The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis

by Jeremy Rifkin

In this sweeping new interpretation of the history of civilization, bestselling author Jeremy Rifkin looks at the evolution of empathy and the profound ways that it has shaped our development–and is likely to determine our fate as a species. Today we face unparalleled challenges in an energy–intensive and interconnected world that will demand an unprecedented level of mutual understanding among diverse peoples and nations. Do we have the capacity and collective will to come together in a way that will enable us to cope with the great challenges of our time? In this remarkable book Jeremy Rifkin tells the dramatic story of the extension of human empathy from the rise of the first great theological civilizations, to the ideological age that dominated the 18th and 19th centuries, the psychological era that characterized much of the 20th century and the emerging dramaturgical period of the 21st century. The result is a new social tapestry–The Empathic Civilization–woven from a wide range of fields. Rifkin argues that at the very core of the human story is the paradoxical relationship between empathy and entropy. At various times in history new energy regimes have converged with new communication revolutions, creating ever more complex societies that heightened empathic sensitivity and expanded human consciousness. But these increasingly complicated milieus require extensive energy use and speed us toward resource depletion. The irony is that our growing empathic awareness has been made possible by an ever–greater consumption of the Earth′s resources, resulting in a dramatic deterioration of the health of the planet. If we are to avert a catastrophic destruction of the Earth′s ecosystems, the collapse of the global economy and the possible extinction of the human race, we will need to change human consciousness itself–and in less than a generation. Rifkin challenges us to address what may be the most important question facing humanity today: Can we achieve global empathy in time to avoid the collapse of civilization and save the planet? One of the most popular social thinkers of our time, Jeremy Rifkin is the bestselling author of The European Dream, The Hydrogen Economy¸ The End of Work, The Biotech Century, and The Age of Access. He is the president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, D.C.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Psychology, Philosophy, Sociology, Politics, Cultural

688 pages, Hardcover

First published January 19, 2009

About the author

American economic and social theorist, writer, public speaker, political advisor, and activist.

Reviews

[Leonard Gaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me a couple of months to go through this book (some 600 pages with rather tight reasoning threads all the way through). But in the end, I found this to be a truly remarkable work. I will try to summarise it here:

Fact 1. The whole of our civilisation at this time (with a few exceptions) relies on fossil fuel (oil, coal, gas) for about everything: consumer goods, transportation, food and farm-produce. This has been the case for more than a century. The problem is that we are currently using up fossil fuel at such speed that, with the increasing world population (around 7 billion people, that is four times the world population only a century ago!), there is less and less fossil fuel available for each of us. This means a significant imbalance in the world economy, where prices are bound to go up. We already sense this as we go from one economic crisis to the next, with no way to stop this process from getting worse each time. Added to this: rampant international conflicts to secure the spots where the sources of energy are located (think oil wells in the Persian Gulf, for instance).

Fact 2. While using up our primary energy source, we are bringing about a change in the climate of our planet, unprecedented in millions of years. Fossil fuel consumption is releasing enormous amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere and increasing the greenhouse effect dramatically. As a result, solar heat cannot bounce back into space as it used to, and the ecosystem temperature is rising. The glaciers are disappearing, jeopardising the populations that depend on them. The polar caps are melting, and the sea levels are rising. The vast Canadian and Russian permafrost lands are thawing out, releasing massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere, increasing the greenhouse effect in a deadly feedback loop. And as if this wasn’t enough: extensive cattle (mostly beef) production is releasing astronomical amounts of greenhouse gases into the air.

The result is likely to be significant climate imbalance, increasing droughts, along with all the consequences you may imagine. We don’t know if we are past the point where we can reverse the process, but in any event, we are probably facing a global mass extinction within the few decades to come.

Fact 3. The picture looks pretty grim, but, according to Rifkin, there’s still hope. Since the Enlightenment, human beings have been considered rational and self-interested. But recent discoveries in cognitive science, brain studies and child psychology demonstrate that human beings are primarily soft-wired for empathy, altruism and intimacy. This empathic drive can be nurtured so that each of us can celebrate the beauty and frailty of life. It can also be repressed in such a way that secondary drives kick in, such as narcissism, aggression or violence. It all depends on parenting, education and culture.

To reflect on our present civilisation, Rifkin then goes on to explore human history and the significant changes in energy regimes, which in turn brought about new communication regimes and new domains of consciousness and empathy. In short, there are four stages:

Stage 1. It starts with the prehistoric nomadic hunter-gatherer populations. Energy came from plants and animals; consciousness was mainly mythological (animist belief); empathy extended to blood-ties only (the family, the tribe, the village).

Stage 2. A few thousand years ago, humanity built the first great hydraulic civilisations (Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Mexico). Energy came from extended and centralised agriculture which gave rise to writing (to manage storage and trade of grains); consciousness was primarily theological (polytheism, monotheism, Buddhism); empathy extended to coreligionists. These civilisations, however, ended up collapsing: Rifkin’s explanations on the fall of the Roman Empire due to entropy in agricultural energy are quite enlightening.

Stage 3. A couple of centuries ago, a new energy regime appeared with coal, steam and rail (1st industrial revolution). A new communication regime was instated with the print press and the development of literacy, through public schooling; consciousness evolved to the ideological stage with the creation of nation-states; empathy extended once more to encompass our fellow citizens.

Stage 4. A few decades ago in the developed countries, the energy regime switched again from coal to cheaper energy sources: oil, gas and uranium (2nd industrial revolution) and the development of mass transportation (cars, trucks, highways, tankers, planes, airports); the telephone was introduced on top of print; consciousness became psychological and therapeutic (the development of psychology since Freud); empathy extended to like-minded people.

This is where we are right now, and we need to move fast to the next stage of energy/communication/consciousness/empathy regime because our fossil fuel civilisation is sunsetting. The mind-boggling problem (the empathy/entropy paradox) is that, as communication, consciousness and empathy expand to the furthest reaches of the world, more and more energy is consumed, depleting the Earth of its natural resources and putting us all at the brink of planetary doom. Will we able to develop a biosphere consciousness and save our world in time?

