Do We Know Everything About Empathy?
Today the world is all abuzz about the science of empathy. It’s one of the most celebrated subjects of psychological and neuro-psychological enquiry; empathy has everybody talking. The blogosphere is full of commentary about this or that latest piece of research, powered by cutting-edge brain-imaging devices. And this has begun to make a wonderful difference in our lives. Schools are incorporating units on empathy and emotional intelligence in their timetable, health practitioners are taking courses to hone their empathic abilities and empathy is rapidly becoming the new lens through which we evaluate human behaviour. Jeremy Rifkin, former economic advisor to the European Union and several heads of state, has produced a blueprint for a new, sustainable and just global society that he calls The Empathic Civilization (Penguin 2009). Just about every field of human endeavour has been permeated by a new narrative about the desirability of human empathy; the yardstick of relational health. What we now know about empathy has the potential to transform human society in spectacular ways.
As Thomas Lewis, UCSF professor of psychiatry explains in A General Theory of Love, this is demonstrably a matter of neuro-psychological structure. Our emotional mind (the enteric brain in the gut, the heart-brain and the limbic brain) drive our thinking in a matter of nano-seconds. The frontal lobes, seat of the rational mind, think slowly and are mainly receivers of information sent from the emotive circuitries. We feel first, think later, and we give our actions a post-hoc rationale. The rational brain can have some influence on the emotional brain but it is usually the other way around. Just and loving behaviour is more trustworthy and sustained when it is powered by feeling – in other words; the visceral pangs of human empathy. We cannot philosophize our way to a better world. The way to a new society is to heal the human heart, and to raise our children in empathy.
To read more of Robin Grille's article - http://www.dailygood.org/story...-heart-robin-grille/
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