“Social thinker and author Jeremy Rifkin’s book The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis looks at emerging scientific studies that show humans are not naturally aggressive and self-interested, but fundamentally empathetic. Rifkin’s book is a new interpretation of the history of civilization, focusing on the development of human empathy through the present time.”
This is an interview that is well worth listening to.
In the interview, Rifkin equates all the major advances in human civilization with power and communication working together. Writing and harnessing the power of the sun via agriculture for cities in Mesopotamia. The mass produced printed word and coal. The age of oil and telegraph/radio/television for the modern era which is ending. Next period is digital communication and alternative energy technologies.
He says it much better. A bit mind blowing.
More:
“The human-made environment is rapidly morphing into a global space, yet our existing modes of consciousness are structured for earlier eras of history, which are just as quickly fading away. Humanity, Rifkin argues, finds itself on the cusp of its greatest experiment to date: refashioning human consciousness so that human beings can mutually live and flourish in the new globalizing society.
“In essence, this shift in consciousness is based upon reaching out to others. But to resist this change in human relations and modes of thinking, Rifkin contends, would spell ineptness and disaster in facing the new challenges around us. As the forces of globalization accelerate, deepen, and become ever more complex, the older faith-based and rational forms of consciousness are likely to become stressed, and even dangerous, as they attempt to navigate a world increasingly beyond their reach and control. Indeed, the emergence of this empathetic consciousness has implications for the future that will likely be as profound and far-reaching as when Enlightenment philosophers upended faith-based consciousness with the canon of reason. ”
