The Age of Empathy

by Frans de Waal

  199 watched a female baboon assist a male: Benjamin Beck (1973).

  CHAPTER 7: CROOKED TIMBER

  201 “Out of the crooked timber”: Translation of Kant’s 1784 statement in German: “Aus so krummem Holze, als woraus der Mensch gemacht ist, kann nichts ganz Gerades gezimmert werden.” This “crooked timber” phrase figures in the title of a book by Isaiah Berlin as well as the name of a popular blogsite (Crookedtimber.org).

  201 “We have always known”: A reference to the Great Depression in FDR’s Second Inaugural Address (January 20, 1937).

  201 kudzu: Considered the scourge of the South, because it suffocates anything it overgrows, kudzu is a Japanese vine introduced for erosion control in the 1930s. It can grow one foot per day, and is now beyond control.

  202 glorious New Man: Quote from Leon Trotsky (1922). See also Steven Pinker (2002) for the communist belief in a flexible human nature.

  202 raised as a girl: John Colapinto, As Nature Made Him (2000), offers the real story of a boy who suffered a botched circumcision, thus becoming a test case for a sexologist who thought that gender is environmentally constructed. The boy’s testicles were surgically removed, he received injections of female hormones, and was told he was a girl. This could not undo the prenatal effects of hormones on his brain, however. The child walked like a boy and objected violently to girl clothes and toys. He committed suicide at the age of thirty-eight. Gender identity is now widely recognized as biologically determined.

  203 the gentle, sexy bonobo: Our Inner Ape (de Waal, 2005) discusses human similarities to both of our closest primate relatives: the bonobo and the chimpanzee.

  204 “we don’t do body counts”: The destruction of New York’s World Trade Center, in 2001, was celebrated across the Muslim world, and the bombing of Baghdad received much flag-waving support in the United States, and was even compared to a symphony by retired Major General Donald Shepperd: “I don’t mean to be glib about it, but it really is a symphony that has to be orchestrated by a conductor” (CNN News, March 21, 2003). Rumsfeld’s statement on Iraqi dead was given on Fox News (November 2, 2003).

  204 Yosef Lapid: The justice minister said that the images of Israeli destruction in Gaza reminded him of his family’s situation in World War II. Lapid had lost family members in the Holocaust (“Gaza Political Storm Hits Israel,” BBC News, May 23, 2004).

  205 “nature is filled with competition”: David Brooks, “Human Nature Redux,” New York Times, February 17, 2007.

  205 Martin Hoffman: Hoffman (1981, p. 79).

  205 “mentalize” automatically: The intentional mental states (e.g., desires, needs, feelings, beliefs, goals, reasons) of others are unobservable constructs deduced from observed behavior. Mentalization helps us make sense of the behavior around us (Allen et al., 2008).

  206 applies equally well to a dog: Patricia McConnell (2005) interprets canine behavior in emotional terms.

  207 Queen Victoria: Matt Ridley (2001) describes the first displays of apes at the London Zoo.

  207 Toward the end of a long career: David Premack (2007) and Jeremy Kagan (2004).

  210 “As long as I live”: J. K. Rowling (2008).

  snakes in suits: Title of a book on psychopathy in business by Paul Babiak and Robert Hare (2006).

  212 a developmental disorder: James Blair (1995).

  212 polar bear plays with a husky: Many animals “self-handicap” while playing with younger or weaker partners. A gorilla male, who could kill a juvenile by just leaning a hand on its chest, controls his incredible strength in wrestling and tickling games. Rare play between a polar bear and a tethered sled dog was documented in Canada’s Hudson Bay by German photographer Norbert Rosing.

  213 Germany in the previous century: Robert Waite, The Psychopathic God: Adolph Hitler (1977). Hitler has also been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic (Coolidge et al., 2007).

  213 “In those days”: Mark Rowlands (2008, p. 181). A character study of Tertullian concluded that the church father was indeed close to being a psychopath (Nisters, 1950).

  214 open or close the portal: This is known as the “appraisal” mechanism, that is, the question which cues modulate the empathic response. Major cues for empathy are familiarity and similarity between subject and object (Preston and de Waal, 2002). Further see Frederique de Vignemont and Tania Singer (2006).

  214 the fifth horseman: Ashley Montagu and Floyd Matson (1983).

  214 hardwired for empathy: British autism researcher Simon Baron-Cohen (2003) claims that the female brain is specialized in empathizing and the male brain in systematizing. See Carolyne Zahn-Waxler et al. (1992, 2006) for sex differences in childhood and Alan Feingold (1994) for cross-cultural evidence that women are more “tender-minded” and nurturing than men.

  215 “Pity, though it is”: From Bernard de Mandeville’s “An Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue” (Fable of the Bees, 2nd edition). Mandeville (1670—733) represents perhaps the closest historical parallel to Ayn Rand’s attempt to celebrate egoism as a moral good. The subtitle of Mandeville’s satirical fable says it all: “Private Vices, Publick Benefits.” Claiming that rapaciousness feeds prosperity, he elevated selfish motives and their economic outcome above other human values.

  215 a more complex picture: Nancy Eisenberg (2000) and Sara Jaffee and Janet Shibley Hyde (2000) doubt pronounced gender differences in empathy.

  216 Steve Ballmer: “Ballmer ‘vowed to kill Google,’” Ina Fried (CNET News, September 5, 2005).

  219 ancient Greeks: Ajax, the great warrior, went into a suicidal depression after the Trojan War. Sophocles noted about his insanity: “Now he suffers lonely thoughts….” The U.S. military uses Greek plays as PTSD counseling tools (MSNBC.com, August 14, 2008).

  220 “I am sick and tired of war”: Sherman’s and other quotes on killing and warfare come from Dave Grossman’s (1995) On Killing.

  220 “You saw the ox”: From The Works of Mencius (Book I, Part I, Chapter VII).

  221 measure the greatest happiness: Paul Zak (2005) shows that self-reported happiness correlates positively with generalized trust across nations.

  221 Alan Greenspan: Quoted by Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times, October 24, 2008.

  222 Smith saw society: Jonathan Wight (2003).

  223 “dismal science”: About women in economics, see John Kay, “A Little Empathy Would Be Good for Economics,” Financial Times, June 12, 2003. The term stakeholder (which covers the employees, clients, bankers, suppliers, and local community of a business) is increasingly used as counterpoint to shareholder or stockholder, such as in Edward Freeman’s (1984) stakeholder theory.

  224 “We are more compassionate”: From Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado (August 28, 2008).

  224 Abraham Lincoln: In a letter to Joshua Speed (August 24, 1855).

  References

  CHAPTER 1: BIOLOGY, LEFT AND RIGHT

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  CHAPTER 2: THE OTHER DARWINISM

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  CHAPTER 3: BODIES TALKING TO BODIES

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