring and lovely for me to receive. I hope you enjoy it as well. It reminds me that peace starts with me and it’s possible if I am committed to it in my life. It takes true commitment, even a kind of […]
- Occupy Movement – Clarity and Warmth November 22, 2011
  I found the following short video very touching and enlightening. It helped me feel more connected to the Occupy Movement and to appreciate their efforts. Take a few minutes to watch it and i hope it will be inspiring to you as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRtc-k6dhgs&feature=share&mid=532910 […]
- The New NVC Multimedia Library May 19, 2011
  If you haven’t taken a few moments to look at the NVC Academy’s new NVC Multimedia Library, I would HIGHLY recommend that you do. The Multimedia Library contains 150+ trainer resources (more will be added on an ongoing basis!) that include: Recorded telecourses on a variety of topics MP3 and MP4 downloads Videotaped trainings Trainer Tips for living NVC Arti […]
- Killing of Osama Bin Laden – Inject the Situation with Love May 11, 2011
  I have been feeling very sad about the killing of Osama Bin Laden – how it was handled and the joy with which people are responding to it. I have been doing some personal work of late on forgiveness and atonement and so my way of dealing with the situation is to be honest with […]
- NVC Multimedia Library is Launched – A Result of Your Input May 9, 2011
  I’m very proud to announce the newly launched NVC Multimedia Library Through the NVC Academy. My business partner, Mark Schultz, and I have spent the last year reorganizing the NVC Academy. We started by implementing a comprehensive survey that was sent to all 8500 members of the NVC Academy, we studied the results of the survey, […]

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