We are in fact on the cusp of a 3rd industrial revolution with the development of distributed Internet communications, which increases global consciousness (Rifkin calls it “dramaturgical consciousness”) and empathy in a way never seen before in the history of humankind. A similar revolution needs to happen now on the energy side, a radical shift from geopolitics to biosphere-politics. This means rushing towards: #1 Clean, renewable energy sources: sunlight, winds, tides, geothermal, recycled waste; #2 New ways of collecting energy, namely: every building must be a power plant (solar panels on each roof); #3 A massive and radical change in infrastructure: hydrogen storage and inter-grid IT networks, i.e., peer-to-peer energy distribution to every building, every vehicle, every home appliance.

This book, which is by the way heavily documented with all sorts of references and studies (the endnotes make for about 1/4th of the volume), has far-reaching implications in politics and government, parenting and education, architecture and housing, economy and corporate life, and nearly every aspect of our lives. It is a brilliant call to action. Let’s hope we can listen before it is too late.

[Loring Wirbel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The message Rifkin has to tell is one of the most important in our social and cultural history, and the only aspect keeping me from giving the book a solid five stars is the slight caveat attached to any Rifkin books, which is related to the way he tells a story. Rifkin is a pop-scientist and culturalist, hence his work won't go as deep as, say, Steven Pinker's 'The Better Angels of Our Nature' or Peter Turchin's 'War and Peace and War.' The advantage to taking the 30,000-foot approach as Rifkin does is not just that his ideas become more comprehensible to a wider audience, but that he can integrate a broader array of cultural and environmental trends in making his case. The disadvantage is that, when we don't dive deep into how the selfish gene and altruistic gene interact, or in how mirror neurons have evolved in larger neural networks, Rifkin's case sounds less convincing. Particularly as he brings in elements of entropy trends and energy-use trends that Rifkin has written about before, there is a danger in pulling in any random element to prove the case for an emergent empathic civilization.

The best part of Rifkin's book resides in its center section about the shift over centuries from magical hunter-gatherer to faith-centered medievalists, to Enlightenment rationalists and nineteenth-century Romanticists, and on to the 20th-century psychology-centric and 21st-century altruists. Cognitive neuroscientists would buy into much of what Rifkin poses as a history of consciousness, and it seems almost intuitive and obvious how the empathic gene takes center stage over time - but also showing why each step in moving to multi-conscious empathy was a necessary step that would be difficult to skip. I find Rifkin to be a little too kind to the 19th-century Romanticists - I love Rousseau and Goethe, to be sure, but Byron and Shelley displayed an underside that showed that an excess of Romanticism can lead to Mussolini-style fascism. Just ask Ezra Pound.

Rifkin's opening Part 1 seemed less necessary, somehow, since he spends the first few chapters taking apart Sigmund Freud. In the 21st-century, this seems almost like a straw-man exercise. Does anyone believe in Freudian theory any more? Maybe among the humanists Rifkin hangs with, residual trust in Freud remains, but my jaded postmodern and neuroscientist friends dismissed Freud years ago. Rifkin almost could have started with Part 2 of his book and formed a coherent whole.

Many will criticize Part 3 of the book as being far too "kumbaya" for a world still dominated by materialist greed and war, but there are many who dismiss Pinker and Turchin, as well. The trends toward an empathic, universal consciousness emerging are real ones, but as Rifkin says, they emerge on a backdrop of humans befouling their own environment. The point is, we fully recognize it and are trying to confront the damages we cause. Selfish acquisition and slaughter of the Other will always be with us, but empathy does indeed seem to be coming front and center. Those who dwell in visions of Apocalypse will deny this, but the reasons for limited optimism are everywhere. Rifkin makes an important point when he says that in any era, remnants of the consciousness style of older eras remain, as evolutionary vestiges of unwanted limbs. Therefore, we should expect to still retain some forager mysticism, some Medieval monotheism, some Newton-era neutral objectivism, some Byron Romanticism, some 20th-century promotion of self-esteem, and some 21st-century multiculturalism. The trick lies in getting the balance right.

Rifkin's argument in Part 3 that the dramaturgical self makes the issue of "self-authenticity" less relevant is an important one, and I applaud the way he has applied that to social networks. Rifkin thinks that narcissism in the era of Facebook and Twitter is actually less of a problem than it was in the 1980s and 1990s, and he might have a point, though there are still a plethora of fame (and infamy)-hungry narcissists on Facebook.

Rifkin's 2009 book concludes with a nod to the 2008 election of Barack Obama, a mention that might sound dated because of all the problems Obama has faced. But the results of the 2012 elections reinforce his point somewhat, but not so much in the fact that Obama was re-elected. Most Republicans gnash their teeth, not so much over four more years of Obama, but from a universal shift to gay marriage approval, pot legalization, rejection of politicians like Akin and Mourdock, etc. It isn't so much that Obama himself represents a turning point, as much as the Millenials are ushering in the victory of multicultural hippie-paganism over Judeo-Christian traditionalism, and this probably will ease the way to the empathic civilization Rifkin describes. Skeptics would say there still are far too many Islamic Salafists, Russian Orthodox traditionalists, and East African evangelicals out there, but Rifkin would argue that this does not necessitate wars - the dominance of English-language pop culture and its multicultural support for women's rights, gay rights, etc., assures that the battle is won without a shot being fired.

I only regret that in the last few pages of the book, Rifkin returns to Goethe's critique of the scientific method. I agree with the notion of a compassionate method of neutral inquiry, but if we go too far down the route Rifkin suggests, we end up in the post-modernist mush where any narrative is equal to any other narrative. It is true that what we consider a solid objective world is actually a series of probability wave fronts, and that strengthens Rifkin's argument that the self is a process, not an object. Nevertheless, there is a physical world of wavefronts that exists outside the sentient self, and Francis Bacon had a point in describing a way of studying the external world so that we don't bring in our biases. The scientific method may be updated for the 21st century, but if we throw out the baby with the bathwater, we find that there would be as much validity for blaming Hurricane Sandy on witches or a vengeful God, as on climate fronts disrupted by human behavior. And we don't want to go back to a world dominated by magic and divine intervention.

