Shyam Kapoor, via Laurie Brown.
[ Harvard Graduation Speech by Conan O’Brien, via Scribd ]
…N. brought up the remark common in feminist circles, some variation on, “Well, I know I couldn’t possibly presume to understand where you’re coming from because we have different experiences of the world.” N. called this a cop-out, and I agree with her. Mostly it’s earnestly meant, arising from a desire not to over-impose our own interpretive grid on someone else’s actions or words.
But. The reason I think that attitude is also a cop-out is that the source of empathy is not shared experience, or at least not primarily. The source of empathy is the imagination.
This is why reading and hearing good, engaging stories from a young age is so important (or part of why, anyhow)— allowing ourselves to be involved in the lives of characters with lives very different from our own cultivates the habit of mind wherein we learn identify with the Other. We do this primarily with our imaginations….Interest, like taste and like affection, is not something that we either have or don’t, or something that we passively receive— it is acquired and cultivated. As members of a community, we are to some extent ethically obligated to cultivate an interest in the lives of others. This interest, along with a well-trained imagination, is what leads to empathy.
….entitlement is also what this is about: the idea that we are always entitled to dinner party conversation that we find immediately interesting, or silence on an airplane, or only pleasant muted noise in any given public sphere. Or whatever. When we cling to that sense of outraged entitlement, and refuse to put ourselves for a moment in the place of another, we are seated firmly at the center of our own universe.
[ The Source of Empathy, from Recovering Sociopath ]
I like this. I do often think that saying “I can’t see where you’re coming from” is a cop-out. If I can’t see, I can at least ask the right questions till I get a general picture of what somebody’s thinking.
[ from “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” ]
When I first started designing as a hobby, I hated everything I made. I knew it was terrible, and no matter how hard I tried, I could never make it good enough for myself. But I didn’t give up, and after a while something clicked. I started to sort of like my work. But I am still not satisfied; every day I reach higher, trying to grasp the level of awesomeness that I can feel but can’t recreate.
I didn’t realize this was happening until I saw a video of Ira Glass, the host of This American Life, explaining the phenomenon as it relates to writing and production. He points out how that gap between ability and taste drives creative people to achieve great things.
[ from Dear Dustin Curtis, via his blog ]
[ —Samuel Johnson, via the article on Hypocrisy, in Wikipedia ]
1. jeepster
What one is in response to a girl who slides so good with bones so fair she’s got the universe reclining in her hair.
“I’m just a jeepster for your love.”
by Marc Bolan Jul 1, 2004
[ definition of “jeepster”, via the Urban Dictionary ]
Yes. Thanks, Urban Dictionary.
[ In Praise of Dullness, New York Times ]
I think the key here is really “execution and organizational skills.” I don’t care if my CEO is a nice guy, but I want him to be great at his job. Jack Donaghy is honestly the best example that comes to mind right now.
Overheard this conversation in the Murky parking lot. I really wish I knew the background story. How could someone be so upset about artichokes and three-year-olds?
An OKCupid member whom I’d only date just to see how quickly I can puncture my eardrums with a salad fork (via nickdouglas)
I’m guessing the person who wrote this description also likes bacon.
I doubt you can find any sentence describing how human learning has degraded now that isn’t congruent to a similar sentence written at the time of rise of the novel - about how people were no longer reading sermons and classical literature, but were reading novels from subscription libraries instead.
The literature at the time in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, describing the contempt that the learned establishment had for the rise of the novel - and then of course later with the rise of the penny dreadfuls and sensational literature as more and more people came to read it - again there was a great cry of despair at how there would be nothing but illiteracy in the world, or at least a kind of refusal or inability to engage in proper, serious study.
And we hear the cry again.
[ Stephen Fry: The internet and Me, from BBC NEWS ]
There is something not only affirming, but downright relieving to read this; it was sort of an antimere to a crazy pills moment.
[ Why Watchmen’s Alan Moore Hates the Movie Industry (And Who Can Blame Him?), via VideoHound Blogs ]
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