Roots and Collapse of Empathy

Spanning from care-giving infants and civilian rescuers risking their life to the collapse of empathy in agents of torture and extinction, this unique book deals with and illustrates the altruistic best and atrocious worst of human nature. It begins with infant roots of empathy, then turns to the neurosocial support of empathic participation, and to the nature and nurture of good and ill. It raises questions about how abuse may invite vicious circles of re-enactment, and as to how ordinary people may come to commit torture and mass murders, such as the Auschwitz doctors and the sole terrorist attacking Norway on July 22, 2011.

Colwyn Trevarthen, University of Edinburgh:
Pioneering new ways of perceiving and explaining universal impulses of human cooperation and compassion, opposing the idea that we are born egocentric, out of touch with others’ minds and feelings, Stein Bråten offers compelling evidence that infants and young children have the capability of sharing actions and pleasures with a parent or other child, affording sympathetic help in feeding or care of distress. He predicted the discovery of ‘mirror neurons’, the brain mechanism of such shared attention. Now, turning to events of shocking insensitivity that appear to contradict the above kindness, he gives a dark history of mass murder and cruelty by ordinary individuals submitting to the canon ‘Let there be a world free of evil!’. He explains this paradox as partly due to early experience of rejection of the desire to connect with parents and companions. I believe we must follow his lead and try to understand the nature of the emotions that promote the goodness of the commonwealth of human creativity and altruistic rescue, and also the emotional sources of the evil of ideological conflict and acts of inhumane self-assertion and atrocious cruelty.