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Jeremy Rifkin: More Empathy in the Global Economy?

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The American Academy in Berlin

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How to Spark a Thought Revolution? Energy & Communication

05 min 17 sec

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Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends, examines societal revolutions across history.

He concludes that major developments in a group's energy use and communication tools have historically led to the group experiencing changed cultural consciousness.
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53 min 05 sec

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Previous FORAtv comments:

agilbert

Posted: 07.20.10, 05:47 AM

I found this truly amazing. Pragmatic, respectful, insightful, balanced, honest yet hopeful. This is what is what our political leaders are not. Jeremy is what they should be. I thank him for this and will share this with hopefully open minds.

Jsland

Posted: 05.14.10, 07:49 AM

Empathy is one word that can be used to express the reality of our connections, or our connectedness - to other creatures and the natural world outside us, within our own bodies, selves, and to our social constructions. These 'places' in which we find ourselves related as one individual amoung many, are the environments in which we live and move and have our being. Empathy is one sensation or feeling we can have with respect to being connected or surrounded by an environment. I suggest that it's not the only one, although perhaps it's one of the more objectively positive. Claustrophobic, overwhelmed, passive, manipulated, lost, are some of the negative ones. Some of the other positive ones are love, awe, wonder, meaningful, being in good health and feeling healthy. For me, Empathy has too many morally loaded meanings which restrict the full spectrum of what 'being connected' can mean. Not all are morally positive, not all are good for the individual's health. The other problem in using 'empathy' as the foundation for a new paradigm for our world, is that it doesn't refer back to the value which actually DOES balance the fact of being an individual - 'environment'. An environment of any kind -social, biological, cultural, architectural, emotional- surrounds and permeates without destroying the fact or wholeness of individuality. It is a complexity created by and through relationships, it establishes categorical bounderies and not physical ones. Both these values were begun at the first instant of the new universe. The early philosophers examined both, often calling environment place as the personal connections hadn't yet been made. The three Abrahamic religions did away with 'place' when they elevated the Individuality of the divine. Eastern religions elevated the idea of environmental reality and relationship at the expense of individuality. I would prefer if Rifkin would use less sentimentality by examining the feeling of Empathy to discover the unique reality or relationship web or environmental wholeness which produces that sensation. I think the result would be a more well-rounded and realistic conversation which opened up even more avenues of learning.