Empathy and Change

Empathy is never something I had thought to in depth about until now. In fact, I wasn't even completely sure how I would define it. I thought it was just being sensitive towards other's hardships. A few lecture videos made me consider the concept on a larger scale. "We take this for granted sometimes but we're actually soft wired to actually experience another's plight as if we're experiencing them ourself" (Rifkin).  Jeremy Rifkin discussed scientific experiments that show how parts of our brain activate when we watch something the same way they would if they were happening to us. This was very interesting because it integrates science with feelings. Then, once I understood a little more about empathy another lecture forced me to change those ideas again. "We normally think of empathy as empathizing with the down and outs, the poor and marginalised, those on the edges of society. I think we need to be more adventurous in who we try to empathize with. I think we need to empathize with those in power. We need to understand how those in power, in whatever realm it is, think about the world and their lives and their ambitions. We need to understand their values. Only then are we going to develop effective strategies for social, political and economic transformation" (Krznaric). I like that quote because it causes me to not just think about empathy but think about who I empathize for and how it can effect the world we live in.

My brain was then sparked to think about change. Specifically change about society and the way it works and thinks about all things. "The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible and the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim" (Zizek). This inspired me to think back about what I learned about empathy and how to relate it to society for a positive change. Then something very relatable came about and that was the change that needs to come for education. "But one of the most important things that has happened to them I'm convinced is that by now they've become educated. They've spent ten years at school being told there's one answer it's at the back and don't look. And don't copy because that's cheating. Outside school that's called collaboration no but inside schools... This isn't because teachers want it this way it's just because it happens that way. Its becasue its in the gene pool of education. They have to think differently about human capacity. We have to get over this old conception of academic, non-academic, abstract, theoretical, vocational and see what it is - a myth" (Robinson). This really inspired me because it's so true and I hadn't really thought about what I do at school everyday and how it's somewhat corrupt.