Rifkin highlights the mysterious entities known as ‘mirror neurons’, which were first discovered in macaque monkeys by Italian researchers in the early 1990s. These are neurons that fire up both when we experience something (such as pain) and also when we see somebody else going through the same experience. People with lots of mirror cells tend to be more empathic, especially in terms of sharing emotions. According to Giacomo Rizzolatti, one of the researchers, ‘mirror neurons allow us to grasp the minds of others not through conceptual reasoning but through direct simulation’. Rifkin’s conclusion is that, ‘we are soft-wired not for aggression, violence, self-interest and utilitarianism’ but rather ‘for sociability, attachment, affection and companionship’. In other words, we are Homo Empathicus.

The RSA have created a superb animated version of Rifkin’s talk, which begins with his summary of the mirror neuron research, complete with drawings of monkeys. You can watch it here:

What Rifkin doesn’t mention is some of the other research which muddies the picture about the empathic brain. For instance, neuroscientists at the University of Washington have identified core brain areas that seem to be responsible for perspective-taking empathy, which has been shown to stimulate activity in areas known as the posterior cingulate/precuneus and the right temporo-parietal junction. In practice this means, for example, that one part of the brain is active when we think about getting one of our fingers pinched in a door, but different parts of the brain – the empathic spots – are switched on when we think about the same thing happening to another person. This all sounds rather different from mirror neurons.

Other research is based on cases of brain injury. In his book, Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology, Paul Broks describes a  man whose left frontal lobe was damaged in a motorway accident and suffered from a complete loss of his ability to empathise. Following the crash he would regularly say to his wife, in a matter-of-fact way, ‘I don’t love you any more, do I, love?’

Neither of these instances of neurological research into empathy necessarily contradicts the mirror neuron story. But I simply wish to urge caution about how confident we should be with our conclusions. MRI scanners and other new technologies have shown us that empathy is happening in our brains in complex ways. Yet at this stage we have little idea about how it all really functions and links to everyday behaviour. We are like the early astronomers who were able to see new stars with their powerful telescopes, but understood little about what they were made of, or how and why they moved.

Despite all the scientific research, we are still waiting to make the real breakthroughs, such as how to restore empathy when it is lost or how to enhance it.  I, for one, am not yet ready to volunteer to have a brain operation that will transform me into an empathic superhero.

Jamaican immigrants to Britain in 1948 arriving off the ship Empire Windrush, which carried the first large group of West Indian immigrants following World War Two.

The upcoming British general election on May 6 raises the possibility for a new dawn in empathy-based politics. Or not. My review of the election manifestos of the major parties – Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green – reveals that the word ‘empathy’ is not mentioned a single time in any of them (out of a total 356 pages of text). This is rather different from the last US presidential election, when Barack Obama mentioned ‘empathy’ in almost every speech he made.

Of course, you can’t judge politicians or parties on the basis of how often they use a particular word. So let’s turn to a concrete policy area and see what the parties have to say. The one I’m choosing is immigration. This is because it is a litmus test of an empathetic approach to politics. National borders are dangerous because they frequently act as the boundaries of our moral universes; it is easy to care more about our fellow citizens than about people who live in far away places of which we know little (which is why we sometimes drop bombs on them or let them starve to death). But empathy is not a matter of what passport you hold; it must extend beyond borders to all human beings. A compassionate immigration policy demonstrates empathetic values in political practice.

Unsurprisingly, the two major parties reproduce the clichéd and scare-mongering image of immigrants stealing local jobs, bleeding the welfare system dry and causing crime. The Labour party doesn’t start well by combining ‘Crime and Immigration’ together in a single section in their manifesto. They then say they will adopt a new points-based system to control the menace of ‘rising immigration’. The Conservatives take a similar line, stating ‘immigration is too high and needs to be reduced’, and that ‘we do not need to attract people to do jobs that could be carried out by British citizens’.

Both the Liberal Democrats and Greens have a more empathetic position. They say they will end the detention of children in immigration detention centres, and will offer an amnesty for immigrants who have been living illegally in Britain for several years with a clean record, with the prospect of gaining the legal right of citizenship. The Greens also note that 5 million British people live abroad, so it would be hypocritical to make the country a complete fortress.