Rifkin is a very sharp guy who has always displayed a few annoying tendencies in pop-psychology, whether writing about biotechnology or Europe or entropy. But if you can apply the right filters, you will find 'The Empathic Civilization' filled with some of the most important cultural ideas yet expressed this century, and you can always go back to Pinker or Turchin for a deeper dive.

[Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an enormous book, covering the entire psychological history of our civilization, positing an argument for the direction we are now headed, what he calls "biosphere consciousness." He makes this case by showing that every paradigm shift in the history of our culture was caused by a simultaneoous revolution in communications technology and energy regime, and with it always came an increased sense of individualism, which in turn led to an increased sense of empathy. He argues that we are on the brink of another such revolution, the communications technology being the internet and the energy regime being various distributed forms of energy production.

The best, but most long-winded, part of this book is the history. I found it fascinating to see history portrayed in this way. I never thought much about how our civilizations' psychologies have been developing, and now that I have, I wonder if this is a lot more relevant way of telling history. The author is definitely a believer in our civilization. He tells stories of history without flinching, acknowledging the horrors but focusing on how we've been progressively developing empathy.

For much of the book, he seems to blame the state of our civilization on entropy, rather than the destructive attitudes and beliefs. He also gets a few facts wrong, but by the end of the book, it becomes clear that he really does get it, for the most part. I agree about the direction of our civilization, but I'm not as optimistic about it. I fear it will be too little, too late.

[Fons Jena · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hesitated to give this book 2 stars because some (small) parts where OK but I have to admit that at the end of the road I simply 'did not like it'. Here is why:

I cannot support the main argument of the book which is that our civilization is getting more and more empathic. I would even say that it is the other way around. We are slaughtering at a much larger scale and our reference frame has evolved from a relatively ecocentric one to the nearly pure anthropocentric one of today. Yes our increasing knowledge gave us the possibility to increase our consciousness but it seems that we only used it for messing things up instead of fixing things.

He then goes even further by coupling this increase in empathy with the theory of increasing disorder/entropy. I agree with his theory of entropy (that we are creating a larger and larger mess of our world and that new developments always consume relatively more energy) but what I cannot understand is that he tries to show that there is a very important relationship between both phenomena. In my opinion it is a relationship that tells us nothing, it seems he wanted to use two important terms and smash them together (two tasty ingredients make up a great lunch?). I wanted to read his book entropy but now I'm hesitating.

The book is much too long mainly because he wants to include all kinds of themes (he is 'wandering all over the place' like another reviewer has written). He seems to be confident that his universal theory of empathy/entropy can explain everything and that everything is related to it (which is possible if you generalize the terms – but then everything is related to everything).

I don't know Jeremy Rifkin personally but after reading this book I see him as a 'green' neoliberal capitalist who believes in the technological fix. He also seems to be a big fan of the 'cosmopolitan' individual and globalization. How these developments will sustain global cultural diversity and make our societies sustainable (and more human harboring) remains a big question for me (for him to as is does never come with an answer but merely makes an analysis of the situation). The fact that he instructs CEOs and corporate management about the 'thrilling-and-mindblowing-future- that-awaits-us-all-and-will-fix-everything' developments tells me enough. Those are things that worry my, other readers who like these things won't see them as a minus.

The frequent use of cool-sounding terms (mostly unnecessary) and awesome looking titles ('Psychological Consciousness in a Postmodern Existential World' and 'The Theatrical Self in an Improvisational Society' for example) could not make up for the rambling.

I was hesitating between this book and Frans de Waal's 'The Age of Empathy'. I guess the latter would have been a better choice, but somehow empathy has lost my sympathy...

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite being sometimes overwritten, Rifkin's latest contribution to what I like to call "cosmopolitan theory" (starting now) has changed how I see things. I'm not necessarily converted to all his theories or his barely-suppressed optimism, but two experiences, one directly related to reading The Empathic Civilization and one indirectly related show how this paradigm-shifter shifted mine just a wee bit.

1.) Rifkin makes a strong case for an idea I had never considered before, but which rang true as if I'd been thinking it subconsciously for years. Human nature is not some static entity to which one can universally appeal. Rather, it's intimately connected with the kind of world (childhood, largest worries, methods of commerce and communication) that exists at any given time. Our conscious policy and personal decisions can take the raw material of the world and either form a large human family or deteriorate into unhealthy narcissism.

2.) Ok, maybe this isn't as indirect as I thought. Rifkin's conception of the Third Industrial Revolution (the nexus of internet technology and sustainable energy), despite my usual skepticism, made loads of sense. For some reason, I had never considered the possibility of an entire globe powered sustainably. The energy lost in the transfer of electricity, though it wouldn't disappear, would be drastically reduced, and an equally-powered planet would undoubtedly be a more empathic planet. (Although, I will say I think Rifkin is a little too impatient with nuclear power, and I think his main objection stems from his optimism and impatience to commence the new, empathic world order.)

This is probably unintelligible to folks who haven't read the book. It's long, daunting in appearance, and sometimes meandering. But the stirring conclusion after Rifkin's survey of world everything (psychology, history, economics, biology, etc.)makes the foundational 400+ pages worth the time and effort. It's a game changer!

[Mark · Rating 1 out of 5]

Blah.

Rifkin's argument is that as cultures become more complex, consume greater and greater quantities of energy and spend more time exploring their world, they will bump into other cultures and novel ways of ordering life. Through this exposure, the complex civilization will increase their appreciation of, and respect for, diversity.

Huh? My reading of the last 1000 years of Western civ would lead me to a starkly different conclusion.

The flip side of Rifkin's argument -- that native cultures must then lack empathy that technological societies possess -- just strikes me as completely absurd.

Granted, I'm only about 60 pages into the 600-some odd page book so maybe Rifkin can redeem himself, but this complex technological citizen doesn't have the energy to watch him try to dig himself out of the hole he has created for himself.

