Be Brave! Cultivate empathy.
Defend an empathy surplus in constant public discourse.
Welcome back, subscribers to the Substack of Empathy Surplus Network USA.
Now!
Now is the time for stakeholders to defend Empathy Surplus’s call to make empathy and human rights central to “constant public discourse” and activate brain reflexivity.1 The gender-neutral call to use “constant . . . progressive measures” to keep fascists at bay went out 77 years ago in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) Preamble Proclamation. It was a bold and compassionate recipe for expanding everyone’s freedoms that is still relevant today.
1998 - 2008
Dr. George Lakoff’s Rockridge Institute answered the declaration’s call in 1998, and I joined his online advisory board in 2005. However, progressive hypocognition—not knowing what we don’t know—prevented unity in recruitment. Dr. Lakoff closed in 2008 due to a lack of progressive investment. The same could happen with Empathy Surplus unless we defend it.
Four Empathy Activities
Empathy Surplus was launched as a collective in 2009, with Four Empathy Activities defining a pathway to success. I am often asked by scoffers of Empathy Surplus, “How’s that working for you? Nobody knows what the hell you’re doing?”
“How’s that working for you?”
Here’s the answer. Fifteen years after the launch of our collective, I’m still the only recruiter and fundraiser. Not everyone is comfortable with sales. Our loyal members love the first two empathy activities - inward digestion and investment - but hate to exercise the last two empathy activities of implementation and invitation, which activate public reflexivity. Dr. Lakoff writes, “It is difficult to (hear) things that have not been said hundreds of times before.”
“Defend Institutions. Make them yours by acting on their behalf.”
Nevertheless, Timothy Snyder admonishes us to defend institutions in his book, On Tyranny. He writes, “It is institutions that preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not defend themselves. They fall one after another unless each is defended from the beginning. So choose an institution you care about and take its side.”
The duty to care IS an institution.
The duty to care, the soul of democracy, was institutionalized as a legal concept in 1760 and has been under attack ever since. Presidential candidate Obama warned us in 2006 that our nation suffers from an empathy deficit and called us to cultivate empathy. Consider making Empathy Surplus your own and act on its behalf. Consider fundraising because every human rights pocketbook we give away is worth $17. If you are a dues-paying member, consider recruiting other members, especially organizational members. And if you do, consider asking me to make you a team member on our recruiting and fundraising platform.
#GoEmpathySurplus
Use on Bluesky when making empathy central to your post.
Lakoff, George, Don’t Think of an Elephant, Part II, Chapter 3, Reflexivity, Chelsea Green Publishing, Vermont, 2014, p 35; Reflexivity is the phenomenon that describes how brains can physically change over time.