The Empathic Civilisation

Never has the world seemed so completely united-in the form of communication, commerce, and culture-and so savagely torn apart-in the form of war, financial meltdown, global warming, and even the migration of diseases.

No matter how much we put our minds to the task of meeting the challenges of a rapidly globalizing world, the human race seems to continually come up short, unable to muster the collective mental resources to truly “think globally and act locally.”

Jeremy Rifkin shows that this disconnect between our vision for the world and our ability to realize that vision lies in the current state of human consciousness.

The very way our brains are structured disposes us to a way of feeling, thinking, and acting in the world that is no longer entirely relevant to the new environments we have created for ourselves.

Bestselling author, political adviser and social and ethical prophet Jeremy Rifkin investigates the evolution of empathy and the profound ways that it has shaped our development and our society.

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Dondonner
Exactly, the thought that human history can be understood by looking at the way we use energy (the photosynthesis) and that energy eventually has a impact on the way we communicate is really refreshening. In scope its like the grand narratives, the great stories of existence, like communism, freemarket-capitalism etc. but these are ofcourse discredited by the professor. His idea of human nature rooted in empathy is very appealing, personally, but the way it sounds reminds me too much of the human-nature pictures that Smith, Marx etc. paint. I’ll just have to beef up my research on that one
http://www.facebook.com/people/Farking-Spamhell/608791907 Farking Spamhell
In the first 5 minutes he says “…we may be seeing the extinction of our species in the next century…”….
Yawn!!!!
wald0
This guy was “all over the place” because he was outlining the entire path of human history from a certain unique perspective. Even though he talked about civilizations spanning from the Assyrians to present day nation states he did so in order to make one point, which he made very effectively. That when energy paradigms shift and inspire communication revolutions it has the effect of creating a more complicated and inclusive society. He gave several factual examples of this happening- are you saying he was mistaken? Well, please enlighten us all then- how is he wrong, if the material is so old reference where you heard it before and from whom. How is he preying on anything when he has nothing to sell that he would profit from? It’s not like he holds the patent on solar or wind energy. In reality you can’t reference the material because it is unique. No one has ever broken history down this way- paying close attention to energy paradigms and how they affected our empathic consciousness. Maybe it wasn’t the presentation or the presenter that was so boring- huh?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Farking-Spamhell/608791907 Farking Spamhell
boring…. the guy is all over the place….
what he says is nothing new… preying on peoples fears and hopes…
wald0
Wow, this guy just blew my mind! This is a must see for everyone concerned about the seemingly dim future of our species and planet. I have a two year degree in western civics and have studied a lot of history but, this guy has the most unique and inspiring point of view on history of anyone I have ever heard speak on the subject. He outlines in a very plain and factual way how our empathic consciousness has changed due to energy and communication revolutions throughout human history which allowed us to redefine our extended families. For instance the move from foraging and hunting to complicated irrigation systems and agriculture inspired the invention of writing and allowed us to abandon the mythic consciousness for a theistic one. This allowed everyone to extend their empathic consciousness to everyone in their respective religious family instead of just the members of a tribe or blood ties. Basically what he is getting at is that we are just on the verge of another energy and communication revolution which should again expand our empathic consciousness, this time to the whole human race as one. He even sees a future path to extending our empathy all the way to the biosphere, which is what must happen if we ever hope to truly be sustainable. But, he also points out that the whole time we have been doing this, creating ever more complicated societies and extending empathy, we have also been accelerating entropy and we may go extinct as a result before we ever make it to the next empathic expansion. We are at a tipping point right now and it is really up to us which way we fall but, fall we must. If we don’t choose the laws of the natural world will choose for us, and the natural world has no sense of empathy or sympathy.