The Empathic Civilization

I went to an environmental politics reading group today in which we discussed Jeremy Rifkin's idea that the human animal is actually becoming more empathic. A nutshell animation of the argument can be watched here:



I had been planning on going to the reading group, but what with being away for the weekend, last week working on something else, and this morning running a tutorial (before which I was marking essays), I didn't get around to doing the reading until half an hour before the meeting. Nevertheless I managed to read it all (it was just one chapter), and discovered how strangely appropriate it was to yesterday's blog post.

I think when you start to talk about the spiritual/psychological positives that arise out of a feeling of connection with nature, you run the risk of making people think you are some kind of fruity new age spiritualist hippie. There probably is a little bit of that in me actually. But when you are batting in an intellectual arena there often isn't room for that sort of thing. So it's interesting and sort of appropriate that what I thought was Rifkin's weakness of argument was actually a strength. That is, he argues in a way that suggests some kind of scientific rationale to the argument, using a real variety of examples from many different disciplines, and puts forth the argument as though the things he is mentioning actually do suggest what he's reading into it. The problem is that what he's arguing is actually sort of a spiritual or psychological emotional response, whereas his style of argument is one of rationalism. You'd think it would be contradictory in many ways, but I can see the value in it. There are plenty of deep ecology and other environmental philosophy works out there which suggest a different evaluation of our environment, of nature, as something we are a part of rather than something we stand apart from and utilize. In the academic world, as with most work, these tend to be read only by other like-minded environmentalists. But something like Rifkin could in fact impact upon the more 'sciency' social sciences, such as political science, and even policy discourse because of the way it is presented.

Perhaps the best thing about his argument is that it endorses the idea of feeling a bond with, an empathy for, and a desire to be a part of a wider community that includes not only humans of all sorts, but also other creatures, frogs even! Though we found many ways to dissect his argument, I think we all enjoyed the positive message he implies, and I feel heartened that such thoughts are emerging from the academic community which is so often dedicated to pulling things apart and being critical and negative about everything. The positive message is that through encouraging our empathetic natures, and by following our instincts to do things in the interests of others (human and otherwise), we in fact fulfill a desire in ourselves and make ourselves feel more connected, more part of something bigger, and perhaps just more good. The irony in how I translated that is that it still has to do with being selfish. We are empathetic because it makes ourselves feel good, once again centering the focus upon ourselves. Still, if the product is good for all involved, does it matter if it is done out of a selfish desire to feel good?