Nick Griffin, leader of the neo-fascist British National Party: 'I want to help stop the immigration which is destroying this and every other white nation in the world'.

The neo-fascist British National Party has the most extreme policy position, calling for ‘a halt to the immigration invasion’. Immigrants, they believe, ‘totally swamp the existing people…destroying their communities.’ This is consistent their wider stance on international development issues: ‘Let them sort it out for themselves, it’s got nothing to do with us’. The BNP claim that the major reason people support them is due to their vociferous opposition to immigration. But a recent report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), Exploring the Roots of BNP Support,  shows this to be a falsehood:

‘The British National Party (BNP) frequently suggests that it attracts support because it is the only party to take into account communities’ ‘real’ experiences of immigration. IPPR has explored whether or not this is the case by looking at the roots of BNP support across 149 local authorities. We conducted regression-based analysis to see whether or not high levels of immigration do raise communities’ support for the BNP, or if other variables – such as political disengagement – are important.

Our findings suggest that areas that have higher levels of recent immigration than others are not more likely to vote for the BNP. In fact, the more immigration an area has experienced, the lower its support for the far right. It seems that direct contact with migrants dissuades people from supporting the BNP. For example, of the 10 local authorities in which the BNP gained most support in the 2009 European elections, nine had lower than average immigration.’

This tells us something important about empathy. The report suggests, in effect, that having ‘direct contact’ with immigrants makes us more empathetic towards them. This contact might come through talking to them at the local shops, discovering that your six-year-old’s best friend is an asylum seeker, or simply seeing new immigrants trying to get on with their lives just as you are doing. The broad political implication may be that banging the anti-immigration drum is not as much of a vote winner as the political parties think.

Even an empathetic immigration policy is not, however, enough for any party to win my vote. Empathetic politics requires a radical decentralisation of power to close the gap between governors and governed, creating a level of citizen participation in decision-making that no mainstream party is ready to contemplate.

For some of my more general thinking on what is wrong with modern democracy, see my essay Mortgaged Democracy, originally published in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Democratic Thought.

Jo Berry (right) standing next to Pat Magee, the man who killed her father.

One of the greatest challenges of leading an empathetic life is trying to step into the shoes of people who we consider to be ‘enemies’ or whose views and values are very different from our own. If you’re on the receiving end of a racist comment from someone at the pub or a torrent of unfair verbal abuse from your boss, the idea of trying to empathise with them would probably be the last thing on your mind. If you came face to face with the person who had recently burgled your house, could you overcome your anger to see the crime from their perspective, and understand the circumstances that may have driven them to it?

Empathising in such instances might seem like wishful thinking. But consider the case of Jo Berry. In 1984 her father, Conservative MP Sir Anthony Berry, was killed by an IRA bomb at the Party Conference in Brighton. In 1999, one of the IRA members responsible, Pat Magee, was released from prison under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. Jo’s response was a desire to meet him. She felt that trying to create a relationship with the man who had murdered her father was the best way of overcoming her anguish and anger. Since then they have met over fifty times, gradually – and often painstakingly – developing an understanding of one another’s perspectives on the bombing. Twenty-five years after the event, Jo has now launched a charity, Building Bridges for Peace, which aims to use dialogue and non-violence to promote peaceful resolutions to violent conflicts.

Jo is often asked whether she forgives Pat. Her answer is that forgiveness is not the right word or concept. What really matters, she says, is empathy. She has come to empathise with her father’s killer: ‘I’ve realised that no matter which side of the conflict you’re on, had we all lived each other’s lives, we could all have done what the other did.’

Their unlikely and remarkable friendship reveals that empathy is not only possible in the most extreme circumstances, but that it can transform individual lives and is a route towards social change. Below they tell their story in the own words. First in an interview broadcast on the BBC World Service, and then in a profile for The Forgiveness Project. If Jo Berry can find a way to empathise with Pat Magee, couldn’t we all discover new possibilities for empathy in our lives?

Jo Berry

An inner shift is required to hear the story of the enemy. For me the question is always about whether I can let go of my need to blame, and open my heart enough to hear Pat’s story and understand his motivations. The truth is that sometimes I can and sometimes I can’t. It’s a journey and it’s a choice, which means it’s not all sorted and put away in a box.

