Name: RSA Animate: Jeremy Rifkin - The Empathic Civilization
Uploaded: 2016-07-03T09:26:28.000Z
Duration: 10 min 40 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Jeremy Rifkin. The Empathic Civilisation.

there's been some very interesting developments in evolutionary biology

neurocognitive science, child development, research and many other fields

which is beginning to challenge some of these long held shibboleths that we've had

about human nature and the meaning of the human journey.

But, there is another frame of reference emerging in the sciences

which is quite interesting and really challenges these assumptions.

And with that, the institutions that we have created based on those assumptions

our educational institutions, our business practices, our governing institutions, etc.

sleepy little laboratory in Parma, Italy.

And scientists had a MRI brain scanning machine on a macaque monkey

as the macaque monkey was trying to open up a nut.

They wanted to see how the neurons would light up.

So the monkey's trying to open up the nut, the neurons light up

and just by serendipity, and this is how science sometimes happens

a human being walked in the laboratory, I don't know if it was by mistake

and he was hungry and saw the nuts and opened up one of the nuts

because, who was this invader in his laboratory?

And he didn't move, he just gazed at this human trying to open up the nut

just like he had done a few seconds earlier

and then the scientist looked on the MRI brain scanner

when he observed the human being opening the nut

and the scientists had not a clue as to what this was

They then began to put MRI brain scanning machines on other primates

especially chimpanzees with our big neocortex.

Then they went to humans, and what they found over and over again

And that is that we are apparently soft-wired

we suspect elephants, we're not sure about dolphins and dogs, we've just begun.

But all humans are soft-wired with mirror neurons

so that, if I'm observing you, your anger, your frustration

your sense of rejection, your joy, whatever it is, and I can feel what you're doing

the same neurons will light up in me as if I'm having that experience myself.

We know if a spider goes up someone's arm

and I'm observing it going up your arm, I'm going to get a creepy feeling.

We take this for granted, but we're actually soft-wired

to actually experience another's plight as if we're experiencing it ourself.

But mirror neurons are just the beginning of a whole range of research

going on in neuropsychology and brain research and in child development

that suggests that we are actually soft-wired not for aggression

and violence and self interest and utilitarianism

that we are actually soft-wired for sociability

'attachment' as John Bowlby might have said

affection, companionship, and that the first drive is the drive to actually 'belong'.

When little babies are in a nursery and one baby cries

the other babies will cry in response, they just don't know why.

That's empathic distress, it's built into their biology.

Around two and half years of age, a child actually can begin to recognize himself in a mirror.

That's when you begin to mature empathy as a cultural phenomenon.

And then, once a toddler can identify themselves

then they know that if they're observing someone else have a feeling

they know that if they feel something, it's because they're feeling it because someone else has it.

Selfhood that goes together with empathic development.

Increasing selfhood, increasing empathic development.

Around eight years of age a child learns about birth and death

they learn where they came from, that they have a one and only life

that life is fragile and vulnerable and one day they're gonna die.

That's the beginning of an existential trip.

Because when a child learns about birth and death and they have a one and only life

they realise how fragile and vulnerable life is.

It's very tough being alive on this planet

whether you're a human being, or a fox navigating the forest.

So when a child learns that life is vulnerable and fragile

and that every moment is precious, and that they have their own unique history

it allows a child then, to experience another's plight in the same way.

That, that other person, or other being (could be another creature)

has a one and only life, it's tough to be alive and the odds are not always good.

So if you think about the times that we've empathized with each other or fellow creatures

it's always because we felt their struggle.

We have the whiff of death in empathy, and the celebration of life.

And we show solidarity with our compassion.

There is no empathy in Heaven, I guarantee you, I'll  tell you before you get there.

There isn't any empathy in Heaven because there's no mortality.

There's no empathy in Utopia because there is no suffering.

Empathy is grounded in the acknowledgement of death and the celebration of life

and rooting for each other to flourish and be.

It's based on our frailties and imperfections.

So when we talk about building an empathic civilization, we're not talking about Utopia.

We're talking about the ability of human beings to show solidarity

but our fellow creatures who have a one and only life on this little planet.

We are 'homoempathicus', so here is the question

We know that consciousness changes in history

the way our brain is wired today is not the way a medieval serf's brain would be wired,

and their brain wouldn't be the same as the wiring of a forager/hunter 30,000 years ago.