, by Frans de Waal, which seems to draw upon examples of animal empathy to prove its existence in humans. I haven't read the thing yet, but at this (albeit early) stage, it begs the question for me: What about "Lessons from Our Own Human History and Experience," (I'm thinking Rawanda, BTK, Pol Pot)? I mean, how far can animals really take us in understanding ourselves, versus, say, looking at how people actually treat other people?Now, I often refer to animal studies and will continue to do so, but I do so tongue-partly-in-cheek -- or wasn't that obvious? -- and partly because that's what's available in the empathy studies game. But I mean, we are some very special animals. And I have to believe that the behavior we observe in mice and even primates, while helpful, can take us only so far in explicating human ways versus studying, well, actual people. I mean, whatever "the difference that makes the difference" is, why we are the way we are, why we have culture and art and the Internet and shoes (caused by the advent of charred food, allowing our jaws to get smaller and our brains bigger as argued in Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human
?), well, whatever it is, by now, it's a pretty big difference. We have diverged. And how. Big time. And how we treat one another can't fully be explained or excused by other critters' codes of conduct. We will not be shamed by dolphins and whales!We're gonna have to shame ourselves.
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Oh, good. We missed you. (Dust grows all too easily on the intellect in the course of the workweek. There doesn’t seem to be a lot out there on the net that’s not same old stuff, so the modern reader is grateful for some nourishment.)
Yes, a special animal, with an ability to transcend a stumbling block and make the better of it, through peace, spirituality, contemplation, even redefining matters of self through it, gaining in honesty.
BTW, did you see the NOVA PBS piece about epigenetics this week, the environmental triggers that reach down into our DNA to remarkable effect? Of course there is the mouse study, and an interesting one that seems to cut across species as it involves the maternal, the doting mouse’s offspring, etc. The show presented a group of studies that hint of the magic of our own transformative powers on fellows, the gentle power of a smile, a kind hand, a bond of friendship, a word of encouragement, to change the organism, at least if you get wild and extrapolate just a little bit. Like Lincoln’s mom gave him a confidence of a deep, responsive, flexible sort.
How positively and refreshingly we influence each other, how detrimental to growth an absence of that which is empathy and kindness and familiar friendly happiness. No wonder, the transformative leaps and bounds the empathetic versatile creature has made. Maybe we can fix this troubled world yet, as it is reflected deep in the operations of our genetic code, to create a better place, better health, a better environment, a better creature.
For every Rawanda and Pol Pot horror, there are thousands of examples of basic goodness in people. Case in point. My car was badly scratched by another in a parking lot. I did not even know my car was damaged until I was buckling my seatbelt and found a note on my windshield.
That driver's kindness was "rewarded" with a bill for $500 (my car insurance deductible). In this age of war comes into my living room, it helps me to remember there are many more empathic people in the world than evil doers.
I have no idea what the ratio of truly empathic people are to ordinary nasties or even "evil doers." I was on Amtrak recently, and this young woman offered to move to a single seat when she noticed a couple beginning to realize that they would not be able to sit together. She had to move her luggage, remove her earphones, unplug her computer -- and this is all without them even asking! They thanked her, but not enough in my book, so I made a big deal of it and we became train buddies. Maybe if we recognize and laud this type of thing, it will grow? (For my part, I have often been unable to get anyone to switch their seat so I could sit with a family member when I've asked, let alone have them spontaneously volunteer!)
It might be worth observing, without any bitterness, that those people we would most benefit from understanding for the general or particular benefit of humanity are the very ones we feel compelled to officially vilify, punish, cast into prison, drop bombs on, deem incompetent, leave to poverty, etc. Rather than go talk to them and see what’s up. It’s the very old ‘stone the builders rejected’ kind of thing, which may be somewhat sloppy thinking but is worth occasionally bearing to mind. Yes, that’s what happens to some who most deserve our kindness, oddly enough. Maybe it just happens to everyone. Maybe it’s just something we all do, if we’re not careful.
Take a significant moment of history, Iraq, or the Potato Famine, God forbid, the Holocaust, small scale and large scale. The New Yorker of September 28 has a good book review giving us the story of the Dreyfuss Affair as an example too. Stuck at Devils Island, with even the view of the sea walled up from him, Dreyfuss survived through the books they let him have, Tolstoy and Shakespeare. For that is the beauty of art, from Giotto to Twain, to understand the other, life, death, the artistic process and so on, even those who bring oppression down on us.
Spirituality, of say, Karamazov, may be the opiate of the masses, but perhaps it holds a preventive cure for what is all too easy to do. “It matters not what path a person take, for I am there to meet her/him.” You were right to acknowledge the person who moved on the train and extend a kind word. Okay, I'll shut up now.
(correcting date of New Yorker mentioned in previous comment. Sorry.)
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