--Originally published at That Class Blog
Let’s talk first about the talk given by Sam Richards, the one about empathy.
I liked his example, putting the US in a position like the one they make other countries be when a society or a regime gets in between a resource and the US. It’s not right, and it’s even worse when the US citizens know about how are the foreign people treated by their army, by their governments that will do anything to their citizens if the US helps them to stay in power… And won’t do anything. That’s wrong. People should at least acknowledge that what they are doing is wrong. That people are getting killed, innocent people, to maintain the American economic lifestyle.
We often forget to ask who is really paying for our comfortable way of life. And if we did that more often, and put ourselves in the shoes of the people who are paying, with their lives, not just with money for the bills. They are suffering! They are dying! Their houses are bombed every day! From their government, from other nations, from the terrorists, from whoever. And the innocents, they don’t support the terrorists, they don’t support the regime, and still, they are paying the hard bills for us.
At the end, when using empathy, we allow ourselves to see the big picture and understand the other’s perspective. In the experiment Sam Richard does, we understand how a regular person, a regular Muslim, with a regular family, who live on a regular street in Syria, Iran, Irak, Afghanistan or wherever people are being subjugated to the other’s will sees the conflict. And Sam doesn’t ask you to change your perspective, but to understand theirs.
And as I have experienced, if you understand the other party perspective, it’s more probable to solve
