Empathy in 1847
A friend shared on Facebook a beautiful story of empathy from one oppressed people for another. The BBC told about how Choctaw people in the southern U.S., in 1847, heard about the Irish people...
Tagged: empathy
Cross-cultural empathy here and now
A recent article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune tells about a brilliant idea that promotes understanding between cultures. And not only that, it’s easy and cheap. Rather than sending teenagers abroad to live with a...
Outpouring of Support for Immigrants
It is very heartening to see the outpouring of support for immigrants, after Donald Trump’s ban on immigration from several Muslim countries. We have also seen, recently, people from other cultures and countries being denigrated,...
How I developed empathy as a child
I was an empathetic child. I believe almost all children are inherently empathetic, because human beings are tribal, social animals who need to be able to relate to the other members of their group....
Happy Holidays, Y’all
So, with the election of Donald Trump, people are saying that we can finally say “Merry Christmas” again. Like, we couldn’t before? Of course you can say “Merry Christmas”–to people who actually celebrate the...
Poetry to enhance your empathy and connection
My book club just read a stunningly beautiful book: Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. It is her memoir of her childhood growing up in both rural South Carolina, with her grandparents as well as her...
Moral Imagination
There is a beautiful article in the Opinion section of the New York Times that never uses the word empathy, but is all about it. Jennifer Finney Boylan talks movingly, and personally, about how...
Empathy can hurt
Let’s be honest. It’s hard to deliberately subject yourself to pain. Which is what you’re doing if you’re an empathetic person, and you chose to go to a movie about a child who is...
Empathy for a bird
That’s right, for a bird. One tiny, meaningless little gull provoked a great deal of empathy among a group of strangers walking around a lake the other day, as Gail Rosenblum related the story...
Are People Actually Bad at Empathy?
The New York Times published an article by a psychologist named Paul Bloom, titled “Imagining the Lives of Others.” In it, he reports on a new book by psychologist Nicholas Epley called “Mindwise”, which...