Review: Mutilated empathy in spite of itself in Migrant Aesthetics: Contemporary Fiction, Global Migration, and the Limits of Empathy by Glenda Carpio (New York: Columbia University Press, 2023, 285pp.) [This review updated to correct typos and grammatical infelicities on Dec 10, 2023.]… Read More ›
So far, the two-ton elephant in the room is “Maybe men and women really do have different brains – or a combination of brains and early experiences that produce different results from the same input.” Note this applies either in… Read More ›
My empathy lessons started when I was about four years old. My Mom would tell me bedtime stories. Right before bed, she would weave a narrative out of the significant events of a day in the life of an “on the go,” four-year-old boy.
To course-correct our approach to pain, we need to change the story of chronic pain – pushing back on the voices attempting to convince us all pain is catastrophic and life threatening and needs immediate attention over everything else right now – but yet – pain is world consuming
Forced to make a decision that no one should have to make; that no one can (really) make; and yet that she did make. This survivor is also a now a perpetrator. Moral trauma.
Whatever the Founding Fathers intended with the Second Amendment, they did NOT intend: Sandy Hook. They did not intend Nashville, Covenant School. They did not intend Uvalde, Parkland, Columbine, Buffalo, NY, Tops Friendly. They did not intend some 119 school shootings and counting since 2018.
Empathy is a practice and priority, not a mere psychological mechanism. Practicing empathy is a way of being in the world, creating a safe space of openness, acceptance and toleration. In the face of a contagion of Omicron, we need a contagion of empathy.
As a young man, Arthur J. Clark heard Carl Rogers speak and was inspired to devote his life’s work to applying empathy in education, counseling, and talk therapy.
In time of war, the power of empathy consists in putting yourself in the shoes of the enemy, thinking like the enemy, and thereby anticipating and thwarting the enemy’s moves.
As Tolstoy famously noted, all happy families are alike. What Tolstoy did not note was that many happy families are also unhappy ones. Figure that one out! Sherry’s answer to Tolstoy is her memoir about the successes and breakdowns of empathy in her family of origin and her subsequent life.
Empathy Lessons 