[Eremite · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book would be twice as good if it were half the size. The history of humanity is entirely rewritten to retrofit one intriguing possibility, a bunch of studies and polls were tortured into "proving" opinions, and the dead horses just kept being beaten over and over. The funny thing is I wholeheartedly agree with all the major conclusions. We desperately need to reevaluate our rampant, unsustainable, hedonistic consumerism (which doesn't make us happier!) and the best way to do that is to achieve a "global consciousness" by cultivating empathy. If the world is to be saved, it'll be by good parents raising good kids.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rifkin is a brilliant guy, who portrays his ideas in a very clean and enjoyable writing style. The majority of this book is a retelling of human history with the focus being on how our consciousness has grown and been shaped by certain events. He ends with some great ideas on how we are and how we can continue to improve society while ensuring the safety of the planet we reside on. I enjoyed every page of this book, and I caught myself wondering a few times how much better the world might be if this book was required reading in every college across the globe.

[Tony Heyl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rifkin proposes the hypothesis that empathy is a first order driver of human actions on par with what we consider more primal instincts and he makes a very good case. He goes into detail explaining how communications have evolved in a symbiotic relationship with energy revolutions, for example writing was necessitated by the need to create complex instructions for hydraulic civilizations, printing presses helped with the industrial revolution, etc. As civilizations grow, they use more energy which creates an entropy problem, but, because they also develop in terms of communication capabilities, they also evolve a greater sense of empathy. Now, as the world has become so interconnected, we are moving away from individual autonomy and even away from nationalism towards greater interdependence and shared experiences and from competition to cooperation. Empathy and the ability to empathize has changed as we moved from being able to empathize based on tribes to religion to nations and now to a species as a whole.

It is a very well crafted and researched book, but it falls short in not covering other avenues where evolving empathy has made a difference like war and global trade and it doesn't cover enough non-Western cultures nor does it examine any backlash to the growing empathic civilization or any predictions about moving past nationalism beyond mere generalities. At over 500 pages, it is still worth a read for the very good ideas you get from it, and I found it both hopeful and affirming of things I have long felt, but it still left me wanting to get more information and ideas. On the other hand, maybe that's what makes it so good - it makes me want to read more.

[Aspen Junge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part biology, part psychology, part history, and all philosophy, this is a book that deserves to be read slowly and digested, not raced through. Rifkin takes as his thesis an idea that has been pushed by practically every new-age guru for the last 100 years (in fact, I wonder if Aleistar Crowley and Ayn Rand weren't a backlash against that); that humanity is entering a new social paradigm based not on self-interest and material gain, but on empathy and sharing. Just in time, too, as the fuels that have powered our previous 300 year Enlightenment-based paradigm are about to A) run out, and B) cause drastic climate effects.

He begins by discussing mirror neurons, which allow one person to "feel" what another is feeling, then delves into the advancement of psychology since Freud. He posits that human psychology is developed by human civilization; when your culture is based on a medieval hierarchy, you don't necessarily have the same developed sense of individuality that a 21st century person does; and without individuality, there is only a limited capacity for empathy. Empathy is what enables us to feel the same way towards people we haven't met yet s though they were our immediate family, thus drawing our global population into a human family.

There is a sense of urgency, however; the old paradigm of materialism being central to well-being still holds sway among the rich and powerful (and why not?), and the earth can't absorb much more carbon. (By the way, we hit peak oil per capita in 1979; a function of declining oil reserves and an exploding population.)

[Simone Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most books provide an escape from daily life or offer information about a specific subject. Jeremy Rifkin's Empathic Civilization does both, and also has the power to fundamentally change one's entire worldview.

As for escape- The Empathic Civilization removes readers from the specific minutiae of everyday life, encouraging them instead to focus on big, broad issues and consider themselves as part of a larger, extremely powerful whole. As for information- the book introduces readers to a litany of fascinating insights related to such diverse fields as economics, psychology, history, politics, science, theology, and philosophy.

Rifkin takes The Empathic Civilization a step above and beyond with his overall thesis: that the world is indeed in dire straights, and that we can only solve these pressing problems through empathy.

Overall, The Empathic Civilization has changed the way I regard thought, civilization, family, friends, and the meaning of life. This is a book that must be read, from cover to cover, with full attention. Rarely does a book offer so much in one volume, so do not consider its heft to represent an all-you-can-eat literary hot dog eating contest, but rather a gourmet all-you-can eat buffet of some of the most fascinating concepts you'll have encountered in years. Bon appetit!

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that pulls it all together! Jeremy Rifkin captures the currents of history and puts our current dilemmas as a global society into perspective. RIfkin's formulation of the core dialectic of the progression of human consciousness through cultural / technological advances balanced by the increasing entropy which results from the increasing technological demands of our increasingly complex civilization is nothing less than genius. Amazingly, Rifkin, a consultant to the United Nations and the EU knows psychoanalytic concepts better than most psychiatrists and weaves these seamlessly into his theories which incorporate an in depth understanding of complex systems theory, and of course the history of civilization and religion. Rifkin's analysis of the evolution of human consciousness through the stages of mythological, theological, ideological, psychological and most recently what he calls dramaturgical consciousness is fascinating and convincing. His thesis regarding the historical evolution of the self and its correlation with more sophisticated capacity for empathy is also convincing. Rifkin explains how we are at a turning point with global consciousness within our grasp but the the bill for civilization's energy expenditures coming due and threatening to undo all we have accomplished. An awesome analysis of our time!

[Carlos Puig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tremendo libro. Y no lo digo por las 600 páginas que tiene. Rifkin construye el relato de la historia de la humanidad, atendiendo al desarrollo de la empatía, característica esencial de la naturaleza humana, según lo que se desprende de los estudios de la neurociencia y otras disciplinas afines. Con claridad, precisión y una serie de información relevante se va desplegando la historia de las civilizaciones, relacionando aspectos como la economía, el pensamiento, la cultura, la ciencia y la tecnología. En este relato se puede apreciar la importancia de los recursos energéticos para el desarrollo de la humanidad, pero también la entropía que eso genera. En palabras simples, el libro nos muestra como la humanidad se ha ido desarrollando y como la empatía va ganando terreno, junto con el daño que se ha ido generando en nuestro querido y maltratado planeta Tierra. Esa es la paradoja: vivimos en un tiempo donde existe mayor conciencia de que pertenecemos a una misma familia, pero es justamente el tiempo en que nos enfrentamos a los devastadores efectos de un calentamiento global que se torna apocalíptico. Lo bueno del libro: existen formas de hacer las cosas de mejor manera. Ojalá no sea demasiado tarde.

