The mirror neuron meme continues to circulate via that dependable circulator of likable sciencey ideas, Jeremy Rifkin:
There’s much more to his argument than mirror neurons (fortunately).
“Empathy is grounded in the acknowledgment of death and the celebration of life in rooting for each other to flourish and be. It’s based on our frailties and our imperfections.”
“Empathy is the invisible hand. Empathy is what allows us to stretch our sensibility with another so that we can cohere in larger social units. To empathize is to civilize; to civilize is to empathize.”
If the invisible hand of the liberal right is the market, and of the conservative right is tradition, is the invisible hand of the left empathic sociality? And is science now on its side?
See The Empathic Civilization for more. And the RSA for more videos by the likes of David Harvey, Matthieu Ricard, Barbara Ehrenreich, Slavoj Zizek, Tzvetan Todorov, and others.
Hat tip to Symbiotika.
Evan Thompson, Shaun Gallagher, Dan Zahavi, et al are doing interesting work on empathy at the intersection of neuroscience, phenomenology, and (in Thompson’s case) Asian philosophy. Cf: http://www.imprint.co.uk/pdf/Thompson.pdf for a good overview.