Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Box 8.6 The Empathic Civilization
In his book The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis the
American economist Jeremy Rifkin (2009) describes an emerging paradox between empathyand
entropy. On Rifkin's terms, empathy relates to the human capacity to connect with, and care for,
others (both human and non-human), while entropy relates to our collective misuse of the planet's
finite resources. Rifkin (2009: 2) summarizes this paradox in the following terms:
Throughout history new energy regimes have converged with new communication revolutions,
creating ever more complex societies. More technologically advanced civilizations, in turn,
have brought diverse people together, heightened empathic sensitivity, and expended human
consciousness. But these increasingly more complicated milieus require more extensive energy
use and speed us towards resource depletion.
At the heart of Rifkin's book is an analysis of whether heightened levels of human empathy for
distant people and environments can provide the basis for building a more sustainable global
economy before the consequences of our misuse of the biosphere threaten the civilization we have
constructed. Crucially, Rifkin draws on recent work within the study of human behaviour to argue
that despite long-held beliefs that humans are inherently self-interested and individualistic, humans
are a naturally empathic species. The in-built empathetic nature of humans can be seen in the
empathic distress that newborn babies display when they respond to the sound of other babies'
cries by crying themselves. But Rifkin (2009: 10) claims that it is the 'evolution of empathic
consciousness that is the quintessential underlying story of human history', or to put things a different
way, 'Empathy is the very means by which we create social life and advance civilization'.
But even if humans are essentially empathic in their nature, questions still remain about the extent
to which empathy extends to the non-human world. Rifkin excitedly reflects upon the work of
biologists who suggest that there are 'mirror neurons' in the brain, which mean our brains have a
'predisposition for empathetic response' when we see distress in other mammalian species (Rifkin,
2009: 14). The extent to which humans exhibit or can develop similar emotional responses to the
suffering of large-scale biospheres and ecosystems remains an open question.
Key reading
Rifkin, J. (2009) The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis, Polity Press,
Cambridge
able experience, the emergence of industrial
capitalism is responsible for setting the contem-
porary views and visions of nature' (Smith, 1984:
1). Smith claims that modern capitalist society,
with its emphasis on the free market, wealth
creation and entrepreneurialism has supported
the emergence of two distinct, but connected,
ideologies of nature. On the one hand, Smith
identifies
external ideologies of nature
, which (in
8.3.3 The impact of industrial
capitalism
In his influential analysis of human relations with
the natural world, the geographer Neil Smith
claims that it is not biology or religion but
capitalism that has laid the foundations for current
patterns of environmental exploitation (Smith,
1984). Smith states, 'More than any other identifi-