[Bradley Jarvis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite kinds of books, one that recasts much of what we know in an entirely new context.

Using the most current understanding of psychology, Rifkin interprets the history of humanity as the development of increasingly sophisticated empathic connection between people, each other, and other species, enabled by civilization's freeing of more and more people from preoccupation with basic survival. He explains how this has come at a terrible cost - the destruction of the Earth's biosphere which we are paradoxically becoming more attuned to - and how there is also great opportunity: to find a sustainable way of living with the true richness of life intact, and available to the majority of our population.

With well-researched discussions of a wide range of issues, from education to economics, this book is a must-read for anyone trying to make sense of what it means to be human, and how our collective future may unfold.

[Reading · Rating 4 out of 5]

So often we confront a world built on the seemingly foregone conclusion that humans are violent, aggressive, etc and thankfully Mr Rifkin has presented a cognizant, current and thoroughly researched refutation of this argument. He builds his argument starting with the simple yet unappreciated truth that at birth we are all connected, or desire and are nourished by human connection, ie. empathy.

If you are feeling cynical or perhaps the opposite, you are tired of defending your optimistic point of view then you must read this book. Here is an analytical defense of 'humanity' that will not only provide you with material to convincingly present your belief that a better future is possible, it will re-inspire you and remind you of why you believe this.

Other reviewers have written more eloquently than I but I did want to praise the book...

[Phoebe Gilpinwright · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating interpretation of the evolution of consciousness and empathy in humans. Rifkin analyzes humanity in a refreshing and comprehensive analysis of social structures and the underpinnings of human nature. This book took months to read, partially due to its sheer volume, but mostly because the ideas need to be processed meaningfully rather than blown past. As an excerpted chapter, I'd recommend Chapter 6: The Ancient Theological Brain and Patriarchal Economy.

By retelling and reshaping our own life stories, we are continually honing our identities to accommodate each passage of life and the changing circles of relationships and experiences that accompany them. We are each a composite of the stories we tell about ourselves and the stories others tell about us. (187)

[Mili · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jeremy Rifkin es un investigador que se dedica a analizar el impacto de los cambios científicos y tecnológicos en la sociedad. Para hacerlo en este libro, toma elementos de la historia, de la psicología, la filosofía y otras disciplinas que ayudan a explicar algunas influencias clave para la cultura de la humanidad.

Tiene un estilo extraño, que va de ser muy ameno a tedioso en cuestión de párrafos, pero más allá de eso, presenta conceptos interesantes, que se prestan para el debate, la discusión y para seguir investigando.

Es un libro para curiosos, y sumamente NECESARIO para todo aquel que busque comprender mejor el mundo y la vida en sociedad.

[Zach S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

OK, this book completely changed my outlook on life. Cliche, I know! Everyone must have that book that does that to them, this is mine. The most important lesson of this book is also cliche, but universally and eternally profound: "We are all in this together". This book is an admittedly lengthy treatise and the importance of that concept, and how we need to band together to face the major problems (think energy and climate) that now confront us.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book helps one see that the stereotypes out there about are society aren't true. we are naturally a sympathetic society rather then a aggressive society. And there are tons of examples showing how we are slowly changing.

[Ike Sharpless · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great core argument - but one of the reviewers below was right: this book would have been twice as good if it was half as long. Then again, I only made it about a third of the way through, so what do I know?

[Mathew Gross · Rating 2 out of 5]

A delusional fantasy that humanity is evolving toward a higher consciousness, when any evolutionary biologist will tell you that evolution is "dumb" --i.e., it lacks a specific direction. But if you want a classic example of misguided neo-New Age thought, this is at least a well-written one.

[Randy Elrod · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book that kept me riveted throughout. Rifkin makes a great case of empathic heritage versus religious doctrine of total depravity. It is a sweeping overview of what it means to be truly human. Http://randyelrod.com

[Fred Rocha]

Eye opener on how society depends strongly on the first two laws of Thermodynamics.

[Joe Brummer]

First, you need to know this book will take you months to read and it weighs a ton. It is also chock full of cool learning about empathy in the world.

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main thesis of Rifkin is that consciousness developed through different stages and changed as a consequence civilization. He sees a development from mythological to theological consciousness, which was followed by ideological, psychological and now dramaturgical consciousness.

Jaynes was, as far as I know, the first to suggest that consciousness is a cultural constructions and that people could (and indeed did) live in a state of civilization without consciousness. Rifkin agrees (without mentioning Jaynes) that consciousness is a phenomenon created by society and goes a step further saying that the way people saw themselves and their world depended on the state of consciousness. (Our ancestors, he says, began to walk down the road to becoming fully self-conscious.) And the development of consciousness was a result of technological changes. Script cultures, e.g. gave rise to theological consciousness. The technological change led to new metaphors with which we described our selves and the world. The hydraulic agricultural civilizations envision the world in hydraulic metaphors, the first Industrial Revolution that resulted in Ideological consciousness where people started using mechanical metaphors, the second Industrial Revolution “envisioned the Cosmos in electrical terms”. Now, of course, we cannot help thinking about the world (and ourselves) in computer terms (and maybe soon in AI terms).

And every change in consciousness “also reset the boundary line between the 'we' and the 'others'.”
“For mythological man, the alien is the nonhuman or demon or monster. For theological man, the alien is the heathen or infidel. For ideological man, it is the brute. For psychological man, it is the pathological.” (p. 183)


All this is very interesting and very true, I think. And this, maybe is a problem at least for me, with this book. Everything substantial and important in this book, I already had as basic ingredients of my world view. And we tend to like the books that confirm what we think is true. On the other hand, it would be silly to dismiss a book because it tells you what you already know.

