1. I believe that in his speech, and even though he doesn't specifically talk about empathy, he relates the ability to be conscious and aware to also being empathetic. DFW calls unconsciousness "the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.". On the other hand, being conscious is described as being related to the ability of being aware of your surroundings, instead of just seeing yourself as the center of the universe. More specifically, he talks about being able to understand that everyone else sees themselves as their own center of their own universe. The importance of being "conscious" is that you understand other points of views, which is akin to empathizing with someone. 2.
DFW's conception of empathy may be applied to essay writing in that an essay has a subject that can be argued for, or against. Without the ability to empathize, a writer might only focus on their own point of view, and may be blind to the counter-argument. On the other hand, if an essayist is able to apply DFW's conception of empathy, they may be more susceptible to agree with the counter-argument, which would allow them to either come up with new arguments, or be able to come up with a compromise that would suit both sides of the argument. 3. DFW's speech was more successful when he used the parables to convey the meaning of his speech. Although the overall morale of the parable about the fish at the beginning of his speech wasn't apparent, it was a simple story that drew the attention of the listeners to it. The story about the atheist and he religious guys and the story about driving to the grocery store after work had a similar effect. These small sections in his speech were simple, but they proved to be clever when he revealed his main ideas after saying these stories. 4. DFW's speech was lacking a cohesive structure. Although by the end of the speech, his main point was apparent, there were many points brought up beforehand that didn't seem to make sense till the end. For example, while his parable about the 2 fish was amusing, it didn't seem to relate to the next portions of his speech.
I felt emotional while on page 100, paragraph 7 where he stated: “I guess I should have told someone, but I was too humiliated”. The fact that his father had abandoned the family and his brother who is his No 1 confidant was down with leukemia didn’t give him the courage to speak out, he was scared to the point of losing his mind, he became depressed, irritable, hypervigilant and ashamed thereby hating
Statistically, over 670,000 Americans are homeless with a growing number. 48 million people go to bed hungry every night. Although we do provide shelters and opportunities in America, millions of people are homeless worldwide. Even on a more minor level there are still hundreds homeless within hometowns. Everyday we encounter the homeless whether by seeing them holding their personal signs at stoplights, confronts with beggars, or viewing them from afar under bridges. In her essay titled “On Compassion”, writer Barbara Ascher uses rhetorical techniques detailing some of her personal homeless experiences within the city life, Asher does effectively use logos, pathos,
According to Arianna Huffington in the article “Empathy: What We Need Now”, during hardships and instability of society, empathy is needed to find solutions to those issues. Huffington writes about how empathy is needed in our country in order to produce a positive social change. She begins by giving an example of a movement that Martin Luther King created and how empathy was a part of this movement. King as well spoke of how empathy is the sign of living. To become involved in the situations of humanity in order to improve it, displays that empathy is the core of a human’s existence. After reading this article, I do agree with Huffington about how individuals need to fully understand and put themselves within the situation to fully comprehend the issue to solve.
It is very clear that the author is showing that empathy can erase prejudice and racism since the text corresponds with this idea.
Within the two essays On Compassion by Barbara Lazear Ascher and On Dumpster Diving by Lars Eighner, the idea of living poor is presented as a central theme. Do earthly possessions and abundance of money really make you rich? Or in reality, are you really poor because you're focusing more on self-involvement rather than compassion and thoughtfulness towards other individuals? According to dictionary.com, the definition of poverty is the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor. Of these two essays, On Compassion is more effective to its purpose.
In order to support his point of view Neill explains the possible reasons why people respond either sympathetically or empathetically to the fiction and how these responses are related to each other. He splits his research in three parts. For obvious reasons the first part clarifies the terms empathy and sympathy. He states that “with sympathetic ...
...s is related to his philosophy about doing the right thing and about a being a good person. But it goes beyond this. He spoke often about having true compassion. It isn’t enough to help those in need, but we must truly care about them, to take a good look and see how they got that way. He asked us to examine how we as a society can change the conditions that led them to be there in the first place. Doing this makes us better as people. I have found that it also makes me feel better. Never give up on your dreams. While his life was cut tragically short, he died in pursuit of his dream and in spite of everything he faced, he never gave up on it. He faced obstacles I could never imagine having to face, and still persisted. This reminds me that the small things in my life that often seem insurmountable, are just my excuses for not taking action and are not obstacles.
