It’s around us everywhere. Violence, destruction, mans inhumanity to man. We’re told not to go out, to barricade ourselves like a medieval fort from the barbaric hordes that are about to descend onto us. But sorry I don’t see that around me. Sure it’s on the box and in the papers but I live in a peaceful community where everyone I know isn’t threatened or harmed. Am I naive?
Well it looks like I may be right just check out this TED presentation by Steven Pinker and you may get why I don’t feel fearful. It’s just not there. The points that Steven makes at the end of his talk about empathy rings profoundly true for me.
I’ve always thought that we probably don’t live in particularly violent times but there is still some violence going on and I feel that the lack of empathy is why we continue to allow it.
As I mentioned in a previous post it is my goal with this podcast to allow people to develop some empathy with others through their stories so that we can see that we are not that different from them.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk[/youtube]
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