The development of consciousness would have been a huge subject for a book. But Rifkin is not content with that. He also needs to put that into the context of entropy and climate change and the Emphatic Civilization and while this it is not completely silly, I found it rather unnecessary.

There are quite a number of things I did learn. For example:

Here is a paradox: The average newspaper contains 68.3 rare words per 1000, adult books contain 52.7, prime time TV shows contain 22.7 rare words. And with the Internet, e.g. Twitter, he says, the decline in literacy continues. Unfortunately he does not give figures. It sounds true though. The paradox is that “every previous communication revolution in history from oral to script to print, vocabulary increased giving people a richer reservoir of metaphors and language constructions to build on. [...] but because of the nature of the medium [Internet] it might be dramatically lessening the ability of human beings to express themselves in deep and meaningful ways” (p. 589)

There is a famous quip that if all you have is a hammer everything begins to look like a nail (a powerful metaphor created by a guy called Bernard Baruch). Rifkin has this nice application: If all we have is a personal computer connected to the Internet, the whole world begins to look like networks of relationships. (p. 594)

The word self emerged as a pronoun and meant own or same. It became a noun at the beginning of the 15th century but had a negative connotation. It changed into a positive term in the sixteenth century when it began to be used in compound words like self-praise or self-regard. By the beginning of the seventeenth century self-interest, self-made, self-confidence and others of the sort were added.

The modern definition of (the noun) consciousness appeared in 1678. In 1690 it was combined with self. And to be self-conscious is to be aware of one’s separateness. (p. 277)

Children’s books became popular in the eighteenth century and that was when (according to Rifkin) “childhood was created”.

The emergence of electrical metaphors that substiuted hydraulic metaphors goes back to a book by John Dods The Philosophy of Electrical Psychology in 1850. Dods thought that electricity was the connecting link between mind and matter. (p. 367). A flash of insight, turned on, plugged in, burned out, hardwired (sounds like a list by Lakoff/Johnson).

James disliked terms like “chain of thought” or “train of thought” because they implied that thought was linked together of isolated events. He preferred electrical metaphors which emphazize uninterrupted connectivity. (p. 394)

“The gradual shift from theological consciousness to ideological consciousness saw a transformation of the concept from being a pious person to being a person of good character.“ - A secularization of piety. (p. 390)

[Dave Courtney · Rating 2 out of 5]

As this book begins, it represents its view point pretty concisely and definitively as a "radical new view" of human evolution that has its basis in both the "biological" and "cognivite" sciences, something the writer goes on to flesh out in more specifically contentioned terms. What Rifkin essentially does is he rewrites (a generous term) the human story with his working theory in mind, which is that the "age of reason is being eclipsed by the age of empathy", which emerges naturally and necessarily from human (and although he doesn't give a lot of time to it, pre-human) development.

And what is empathy? If I was narrowing down his more extensive conversation, it is "active engagement", "the willingness to become part of another's experience." In a functional sense, empathy is that which pushes back on the old Darwinian narrative of survival of the fittest. As he says, "we are learning, against all of the prevailing wisdom, that human nature is not to seek autonomy... but, rather, to seek companionship, affection, and intimacy." Autonomy is a word born from Western, Enlightenment ideals that has its roots in the language (and metaphors) of the industrial revolution, knowledge based systems, and the fight for freedom of the individual. "Empathy, in turn, is the means by which companionate bonds are forged", which is what he sees as not only the dominant human drive and trait, but the very basis for how and where we have been evoloving.

There is actually a good deal that I agree with the author on. He spends a LOT of time speaking to old world ideologies by placing them on this trajectory of human history that functions as a series of defining "ages". He sees this within the development of the social and pscyhcological sciences (the age of mythical consciousness (or the gods), theological consciousness, ideological consciousness). He sees this in the ideological terms (from the age of myth to the age of reason to the age of science, with humanist and romanticist strains flowing throughout). He sees this in line with the development from nomadic living to the development of the city. He sees it in terms of the development of integral and world shaping energies and technologies.

As he traces all this, he sugggests,
"There is, I believe, a grand paradox to human history. At the heart of the human saga is a catch-22- a contradiction of extraordinary significance- that has accompanied our species, if not from the very beginning, then at least from the time our ancestors began their slow metamorphosis from archaic to civilized beings thousands of years before Christ", which is this gap between human beings as inherantly empathetic creatures (which is what accounts for our development and explosion on the scene) and the "incredible violence" we are capable of. "No other creature has left such a destructive footprint on the Earth.".

What's curious then about how he navigates his theory is that his answer to this paradox seems to be the necessary dismantling of the worst parts of these movements, all of which have their roots in things that restrict empathy, towards this new age being one that will naturally (or not naturally, he's a bit confusing on that end) be the culmination of all the best parts of human history. He is naturally optimistic and wildly pessimistic at the same time. He thinks that our inability to gain empathy outside of our abuse and use of the natural world along the way has been the critical problem we must now face. Once we accept that humanity is inherently good, inherently non-violent, inherently relational, inherently giving and serving and loving and all the rest of that good stuff, then we begin to supersede the bad (I think) and save the planet (and thus all the species of the world, which we are interconnected with).

As he makes this point, he also spends quite a bit of time navigating human "religious" history. For his money, the central problem is that we are wired to be empathetic but empathy can only emerge where there is both life and death. And so while religion emerged (naturally? I'm not sure. He's kind of confusing on that end) as a response to our fear of death, it is by detaching ourselves from that (and all of the folly that came from it) that we can then return to true empathy. The ability to enter into the story of another is what enables our survival, and for that we need death and struggle and hardship, because that is really what binds us to the story of another in empathetic ways.