Compassion is a type of meditation therapy which is used recently. As a new topic, at least for me, this encouraged me to learn about this topic and gave me the idea for my paper. Compassion has many definitions, one of these definitions is the feeling that emerges in witnessing another's suffering and that motivates a following desire to help (Goetz, Keltner, & Thomas, 2010). Hofmann, Grossman, and Hinton (2011) describe compassion as a path leading to greater awareness, aimed to focus awareness upon alleviation of the suffering of all sensitive beings. Moreover, compassion is thought to have arisen as the affective element of a caregiving system, designed to help raise vulnerable progeny to the age of viability (Goetz, Keltner, & Thomas, 2010).
The best analogy in his speech is how we perceive primates, insects and rocks. We give primates more moral recognition and more ethical obligations than the other domains (insects and rocks). This is a factual claim that primates experience a wider range of emotion than insects and rocks, such as happiness and sadness. We treat them differently because they are more similar to us and we can empathize with those exact emotions. If there was new evidence indicating that insects and rocks can feel the same range of feelings, then that would change our moral views of the said
Humans have almost always had the ability to feel what each other is feeling. However, empathy is a relatively new term that stems from the German word Einfühlung. By the 19th century, most humans were starting to become aware of this aspect of human nature that compassionate and perspective-taking come from, according to the book “Empathy and Its Development”. There are two types of empathy: affective and cognitive. Affective empathy refers to our despondence to other people’s mental state, such as feeling sympathy when seeing a starving child on television. Cognitive Empathy is human’s ability to understand different perspectives and mental states. Rather than helping for the sake of self-interest or heroic recognition, scientists now argue that both forms of empathy are an integral part to humanity. Without empathy, it would be challenging to relate to others, thus dehumanizing others and promoting the causes for violence. In the Ted Talk “The Empathic Civilization”, Jeremy Rifkin states, “All humans are soft-wired with mirror neurons so that, if I 'm observing you, your anger, your frustration, your sense of rejection, your joy, whatever it is, and I can feel what you 're doing, the same neurons will light up in me as if I 'm having that experience myself”. The biological reasoning behind this social aspect of human nature reveals that
The skills a child learns throughout their first couple years of school are essential because they are the foundation for the rest of their education. Although preschool is not mandatory, this is where many young children first develop any sort of social and emotional connections. Now away from their parents and put in a new environment, social-emotional development can affect their behavior in school. Lily Sanabria-Hernandez (2007-2008) finds, “that children whose parents participated in the Peers Early Education Partnership made significantly greater progress in their learning than children whose parents did not participate." Sanabria-Hernandez points to the idea that we as parents are responsible to be active in our child’s education and
Empathy is the most fundamental trait of human beings. The world runs on the shared understanding of suffering and happiness. Empathy helps human beings create a safe and nurturing society because it promotes the understanding of needs of others. According to me, empathy is the most important quality of a leader. Hence, it is my belief that every single person has a potential to be a leader as long as she/he is able to relate to others and their situations.
In this essay, the importance of two skills - rapport building and empathy, to effective communication in healthcare are discussed. These skills play increasingly essential roles as healthcare delivery focuses evermore intently on achieving patient-centric experiences. The video, filmed with this in mind, depicts a client’s initial consultation to a podiatrist. A reflective piece on the effectiveness of therapist-client communication in the video is also discussed with reference to the skills.
As young adults and teens, we all face social and emotional issues. After World War I, the Germans were killing the Jews because they were blaming them for losing the war. For example, Holocaust began because the Jews were being blamed. This was the main issue that the Jews faced. Hitler then got everyone to believe that the Jews were the problem for everything. This is just one example of how issues affected people. Issues are a problem that people face daily. Issues can be divided in to social, emotional, physical. An example of a social issue could be bullying. Bullying is a social issues because it is the way a person decided to communicate to another. Depression is an example of an emotional because it has to do with how a person feels inside. An example of a physical issue would be abuse. Social and emotional issues can be seen in families, friends, and depression.
Sometimes a person just needs a listening ear. “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply (Covey, n.d.). Turn the radio or television to any news station and you will discover that when a crime is committed, family members and friends didn’t think that the person who committed the crime would harm a fly. Moreover, neighbors in the community usually state that the person seemed to be a nice individual. After the cases are put under the magnifying glass to examine what may have lead the person to commit the crime, we find that the individual was dealing with issues that no one was aware of, they held it inside. These types of responses from family members, neighbors, and friends, is an indication