It felt as if a part of me died in that bomb. I was totally out of my depth but somehow I held on to a small hope that something positive would come out of the trauma. So I went to Ireland and listened to the stories of many remarkable and courageous people who’d been caught up in the violence. For the first time I felt that my pain was being heard.

In those early years I probably used the word ‘forgiveness’ too liberally – I didn’t really understand it. When I used the word on television, I was shocked to receive a death threat from a man who said I had betrayed both my father and my country.

Now I don’t talk about forgiveness. To say “I forgive you” is almost condescending – it locks you into an ‘us and them’ scenario keeping me right and you wrong. That attitude won’t change anything. But I can experience empathy, and in that moment there is no judgement. Sometimes when I’ve met with Pat, I’ve had such a clear understanding of his life that there’s nothing to forgive.

I wanted to meet Pat to put a face to the enemy, and see him as a real human being. At our first meeting I was terrified, but I wanted to acknowledge the courage it had taken him to meet me. We talked with an extraordinary intensity. I shared a lot about my father, while Pat told me some of his story.

Over the past two and a half years of getting to know Pat, I feel I’ve been recovering some of the humanity I lost when that bomb went off. Pat is also on a journey to recover his humanity. I know that he sometimes finds it hard to live with the knowledge that he cares for the daughter of someone he killed through his terrorist actions.

Perhaps more than anything I’ve realised that no matter which side of the conflict you’re on, had we all lived each others lives, we could all have done what the other did. In other words, had I come from a Republican background, I could easily have made the same choices Pat made.

Pat Magee

Some day I may be able to forgive myself. Although I still stand by my actions, I will always carry the burden that I harmed other human beings. But I’m not seeking forgiveness. If Jo could just understand why someone like me could get involved in the armed struggle then something has been achieved. The point is that Jo set out with that intent in mind – she wanted to know why.

I decided to meet Jo because, apart from addressing a personal obligation, I felt obligated as a Republican to explain what led someone like me to participate in the action. I told her that I’d got involved in the armed struggle at the age of 19, after witnessing how a small nationalist community were being mistreated by the British. Those people had to respond. For 28 years I was active in the Republican Movement. Even in jail I was still a volunteer.

Between Jo and I, the big issue is the use of violence. I can’t claim to have renounced violence, though I don’t believe I’m a violent person and have spoken out against it. I am 100% in favour of the peace process, but I am not a pacifist and I could never say to future generations, anywhere in the world, who felt themselves oppressed, “Take it, just lie down and take it.”

Jo told me that her daughter had said after one of our meetings, “Does that mean that Grandad Tony can come back now?” It stuck with me, because of course nothing has fundamentally changed. No matter what we can achieve as two human beings meeting after a terrible event, the loss remains and forgiveness can’t embrace that loss. The hope lies in the fact that we are prepared to carry on. The dialogue has continued.

It’s rare to meet someone as gracious and open as Jo. She’s come a long way in her journey to understanding; in fact, she’s come more than half way to meet me. That’s a very humbling experience.

Sasha Abramsky: A standard biography is interested in the chronology of Obama’s life. My book, by contrast, is interested in exploring the contours of Obama’s mind: how he thinks; how he approaches problems; how he interacts with people both in public and private settings; how he understands the ebb and flow of history; what one can learn about Obama through exploring his hobbies – his competitive interest in sports, in particular. It’s far more of a classic profile-writ-large than it is a conventional biography, and I build it up, layer by layer, through talking to people who have interacted with Obama at all these different moments, or strata of his life. It is, in that sense, the ultimate Obama write-around (that being the term used by Gay Talese, who forty-three years ago, wrote the most famous profile of Frank Sinatra: he called it a “write-around” because he built up Sinatra’s persona and presence, through a multitude of different people’s impressions of Sinatra in a variety of situations). I hope, by the end of my book, readers will have a strong sense that they really do understand what makes Barack Obama tick.

Roman Krznaric: Obama has repeatedly said that empathy is his most important political value. He has stated, for instance: ‘We seem to be suffering from an empathy deficit – our ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, to see the world through those who are different from us – the child who’s hungry, the laid-off steel worker, the immigrant woman cleaning your dorm room.’ Just how important do you think empathy is to his approach to politics? And what makes him care about it?