One would think that for all of the time the author spends raising up Jesus as the pinnacle of this religious evolution, the point where it truly rises and ultimatley begins to fall on the level of the grand human story, that his argument would begin to fall in on itself. It's almost as if he is saying in the book that Jesus almost got it right, even until his death. That is until the resurrection came and basically ruined it. I must admit, there were plenty of times in his dealings with religion, which takes up most of the middle 2/3'ds of this book, where I was cheering along with him. He has a firm handle on how firmly entrenched later Christianity's development is with the problems of the enlightenement. He takes the West to task, including its theological development, and rightly so. And yet he also greatly misreads Christian history, let alone religious history. His entire argument needs clean cut, polarized points of view to work. And when it comes to Christianity, I kept wanting to point out that all of these things that he is attributing to Christianity and criticizing as dysfuncitonal really are a product of the enlightenement and this Western narrativbe he has such a firm grip on. If anything, things like original sin, this emphasis on platonic views of going to heaven, colonizing and power driven theological constructs, are things that went wayward with Augustine. That throws a wrench into his evolutionary period. But even then I'm digressing. In truth, where he really stumbles over himself is in arriving at this place where his theory seems to indicate a "progressive" ideology. This notion that empathy is the thing that evolution has been striving for all along. That is is the picture of ideological and functional perfection. I know he doesn't quite say this, but there are so many points in his rewriting of human history that he might as well have. What's funny is that after he has dismanatled religioun, he literally spends a chapter retrieving it. Why? Because he can't end up where he ends up without it. He says that empathy only works if have an innate sense of meaning attached to it. That there is purpose, and known purpose. Or at least faith driven purpose. And so he basically then defines empathy in religious terms, just without God. Which ironically fits with his chapters on gnosticism, which he seems very at home with.

Even further, he then basically goes on to make a case for how things bred from religion (like marriage) for example are examples of empathetic evolution, even while he dismissises it. He does a lot of that in this book, having his cake and eating it to, regardless of whether it contradicts or makes sense. I mean, empathy is built on healing and attending and grieving struggle, hardship and death precisely because we see these things as not good, as We are driven to find cure for diseases becuase we have empathy for these things. And certainly the author has great empathy for the planet, because his entire theory is basically one big ecological treaties and campaign. But in his logic, the only way we can care for the earth or have empathy for the earth is if its on the brink of disaster. That in fact will be the thing that saves us apparently, if we can possibly figure out the problem of human evolution quick enough. We might not, and in that case we are all doomed. It's kind of a roll of the die at this point if this book is correct.

But for all his interest in religious history, he never arrives at an answer to his own question- why care? We either have to believe that we care becuase its inherent within us to care. In other words, we can't help but care because we are wired for empathy. Which is part of what he is saying. But then he is also saying too that empathy isn't a given. Clearly this is the case if we look at human history. Therefore its a choice, and one we have responsbility for. Why? Well, to take this author at his word, the why comes from this greater sense of meaning and purpose. Whether he sees this as given or created meaning is uncertain, but he does say that this is cruicial. Otherwise we can't answer the question, why care? Given that he has stripped things like progress, knolwedge, religion, and rationalism as holding meaning, in some round about way he seems to say that this meaning comes from some kind of accomplishing. Some kind of arriving somewhere. Which feels like one big working contradiction within his thought process. At best he basically comes around to saying that while we have to let go of all these old world allusions, we also need to keep telling ourselves these stories so that we keep caring. We need to lie to ourselves in the same way modern society continues to lie to itself in this technological age regarding these superficial, online relationships. I mean, now that we have shifted to globalism, this storytelling has now become in some shape, sense, or form, a mutual one. Because we are now all connected, thereofore empathy flows unimpeded from the old world constructs that got in its way (like the patriarchy). But, he instists, while we tell that mutual story we also can't lose our selves, our sense of differentiation, because then we can't have empathy. We have to remain divided but unified, and the unifying story for us to even be able to keep telling a story must be an ecologically concerned one. And now that we are finally a global unit, we can maybe do something about it.

Maybe.

If not we all die and everything implodes.

Which just brings my back to the why. Why care enough to have to lie to ourselves to achieve that? It's a question that I think he might need to write a book to answer. And given how friendly he is with the notion of contradiciton, that book might as well just be a deconstruction of this one.

[George Polley · Rating 5 out of 5]

At 674 pages, 57 of which are notes and index, Jeremy Rifkin's The Empathic Civilization is not a book you'll sit down and read in an afternoon or evening. But if you're a person who is concerned about  global or local issues, it is a book you will want to read. It is packed with invaluable information and insight about steering a (relatively) safe course through the sometimes rough seas of our rapidly changing, interconnected world. Though it took me a while to read, I find every minute spent with it informative and valuable. The information alone makes The Empathic Civilization worth reading because of the insights the information brings.

To many people, perhaps, the idea of an empathic civilization is oxymoronic. “An empathic civilization? You have got to be kidding! Any reading of history will tell you that!” “Not so fast,” Rifkin says as he leads you back to December 24, 1914 on the fields of Flanders as World War I ground into its fifth month. “Take a look at what's happening.” Contrary to all expectations about human nature, beginning with the Germans lighting candles on Christmas trees sent to the front, young men on both sides of the battle line began singing Christmas carols where a few hours earlier they had been killing each other. It ran contrary to what everyone believed about human nature. “[W]hat transpired in the battlefields of Flanders on Christmas Eve 1914 between tens of thousands of young men had nothing to do with original sin or productive labor. And the pleasure those men sought in each other's company bore little resemblance to the superficial rendering of pleasure offered up by nineteenth- century utilitarians and even less to Freud's pathological account of a human race preoccupied by the erotic impulse.

“The men at Flanders expressed a far deeper human sensibility – one that emanates from the very marrow of human existence. … They chose to be human. And the central human quality they expressed was empathy for one another” (page 8).

Still not convinced? Think about it – if the central human quality is aggression, would we have survived this long as a species? If an empathic impulse is embedded in our biology, why doesn't it show up in our history? It doesn't because “tales of misdeeds and woe surprise us. They are unexpected and, therefore, trigger alarm and heighten our interest” (emphasis mine) (page 10). What captures our attention and interest is expressions of empathy. It just might be, Rifkin suggests, that aggression, violence, selfish behavior and acquisitiveness – long considered basic human drives, “are in fact secondary drives that flow from repression or denial of our most basic instinct”, which is empathy (page 18). Reading my facebook page on an average day, it is empathy that is most often expressed, even when the emotion expressed is frustration and anger. What we seek is connection … and this is the key to creating a global consciousness – the sense of belonging to a world, and not just to our own little part of it and our own little “tribe”.

