Search Mediators Near You:

Empathy And Humankind

From Arnold W. Zeman’s blog

According to its website,

For over 250 years the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) has been a cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for social progress. Our approach is multi-disciplinary, politically independent and combines cutting edge research and policy development with practical action.

One of the RSA’s most interesting, and I daresay successful projects, is the animation of excerpts of lectures by prominent thinkers.

In the RSA animation below, economist Jeremy Rifkin talks about the soft-wiring of humans for empathy. The excerpt is very rich with ideas and optimism for expanding the human family. In it, he defines empathy as the acknowledgement of death and reaffirmation of life. Many early political thinkers identified the fear of death and the concomitant instinct for self-preservation as driving forces for enlarging the family to society and cultures in order to protect individuals from the brutality, aggression and violence of human life. What is quite interesting here is that starting with the discovery of mirror neurons, Rifkin takes the human coming-to-terms with death beyond nation-state consciousness and theological consciousness to something more universal and inclusive.

                        author

Arnold W. Zeman

After over 33 years in the public service of Canada, the last 20 of which as an executive, I retired from government in 2006 to pursue my passion to help people resolve their differences non-adversarially. I have been trained by the best in the field in both the public and… MORE >

Featured Mediators

ad
View all

Read these next

Category

Dividing Stuff

In divorce, couples are confronted with the creation of two new households.  Furnishing a new household is not a simple or inexpensive undertaking.  The replacement of major items such as...

By Dr. Lynne C. Halem
Category

Outwitting Cognitive Dissonance

Meredith Mediates by Meredith RichardsonWe like to believe that we are rational beings who make rational decisions. Sometimes, we are. And sometimes, we are not. We each have our own...

By Meredith Richardson
Category

Author, Author! An Interview with Michael Lang, Author of The Guide to Reflective Practice in Conflict Resolution

Q: Congratulations on publication of your new The Guide to Reflective Practice in Conflict Resolution. How do you think about reflective practice? A: For me, reflective practice is a way...

By Judith Starr, Michael Lang

Find a Mediator

X
X
X