Sasha Abramsky: To me, Obama’s language of empathy is very powerful. Certainly, as he has risen up the political ladder, it is his ability to make people feel included or important that has, over the years, served him well. Without suggesting it’s fake in any way, because I don’t believe it is, I do think that, pragmatically, the art of empathy makes him a very strong candidate.

It comes, I believe, from the fact that personally he has a rather unique background; he’s a racial and cultural mix, and his mother moved him to Indonesia for several years when he was a small kid. He had to imbibe more of the world’s perspectives and experiences than do most young children. And I think those lessons stuck with him. His sister Maya teaches her students to play a ‘doubting game’ in which they learn to doubt their own preconceived ideas and try to think like other people. They put themselves in other peoples’ shoes. I’m sure that notion was inculcated in Barack and Maya by their mother when they were young children. It’s a humanistic equivalent to the game of scientific/philosophical doubt that Descartes played as he was stumbling toward his theory Cogito Ergo Sum.

When you hear Obama speak, or read his writings, this notion of being able to walk in other peoples’ shoes, being able to absorb other people’s voices, is central to his political vision. I think a lot of conservatives mocked this during the election, and a lot of progressives today sneer at it and say he’s a faux populist but doesn’t really mean what he says. Personally I don’t think that’s fair. It seems to me that, while he clearly isn’t as pure an idealist as many of his supporters hoped he would be, that he very much is, at his core, an empathetic politician.

The question of the moment for me is whether it’s possible to not just campaign empathetically but also to govern empathetically? In other words, do the needs of state, the messiness (the compromises, the input of secret information in decision-making etc) of governance in some ways inevitably dilute even Obama’s empathetic strengths? My sense is he has retained the ability to take advice from a tremendous number of different people and that he absorbs many different perspectives; but, at the end of the day, D.C. isn’t a particularly empathetic environment – and many of his policy goals will end up somewhat frayed simply by the rough back-and-forth of Congressional debate. I think we’ve seen that, to a point, with the healthcare reform agenda.

Roman Krznaric: Obama’s nomination earlier this year of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court sparked the first explicit political controversy about empathy that I’ve ever come across. Obama claimed that she would make an excellent judge because of her empathetic qualities, coming from an underprivileged Hispanic background, which triggered a backlash from Republicans and conservative thinkers, who argued that the law was a matter of cool rationality and following the rules, not touchy-feely empathy. Sotomayor seemed quickly to agree with them, keeping quiet about empathy and emphasising her legal impartiality. How significant was this episode, and what does it tell us about American politics?

Sasha Abramsky: The Sotomayor nomination was, on one level, an attempt to prioritize empathy within the higher echelons of the court system. On the other hand, one can over-emphasize that: in addition to her empathetic qualities, she’s a very skilled, knowledgeable judge, an expert in jurisprudence who is very qualified for a place on the Supreme Court.

My sense was the Republicans were on something of a fishing expedition when they went after Sotomayor for some of her statements about having a sense of empathy because of who she was and where she came from. After all, everyone, by definition, has their own peculiar life story and that life story will provide them with certain empathetic qualities vis-à-vis particular groups. The Republicans knew that; they also knew they could whip up some fear around race and gender by misconstruing her comments. It was, I think, something of a storm in a teacup, and I don’t think it’s carried over very far into the popular consciousness.

The more important issue here is the sorts of judicial values that will dominate the Supreme Court in the years to come. During the Bush years, the Supreme Court began tilting fairly far to the right. Sotomayor’s nomination began the process of tilting it back if not to progressivism then at least toward the center.

Clip from the press conference in which Obama said he considered empathy to be a vital quality for his new appointment to the Supreme Court.

Roman Krznaric: Obama has given priority to the domestic issue of health care reform over the international issue of climate change, pushing forward with legislation on the former while the world waits for serious US action on the latter. Notwithstanding his visit to Copenhagen this month, his empathy for those who are left out of the US health system appears – at least in practical terms – greater than his empathy for the present and future victims of climate change. Is this a fair depiction of his position? Or is this prioritizing simply a matter of Washington realpolitik?