As a species, we are embedded in the life of the entire planet. What you and I do in our small part of it, affects every other part. Like it or not, we are all interconnected as a part of a living global ecosystem. Tamper with one part, we affect every other part. (A great companion book to this one is E. O. Wilson's The Creation, which is reviewed in a separate post. A biologist, Wilson explains the biology of our global ecosystem in a way that this non-scientist easily understood it.)

Because of the Internet we are already interconnected. What we need to do with that comprises the bulk of Rifkin's book, which is divided into three major sections: I Homo Empathicus; II Empathy and Civilization; and III The Age of Empathy.

“By rediscovering our cognitive past,” Rifkin writes, “we find important clues to how we might redirect our conscious future. With our very survival at stake, we can no longer afford to remain unmindful about how empathic consciousness has evolved across history and at what expense to the Earth we inhabit” (page 178). E. O. Wilson would heartily agree with that. So do I.

[ik.ben.henri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting book about the origin and future of the Empathic Civilization, including the etymology of the word, empathy, which was introduced in 1909, but also the origin in mammals and the early neolithic and hydraulic civilizations. The connection with religion, politics, technology, science and capitalism are also made in this work.

Review written while reading the book:

Many misconceptions that still are widely believed today are disproved in this book on almost scientifically basis and then the reader is educated about the current updated and new findings. This includes misconceptions of Darwin in his “survival of the fittest” (Darwin had some early believes that certain mammals felt some kind of empathy toward each other, even when the word empathy didnt exist then), towards Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” (which is in a certain way incorrect, I participate therefore I am) and most importantly Freud’s belief (which is not educated anymore in psychology studies but the majority of mainstream people still think this way) that humans are only driven by pleasure and libido and that empathy is a weakened desire for sex.

One of the ways to study empathy throughout history and old civilizations is by examining the politics and economy of those times but most importantly the religions. Why did most of the pantheon-based religions disappear and evolved into monotheistic religions, and has religion become something extremely individual and personal? Why is there such a big difference between the Jawheh, Jehovah in the old testament or the God of the Hebrews / Jews and the God of the New testament or the Christians? What impact had christianity on classical Rome Civilization? And how is this all a reflection / reflected in the mindset of the people in those time periods? We go together with the writer through the middle ages, the enlightenment, the first and second industrial age to end in our current time and look forward to the future.

A wide arrange of topics is discussed, why is the liberal thinking in the US different from those in Europe? How come Rousseau had such deep impact on the French Revolution and even in the way children are educated and loved throughout their childhood. Why do people in their twenties now have a kind of second adolescent period till their thirties? Like they have a prolonged childhood? And that is not bad in a way. The effect of globalization from the invention of the telegraph, telephone, trains, card and eventually the internet on the way we think about relationships. How movies have an impact on the way we process emotions and look upon our social environment. Even how the emphatic changes of humankind had an impact on climate change. How wealth and the wealth gap influences how we regard each other, and he discusses the origin of the wealth gap in the US.

Also our ecological footprint is discussed and how we see the ecological problems of the third industrial revolution. The change internet brought to the relationship of generation X and the millenials.

I don't always agree with some of his findings. Especially the cooperative learning theory in highschools. The book is written while Obama was still the president, and he made some predictions of for the future, especially the health-care policy of Obama. Which is now made undone by Trump. But whatever...

Very interesting book that lets you think about yourself, the people you love and know. And how you stand in life.

[Salvatore Familia]

"One of the leading big-picture thinkers of our day" (Utne Reader) delivers his boldest work in this erudite, tough-minded, and far-reaching manifesto.

Never has the world seemed so completely united-in the form of communication, commerce, and culture-and so savagely torn apart-in the form of war, financial meltdown, global warming, and even the migration of diseases.

No matter how much we put our minds to the task of meeting the challenges of a rapidly globalizing world, the human race seems to continually come up short, unable to muster the collective mental resources to truly "think globally and act locally." In his most ambitious book to date, bestselling social critic Jeremy Rifkin shows that this disconnect between our vision for the world and our ability to realize that vision lies in the current state of human consciousness. The very way our brains are structured disposes us to a way of feeling, thinking, and acting in the world that is no longer entirely relevant to the new environments we have created for ourselves.

The human-made environment is rapidly morphing into a global space, yet our existing modes of consciousness are structured for earlier eras of history, which are just as quickly fading away. Humanity, Rifkin argues, finds itself on the cusp of its greatest experiment to date: refashioning human consciousness so that human beings can mutually live and flourish in the new globalizing society.

In essence, this shift in consciousness is based upon reaching out to others. But to resist this change in human relations and modes of thinking, Rifkin contends, would spell ineptness and disaster in facing the new challenges around us. As the forces of globalization accelerate, deepen, and become ever more complex, the older faith-based and rational forms of consciousness are likely to become stressed, and even dangerous, as they attempt to navigate a world increasingly beyond their reach and control. Indeed, the emergence of this empathetic consciousness has implications for the future that will likely be as profound and far-reaching as when Enlightenment philosophers upended faith-based consciousness with the canon of reason.

[Brian Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rifkin presents the story of humanity in terms of the evolution of empathy. He compiles mountains of evidence that empathy has always been the driving force of social development. To prove this, he first debunks a series of traditional explanations of human nature -- that we are creatures of the selfish gene, with all civilization an expression of the drives for social superiority, sexual conquest or economic self-interest. To demonstrate the predominant effect of empathy, Rifkin undertakes to recount all of human history within about 400 pages. He touches, for example on the evolution of literature, sexual love, child raising, relations with animals, communications technology and psychological literacy. At the same time, Rifkin contrasts all this with the story of energy resources. The growth of empathy and the rises or falls of energy resources become competing factors in a race against time. Our survival, he warns, depends on a great leap forward in both technology and empathy at the same time.

Anyone who feels that the importance of empathy in human relations is obvious may wonder why such a huge compilation of evidence is necessary to prove it. But in surveying what still passes for "realism" in human affairs, Rifkin figures he must make his case like a lawyer in the court of world opinion.