Recent Posts - page 2

  • Top Ten Empathy Trends For 2022

    By on

    The author in his Rigorous and Critical Empathy t-shirt after getting yet another shot!

    A new year and a new virus variant? Being cynical and resigned is easy, and the empathy training is to drive out cynicism and resignation – then empathy naturally comes forth. If given half a chance. People want to be empathic. The prediction is that with a rigorous and critical empathy (and getting a very high percent of the population vaccinated), we are equal to the challenge.

  • The holocaust of sex, entitled: The Right to Sex by Amin Srinivasan (Reviewed)

    By on

    Cover Art: The Right to Sex by Amit Srinivasan

    Srinivasan’s book is the holocaust of sex. The fires of the “holocaust” in question are not ones of passion or desire, but rather of anger and rage. Note the small “h” this time since there is only one Holocaust with a capital “H”. This holocaust is filled with the suffering of innocents, widespread injustice, and an awful lot of violence. It accurately paints a picture so bleak that further consciousness raising will likely expand our consciousness of misery and pain, nor do I here want to debate the need for it.

  • Empathy and the Novel by Suzanne Keen (Reviewed)

    By on

    Cover art: Empathy and the Novel by Suzanne Keen

    A significant aspect of the interest in relating empathy and the reading of fiction is to make the world a better place. Read some quality fiction; expand one’s empathy; and take action to improve the world. Wouldn’t it be nice? 

  • Empathy: Capitalist Tool (Part 3): Let’s do the numbers

    By on

    Follow the money – by all means – but don’t follow it off a cliff. Take a walk in the shoes of the other person in order to sell them another pair!?

  • Empathy: Capitalist Tool (Part 2): “CEO” now means “Chief Empathy Officer”

    By on

    Google Founders, Larry and Brin, from the back back cover of Forrester Magazine, 2005: Don't be evil, man! The front cover shows them wearing saint halos.

    Empathy is one of those things that are hard to delegate. This role shows up like another job responsibility with which the CEO of the organization is tasked—along with everything else that she already has to do. As if she did not already have enough alligators snapping at various parts of her anatomy, one has to be nice about it, too? But of course empathy is not niceness, though it is not about being un-nice. It is about knowing what others are experiencing, because one has a vicarious experience and then processing that further to expand boundaries and exercise leadership. 

  • Empathy: Capitalist Tool (Part 1): The Empathy Deficit in Business is Getting Attention

    By on

    Mr Money Bags (Penny Bags): Image Credit: Trademark Parker Brothers Corporation

    Testing a person’s decisions and preferences using probabilities, bets, and lotteries is an engaging exercise, and nothing is wrong in doing so. However, unless one also adds empathy to the mixture of economics and logic one misses something essential—the person!

  • Empathy and Literature: Grand Rounds Talk (rebroadcast): Oct 13, 2016

    By on

    Gerda and The Lieutenant playing passionate duos on the violins

    The four phases of empathy – receptivity, understanding, interpretation, and responsiveness- are exemplified in literature in rebroadcast of this Grand Rounds talk from Rush Medical in Oct 2016…

  • Empathy versus bullying: Part 3: Recommendations for Students, Parents, Educators

    By on

    T-Rex nick=named "Sue" sneaking up on unsuspecting tourist to perpetrate bullying at the Field Museum

    First, these recommendations are about getting back your power—or at least some of your power—in the face of bullying. Sometimes that looks like making a tactical retreat, much as one might dislike doing so, in order to reestablish boundaries and integrity. The idea is to de-escalate the potential confrontation. What de-escalation looks like is different according to the situation. 

  • Empathy versus bullying: online bullying and what to do about it

    By on

    Teenage Girl Being Bullied By Text Message

    The paradox is the anti-social nature of social networking. The computer screen isolates the person even as the person is trying to connect. The contrary is also the case. The screen connects the person when the person wants to be alone, rudely announcing an incoming message by beeping, demanding one’s attention. Sometimes the screen brings out the anti-social tendencies instead of the pro-social ones, enabling one to be inauthentic, hiding behind a false self.

  • Empathy versus bullying: The biggest bully in my life

    By on

    Classic, standard bully: Bill Sikes from Dickens' Oliver Twist

    Since the bullying is a boundary violation, the way to reestablish empathy and order (where “order” means common courtesy) is to reestablish the boundary between persons.