Sasha Abramsky: On healthcare, I’d disagree somewhat with your premise. Yes, he’s focused on getting some version of healthcare reform passed by Congress – and in the short term that might mean other issues slide slightly on the administration’s priority list; on the other hand, without prioritizing, nothing would get done. That’s the tension between holistic, universal, rhetoric, and the D.C. world of realpolitik. In a sense my bigger concern is not that he’s spending too much time on healthcare but that he waited a few months too long before realizing just how much personal energy he would have to expend convincing a select handful of centrist Democratic representatives and senators to support meaningful reforms.

I think, when it comes to climate change, he’s actually moving the American political system about as fast as it can be moved. That still might not be fast enough, but it’s a whole lot faster than it would have moved on the issue under Bush or even under McCain, one of the few senior Republicans to take the issue seriously.

Roman Krznaric: You write in your book about the thematic importance of empathy in Obama’s famous ‘A More Perfect Union‘ speech, given in Philadelphia in March 2008, which tackled race issues. You discuss how his language convinced impoverished African Americans that he could step into their shoes, while also expressing his understanding of the frustrations of whites who felt that affirmative stood in the way of their own dreams. Yet in seemingly extending his empathy to everybody, how then does Obama make policy decisions that involve conflicts of interest between different groups (for instance on the issue of affirmative action or abortion)? You can’t empathise with everybody all of the time.

Sasha Abramsky: It’s certainly possible that there is a logical limit to any politics of empathy – that, at the end of the day, one can only compromise up to a point without diluting one’s core values to a point where they cease to hold sway; it’s also possible that in a toxicly partisan environment, in which scoring political points often outweighs long-term political calculi, Obama will ultimately lack partners with whom to sit down at the table. That’s when the empathist has to be joined by the hard-hitting politician, the person prepared to get partisan when he needs to get the job done.

For further details about Sasha Abramsky’s books and journalism, visit his website.

The individuals behind the climate change headlines. Flooding in India, 2009.

We should view the problem of tackling climate change not as an environmental issue, or one concerning technology or social justice or markets, but primarily as a problem of empathy. We must learn to see the individuals behind the newspaper headlines about global warming, and imagine ourselves into the uniqueness of their lives, developing an empathetic understanding of their most important experiences, beliefs, fears and hopes. Sound far-fetched, wishy-washy or a little too sandals-and-carrot-juice for your liking? Let me explain myself.

The big question facing us is this: how can we close the gap between knowledge and action on climate change? Millions of people in rich countries know about the damaging effects of climate change and their own greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, yet relatively few are willing to make substantive changes to how they live. They might change a few light bulbs but they do not cut back on flying abroad for their holidays nor do they want to pay higher taxes to confront global warming. So far economic, moral or other arguments have not been enough to spur sufficient action. Could empathy help?

The difficulty is that individuals, governments and companies are currently displaying an extraordinary lack of empathy on the issue of climate change, in two different ways. First, we are ignoring the plight of those whose livelihoods are being destroyed today by the consequences of our high emission levels, particularly distant strangers in developing countries who are affected by floods, droughts and other extreme weather events, such as flood refugees in the Indian state of Orissa. How many of us have made an effort to put ourselves in the shoes of Annapurna Beheri, a woman from Orissa whose home and family shop selling biscuits and tobacco were washed away in 2007, and to imagine how her life has been affected by the realities of climate change? So, there is an absence of empathy across space.

Second, we are failing to take the perspective of future generations who will have to live with the detrimental effects of our continuing addiction to lifestyles that result in emissions beyond sustainable levels. Thus there is a lack of empathy through time. We would hardly treat our own family members with such callous disregard and continue acting in ways that we knew were harming them.

Generating empathy both across space and through time is one of the most powerful ways we have of closing the gap between knowledge and action, and for tackling the climate crisis. The problem is that, until now, empathy has been largely ignored by policymakers, non-governmental organisations and activists.

It is time to recognise that empathy is not only an ethical guide to how we should lead our lives and treat other people, but is also an essential strategic guide to how we can bring about the social action required to confront global warming.

