"The Empathic Civilization"

Posted by: North Bay Report in News Journals on Jan 22, 2010

Tagged in: technology , speaker , Sonoma , sacred , resources , research , religion , peace , Ideas , history , government , environment , energy , community , climate change , author

Empathy, not self-interest, is the core impulse of human nature, according to social analyst Jeremy Rifkin. And that realization may hold the key to successfully responding to the environmental and economic challenges that now confront humanity.

One key to recent scientific research relating to empathy is the discovery of  “mirror neurons,” a finding that originated, Rifkin relates, in a chance encounter during some unreleated experiments with monkeys in an Italian laboratory.

Jeremy Rifkin (right) will speak on The Empathic Civilization, The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis, at the Sonoma Community Center in Sonoma on Sunday afternoon, jANUARY 24, at 4 pm, an event hosted by the Praxis Peace Institute.