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I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.
--Roger Ebert
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The Age of Outrospection
Imagine for a moment that you are reading or listening to a story so
intensely that you forget yourself and step into the shoes of the storyteller.
You see what they saw, hear what they heard, and feel what they felt. These
moments are rare, yet when they happen it is as if we have been transported
into their world and we are able to see through their eyes. It is a powerful,
almost magical feeling. One that is a privilege.
More than any other time in history, there is a vast and remarkable
potential to spread vivid, thoughtful, and imaginative stories via the
unfathomably dense communication network known as the Internet.
Many of
the seven billion people on the planet now have the potential to share their
own ‘eyes on the world’ and share their own unique perspectives and experiences
with those who have not perhaps had the same opportunities. The ability to do
this is a privilege and we should treat it as such - we must do our best to
craft each story we share with as much care, wisdom and thought as we can
muster.
Just as
importantly, each of us also has the opportunity to cultivate our own global
sense of adventurous empathy by taking the time to read, understand and
appreciate other people’s stories from all over the world. Philosopher Roman
Krznaric refers to this as ‘Outrospection’.
What exactly is ‘Outrospection’?
In his
talk, Roman asserts that the process of ‘experiential outrospection’ requires
that we ditch the self-centred ‘self-help’ guides and manuals on how to become
rich and successful and that instead we seek to understand life through the
eyes of others, fostering an adventurous curiosity for other lives and places
beyond our own experience.
When
travelling for example, instead of asking the usual question ‘where should I go
next?’, Roman suggests that we might instead ask ‘whose shoes can I stand in
next?’ - embarking on journeys into the lives of strangers. Roman also mentions
the difference between empathy and pity:
“If you see a homeless person
living under a bridge you may feel sorry for him and give him some money as you
pass by. That is pity or sympathy, not empathy. If, on the other hand, you make
an effort to look at the world through his eyes, to consider what life is
really like for him, and perhaps have a conversation that transforms him from a
faceless stranger into a unique individual, then you are empathising.”
— Roman Krznaric
Roman
says that the ‘empathetic gap’ that exists in the world today is two-fold:
Firstly, we are not empathising with people
across countries. For instance, those in India who are already suffering from
floods most likely caused by global warming.
Secondly, that we are failing to empathise
through time to future generations.
Roman
has some radical suggestions for how we might overcome this gap. Our favourite
is his idea of building ‘Empathy Museums’ in every city - experiential and conversational public spaces, full of
human libraries where you might be able to borrow people for in-depth
conversations. For instance, you could walk into a room with former Vietnamese
sweatshop worker who would teach you how to make a T-shirt similar to the one
you are likely wearing and talk to you about their life. And for many thousands
of years, stories have been the way humans have shared empathy, fostered
understanding of the world around us, and taught common values.
“ I believe empathy is the most
essential quality of civilization. ”
— Roger Ebert
The Evolution of Our Concentric Circles of Empathy
Stepping
back in time to the 18th century, Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote about
his concept for ‘concentric circles of empathy’ - a wonderfully visual metaphor
for understanding how empathy functions.
Hume
argued that our sense of empathy towards others tends to diminish as we go
further from the centre of this circle. As we move away from our immediate
family all the way to someone on the other side of the world, to whom you have
no ties.
More
recently, however, neuroscientists have demonstrated that all humans, along
with a few mammals such as chimps, elephants and dolphins, possess something
called ‘mirror neurons’. This means we are all ‘soft-wired’ in such a way that
when we look at another person who is experiencing a strong emotion, like anger
or joy, the same neuron being stimulated in their brain, will also be
stimulated in yours.
Writer
and economist Jeremy Rifkin expands on this research in his talk ‘The Empathetic Civilisation’. Rifkin argues that the following holds true:
Firstly, that in our ancestral forager/hunter
tribes, empathy was extended only to local tribes and blood ties.
Secondly, that in later years as the medium of
writing evolved, empathy was no longer constrained by time and space,
especially as tribes and communities came to believe in a common God.
Thirdly, that as modern nation states were
eventually created, we began to view our fellow countrymen as extended family.
Rifkin
points out that if we accept that the empathic boundaries we have constructed
between our nations and our religions are purely man-made fictions, then what
reason is there to believe that the process should end here? For example, just
a few weeks ago, the idea for an 'interspecies Internet' was
announced at TED.
“ We ought to rethink the human
narrative and prepare the groundwork for an empathic civilisation. ”
— Jeremy Rifkin
Thoughtful Storytelling = Adventurous Empathy
Few
would disagree with Einstein’s powerful sentiments about widening our
compassion to extend to the whole planet, yet where does the modern pragmatic
idealist begin? How can bridges be built to cross Roman’s empathy gap or fuel
the creation of Rifkin’s empathic civilisation? We believe that the answer lies
in storytelling. Specifically in emotionally charged, cross-cultural narratives
that can be shared almost instantaneously throughout the world via the
Internet.
Roman
uses the example of how storytelling was a powerful factor in the human rights
movement and also in bringing about the abolition of the slave trade. We would
like to highlight a more recent example of the power of storytelling to effect
change - the Charity Water movement that was started by Scott Harrison, a former nightclub
promoter. When Scott first visited Africa he was working as a photographer for Mercy Ships. He felt an overwhelming sense of empathy for the people he met and
returned home determined to tell their story. Scott used his storytelling
superpowers to extend the empathy he felt to millions of others.
“ ...these stories are a kind
of beacon. By making stories full of empathy and amusement and the sheer
pleasure of discovering the world, these writers reassert the fact that we live
in a world where joy and empathy and pleasure are all around us, there for the
noticing. ”
— Ira Glass
It
doesn't matter if the medium is long-form narrative, videography, photography
or even art, whether it involves reminiscing about events of the past, telling
narratives of the here and now, or spinning tales of the future and what could
be. We imagine (and hope) that one day we will be full of stories of
outrospection and that people will think of maps as beautiful and creative
tools for spreading adventurous empathy.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Every individual has
a place to fill in the world, and is important in some respect,
whether he chooses to be so or not.
