Empathy

Empathy and Authenticity in the Workplace (part 1 of 3)

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When I talk with people about Nonviolent Communication and about empathy and authenticity, I often hear skepticism in the form of “Yes, but what about_______.” Frequent candidates for filling in the blank are teenagers that don’t respond to anything; Hitler; very angry people; and workplace situations. It seems many of us are habituated to thinking that empathy and authenticity belong only in some contexts and not others. Today I want to look at the workplace context, because so many of us are at work more of our awake time than anywhere else. Can Connection and Effectiveness Coexist? On the surface, it appears that the time it would take to reach mutual understanding and collaboration would detract from task-oriented focus, thus taking away from productivity and efficient decision-making.

Empathy

Empathy and Good Judgment

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President Obama ignited controversy when he named empathy as a necessary quality in a Supreme Court judge. Wendy Long, legal counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network and former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, said, “Lady Justice doesn’t have empathy for anyone. She rules strictly based upon the law and that’s really the only way that our system can function properly under the Constitution.” Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) referred to empathy as “touchy-feely stuff.” During Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) asked her, “Have you always been able to have a legal basis for decisions you have rendered and not rely on extralegal concepts such as empathy?”

Culture

Be Ready for Overwhelming Joy

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Last week, I had the privilege of reading from my novel, Hold Love Strong, at Pete’s Candystore, a great venue in Brooklyn, a few blocks from 334 Manhattan Avenue, where once I lived in the middle of a friend’s apartment and often climbed the fire escape to the roof where I began to piece my life back together; or rather, began the process of reflection and self-possession necessary for living a full and meaningful life. After I read, Nadia and I had the chance to speak with Mira Jacobs, one of the curators of the event and a mother to a one-and-a-half-year-old son, Zakir, a name that means remembering and/or grateful. Talking about new motherhood, pregnancy, and childbirth, Nadia repeated a phrase a friend had recently said to her, and although she meant it in reference to having a baby, it is, I think, at the very core to the solutions of our present social and political problems, and thus what we — those of us who wish for a peaceful, humane world if not for ourselves then for our children — must do and anchor ourselves to in order for there to be the chance for the world we can imagine, the world we deserve. “Be ready,” she said, “for overwhelming joy.” Mira agreed with Nadia, and she expanded on the statement, speaking about her son and motherhood with exuberant reverence.

Culture

Where Two Or More Are Gathered – Asylum May Be Granted

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As I headed into what we hoped would be the last of a long series of hearings, to decide whether our friend would be granted asylum, I wondered what good, if any, our silent witness had been. At each hearing at least six of us sat in the back, listening to testimony, watching exhibits argued over by our friend’s attorney and the attorney for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)… Did it make any difference for us to be there, other than providing support for our friend? A bit of background. Our friend had been a vocal opponent of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in her country.

Buddhism

Food for thought for Quran-bashers

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Sometimes as a Muslim I feel suspect that the simplest, most effective way to begin to answer the many burning questions Westerners have about Islam and Muslims isn’t to give them a Quran or even the most erudite and engaging book on Islam. For many living in our postmodern world, such a discussion needs to start far closer to home, with a crash course in Western religious history and the basic ideas of the Judeo-Christian Tradition. Not only is that often a necessary remedial measure, but in this day of –to borrow an inspired metaphor once applied to U.S.-Iranian relations–“mutual Satanization” I think it is for many probably the only way to begin this critical conversation. As an undergrad studying French in the early 1990s, I took a class on the Francophone literature of Quebec. Until recently in most Western societies literature was riddled with references to and assumptions of familiarity with the Bible, and this was especially true of Quebec’s literary output thanks to the province’s tradition of being *plus catholique que le pape*.

Culture

What Is “Nonviolent” about Nonviolent Communication?

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Crossposted from The Fearless Heart:
One of the most frequent questions I hear when I talk about Nonviolent Communication is “Why Nonviolent?” People feel uneasy. They hear the word nonviolent as a combination of two words, as a negation of violence. They don’t think of themselves as violent, and find it hard to embrace the name. For some time I felt similarly.

Culture

Empathy – the Most Revolutionary Emotion

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I want us to organize, to tell the personal stories that create empathy, which is the most revolutionary emotion. – Gloria Steinem
It’s a good quote and you can find much more in Edwin Rutsch’s third Empathy Cafe newsletter just out. It’s worth scrolling through the whole newsletter–there’s a lot of depth there, from Obama to Tikkun author Kirk Schneider, Colbert to George Lakoff to HuffPost’s series on Empathic Civilization, in which various writers take off from Jeremey Rifkin’s new book of that name. Edwin is a videographer who went to the California Republican Party 2010 Spring Convention this weekend to ask people about empathy. He has more often asked people on the political left but he tells me he had a good time.

Culture

Making Empathy Concrete

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One of my biggest passions is finding ways to make what I do teachable, especially in the area of empathic presence. It’s not only a passion, but a necessity. Our times, more than ever, require empathy to become widely accessible to people. I want to find a way to replicate what I do, to build capacity for the work necessary to create a world that works for all. Could this blog be a way to do that?