Frans de Waal's The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons For A Kinder Society Harmony Books, 2009, 291 pp.
The next time you find yourself in a contentious conversation with someone arguing that humans are inherently selfish, embrace killing and war, and (mis) using terms like “Social Darwinism,” give them a copy of Frans de Waal’s latest book, The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons For A Kinder Society. Only continue the discussion after they’ve read it.
De skriuwer is in psychology heechlearaar en direkteur fan it Living Links Center by it Yerkes National Primate Research Centre oan 'e Emory University. Syn eardere boeken omfetsje Our Inner Ape (2005) en Primates and Philosophers (2006).
A world renowned primatologist, de Waal provides compelling support for the proposition that humans are “preprogrammed to reach out.” From dolphins ferrying injured companions to safety and grieving elephants, baboons and cats (yes, even cats) to commiserating mice and hydrophobic chimps risking death to save a drowning companion, this is a major contribution to understanding the biological genesis of our inborn capacity for empathy, hence morality.
Ien fan 'e fertsjinsten fan dit boek is de glêde synteze fan anekdoates dy't sammele binne út' e desennia lange observaasje fan 'e auteur fan primatengedrach en oertsjûgjend bewiis út' e rap útwreidzjende wittenskiplike literatuer oer dit ûnderwerp. En it soe my net fernuverje as de ferhalen fan de Waal in pear oplibjende glimlachen fan herkenning oproppe as de lêzer op 'e nij ferbine mei in dielde foarâlden en syn hjoeddeiske neiteam.
This work complements recent research from neuroscience (see Marco Iacaboni’s Mirroring People, 2008) and the subfields of neuroanthropology, cultural neuroscience, neuropolitics and others. Taken as a whole it’s a potent mix and provides a convincing corrective to prevailing notions about human nature. For de Waal, as for many students of this subject, the question is no longer whether animals have empathy “but how it works…My suspicion is that it works exactly the same way in humans and other animals, even though humans may add a few complexities.’
De Waal is painfully aware that biology has been routinely and willfully misinterpreted “to justify a society based on selfish principles” and he sets out to correct this one-sided and erroneous portrayal by examining the lengthy evolutionary record. This, by the way, is the other meaning of age in the book’s title.
In seven crisply written and wholly accessible chapters de Waal methodically demolishes the rationale behind Gordon Gekko’s admonition in the film Wall Street that greed “captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.”
De Waal stelt it sa:
Wat wy nedich binne, is in folsleine oerhaal fan oannames oer minsklike natuer. Tefolle ekonomen en politisy modelje de maatskippij op 'e ivige striid dy't se leauwe dat yn' e natuer bestiet, mar wat in projeksje is. Lykas tsjoenders smite se har ideologyske foaroardielen earst yn 'e hoed fan 'e natuer, lûke se dan oan 'e earen om sjen te litten hoefolle de natuer it mei har iens is. It is in trúk dêr't wy al te lang foar fallen binne.
De Waal is to be commended for introducing political questions into his analysis and “If this means wading right into political controversy, so be it.” However, this is precisely where I began to encounter some problems.
Namely, how does de Waal explain what I¹ve characterized elsewhere as a culturally-induced empathy deficit disorder, a condition bordering on the pathological and having its roots in our socioeconomic system? In a 2007 interview, not included in this book, de Waal said, “You need to indoctrinate empathy out of people in order to arrive at extreme capitalist positions.” Unless I’ve totally misread him, the operative word there is extreme as there’s nothing in de Waal’s public writings, inteviews, or lectures to indicate that he’s personally opposed to capitalism, people getting rich, and so forth. De Waal objects to an unrestrained market system, not capitalism itself. He prefers that the economic system be mitigated by more attention to empathy in order to soften its rough edges.
At one point he proclaims his sympathy for American conservatives “who detest entitlement” while going on to assert that “The state is not a teat from which one can squeeze milk from any time of the day, yet that’s how many Europeans seem to look at it.” As a Dutch immigrant, de Waal arrived in the United States with the following mindset: “But I also noticed that someone who applies him-or herself, as I surely intended to do, can go very far. Nothing stands in their way.”
He follows this by a comparison with European welfare states and concludes, “Having lived for so long in the United States I find it hard to say which system I prefer. I see the pros and cons of both.’ But de Waal can also write sentences such as:
Minsken sûnder genede of moraal binne oeral om ús hinne, faak yn promininte posysjes. Dizze slangen yn kostuums, lykas ien boektitel har labelt, kinne in lyts persintaazje fan 'e befolking fertsjinwurdigje, mar se bloeie yn in ekonomysk systeem dat meidogens beleanne.
In maatskippij dy't puur basearre is op egoïstyske motiven en merkkrêften kin rykdom produsearje, mar it kin de ienheid en ûnderlinge fertrouwen net produsearje dy't it libben de muoite wurdich makket.
... it fertrouwen op habsucht as de driuwende krêft fan 'e maatskippij is bûn om har eigen stof te ûndergraven.
Dochs ûnderskattet de Waal beskate kapitalistyske ymperativen en de rol dy't de elites spylje by it kweken fan eefkes serieus, en ûndermynt dêrmei sosjale solidariteit, wjersidigens en empasy. De kapitalistyske kultuer devaluearret in empatyske disposysje en sa't Erich Fromm sa'n fyftich jier lyn bewearde, is der in basale ynkompatibiliteit tusken de ûnderlizzende prinsipes fan kapitalisme en de libbene utering fan in ethos fan empasy.
Lykas Antonio Gramsci oanstie, is kultuer ûnskiedber ferbûn yn klasse, macht en ûngelikens. Konsensuele kontrôle wurdt realisearre troch massamedia, ûnderwiis, religy, populêre kultuer en oare fasetten fan 'e boargerlike maatskippij yn oerienstimming mei de steat.
In sum, one need not accept de Waal’s sometimes ambivalent attitude toward the market, his warm words for so-called “economic freedom” and “incentive structures,” his gloss on a presumed U.S. merit-based system or his sanguine view of Obama’s potential to usher in a new era of cooperation, in order to appreciate the book’s major contributions.
Sûnder twifel moatte de essensjele fynsten fan de Waal diel wurde fan it mainstream petear. Mar wy moatte fierder gean troch har byinoar te kommen mei in radikale politike analyze, ien dy't de kulturele meganismen beskriuwt dy't oanlieding jaan ta in maatskippij dy't gebrek oan empaty. Allinnich dan kinne wy de kontinuïteit fan 'e moraal weromkrije dy't sa sprekend út dizze siden nei foaren komt.
As with de Waal’s previous prolific output, this book can contribute to delegitimizing a central system-maintenance ideological tenant of U.S. civil society, namely the “common sense” narrative of hyper-individualism with all its insidious consequences.
Gary Olson, Ph.D., is foarsitter fan 'e ôfdieling Political Science by Moravian College yn Bethlehem, PA. De ôfrûne jierren skriuwt er oer de neuropolityk fan empaty.
ZNetwork wurdt allinich finansierd troch de generositeit fan har lêzers.
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