Hey everyone,
I was thinking this weekend on empathy and how it relates to other books we have read this year in english.
As I reflected I remembered that in Macbeth and in Lord of the Flies, the author portayed man as being instinctively savage, something very opposite from empathy. You also see this being portayed through out history in events such as the holocaust. But now, as I read a Whole New Mind, Pink says that, on page 159, "It (empathy) is something we do pretty much spontaniously, an act of instinct rather than the product of deliberation."
It is very contradictory and I was wondering what you guys thought!!
Thanks for your input.
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16 comments:
Hmmm, well, I would say that the human kind has developed a lot in history, because, in the present day I would say that people do do this spontaniously. I think that people in the past have not always been very empathetic because they had to look after themselves. Leave the sick, or leave the wierd, because it is the survival of the fittest, you know? Now that we now-a-days can take care of eachother and have more thing to protect eachother, whether it is medicine or something else, people have the time and the heart to feel empathetic.
Haha lesie and I are the only ones who commented on two of these so far....
Um, I think Pink is partially right, becuase empathy is instincitve in society. If you see someone having trouble, most people would help them, as long as it doesn't reguire them to go too far out of their way. But like in LOF, they were on their own, and regular rules of society didn't apply. Like LEslie said - they had to look out for themselves.
If you had to choose between saving yourself or someone else; when it somes right down to it, most of us would choose ourselves every time, whether we'd like to think so or not.
Three is a a good number, I think?
Throughout history man and woman have always had a strong sense of self-preservation. The one before the whole. Today that thinking has shifted. I agree with Leslie and Matt, but for those not exposed to the "modern era" they still retain a large amount of empathy even if not introduced to it. In some occasions self-sacrifice is the response to save a larger group and I am not entirely sure if that argues the idea of self preservation. On the contrary it is the exact opposite.
I don't know. I think I could go either way, although right now I am feeling rather synical and therefore will lean towards the end of mankind. Ha. I think that empathy is dwindling. It started low (becuase we were animals looking for survival not love) and then has grown and then has again fallen away because of our selfish society. I think that the activities our generation takes part in and the way they are raised teaches selfishness and arrogance creating a barrier against empathy. I have a feeling this will continue and empathy will continue to fall away until we are nothing but machines cutting down trees and taking over the world with our apparent intelligence. Ya, that's what I think. Don't get too depressed!
Hmmm...I don't think I can answer this question without bringing in my personal religous beliefs, but I'll try.
I can't agree and say that we started with empathy and now we're loosing it or that we started without it and now we're suddenly finding it either. It seems to me that empathy depends solely on the individual, but I would have to agree with Pink and say that it is something we are born with. Without empathy we would not relate to other humans because we could not compromise or put ourselves in their shoes. I think humans have always had the same amount of empathy, it just depends on the circumstances that they are in that determines how much empathy they use, show, or supress. That's what I think.
I agree with Leslie who that mankind has evolved. It just depends on the situation. When a human wants something to the point of obesession like in Macbeth I think they loose all sense of right from wrong and can only focus on that one thing. Thus all the empathy they might have once had dissapears.
In LOTF they boys main goal is to survive long enough to be rescued. Self preservation requires that you stop trying to save other people. If you take the time to care for the others around you, then you wast energy that could be used to save yourself.
I truly think that everybody is capable of empathy and that it may come naturaly but circumstances can make the ability irrelivant.
Wow, that is a great question. Sorry I am answering this kind of late but I still wanted to try and involve myself.
I think that in Lord of the Flies and Macbeth, the characters did not start off being un-empathetic people, or savage. I would like to say that they lost their empathy due to the environments that they had grown in. I do think that humans have some sense of empathy, but the way it grows or becomes even smaller depends on what happens in their lives. In both of these situations their lives changed largely and this caused a more savage growth. But, I do see the very contradictory sides. Empathy is definitally not something you think about and then deside you are going to be empathetic, but to some it comes easier than others. And I feel that environment has a lot to do with empathy.
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