I would like empathy to become the watchword of a new era of policies, social movements, cultural projects and individual action on climate change. How can we encourage this empathetic revolution of human relationships? What exactly might it look like? Here are a few of my ideas for cultivating empathy across space and through time:

Climate Comrades
The old-fashioned idea of pen pals could be revived for the age of climate change. People living in rich countries could engage in one-to-one conversations with those living in poor countries suffering from the effects of global warming, using cheap technologies such as Skype, Facebook, email and webcams. This might be organised through existing or newly forged links between schools, church groups or twin town programmes, with some coordinating help from development agencies like Oxfam or ActionAid. So a teenager in Edinburgh could have regular video conversations with another teenager in Uganda, whose rural community is being hit by drought. Your Climate Comrade would hopefully become a friend for life, opening you up to a new empathetic understanding of what climate change means for people’s livelihoods, and encouraging you to take political action.

How easily can you imagine stepping into the shoes of those suffering from the impacts of climate change? Photo from Mark Edwards's exhibition Hard Rain.

Climate Corps
The Peace Corps established as a federal agency in the US in the early 1960s has given hundreds of thousands of young people the opportunity to experience the realities of living in poverty in a developing country, especially in Latin America. I would like to see the European Union establish a similar programme called the Climate Corps. Young people would go on placements for a year to live with a community in a poor country hit by climate change. They would work on adaptation projects such as helping build flood defences and engage in other work of use to their hosts, such as teaching English to village children. In EU countries with military service, Climate Corps should be offered as an alternative option. With the right marketing, joining the Climate Corps could become a rite of passage for young people as popular as back-packing for a year before university. One of the rules of Climate Corps is that you must travel to and from your destination without exceeding a carbon emission limit, which would force you to avoid travel by plane. Climate Corps would be a major boost to generating empathy across space.

The Climate Futures Museum
Without a time machine, it is impossible to give people direct experience of the future. But we can find ways to simulate the projected realities of everyday life a century from today. That is why every major city in the world should establish a Climate Futures Museum. The purpose of a Climate Futures Museum would be to provide experiential learning designed to develop our empathy with future generations who will have to live with the impacts of climate change if we fail to take concerted action in the present. The museum would not contain standard informational displays behind glass cases or on computer screens. Instead, it would house experiential exhibitions that allow visitors to understand in reality what it would be like to have their homes flooded, to be faced by drought, or to experience a hurricane. You might have to put on a life jacket and be tossed around in a dinghy in a wave machine. Creative minds would be needed to design an empathetic experience that would be etched in your memory for ever. (In fact, I’ve already begun working on this project with the ecological artist Clare Patey and the sustainable designer Sophie Thomas.)

While I certainly believe that global political agreements like that being negotiated in Copenhagen are vital for tackling the uniquely cross-border issue of climate change, there is no doubt that raising empathetic awareness at the grass roots is equally necessary. This is not simply because there is still so much denial and scepticism about the realities of man-made climate change. It is also because empathy has the power to create the human bonds required to catapult us into social action.

Earlier today I was at a climate change demonstration in central London together with around 40,000 other people. An elderly woman next to me had a photograph of a tiny baby hanging around her neck, contained in a plastic sleeve. Underneath it said, ‘I’m here for Alice, aged one month’. That photograph, for me, was a small sign of hope that, deep within us, we all understand the importance of empathy.

This is an revised version of an article that first appeared on George Marshall’s brilliant Climate Denial blog. It is based on a research paper I wrote for the Future Ethics project at the University of Manchester called Empathy and Climate Change: Proposals for a Revolution of Human Relationships

To hear me talking about empathy and climate change, here is a six-minute video.

In a Roots of Empathy class, the teacher is a baby

So if you walk into a ROE class you might see something like this. A group of seven-year-olds are gathered around a gurgling baby boy lying on the floor. They are discussing why the baby seems so upset, trying to understand what he is thinking or feeling. Afterwards, they break into groups and explore their similarities or differences with one another about what makes them happy or upset. Before the baby leaves they may make him a gift to take home, and sing him a song.

ROE is a hugely successful example of a ‘social and emotional learning’ programme. It has reduced playground bullying, encouraged cooperative behaviour, improved pupils’ relationships with their parents and has also had a positive impact on academic performance.

Beyond this, what really impresses me is that Mary Gordon recognises that empathy development is a crucial element of social change. She sees it as a way of creating global citizens, and educating a new generation who will care about tackling the world’s social ills. ‘Empathy is integral to solving conflict in the family, schoolyard, boardroom and war room,’ she says in her book. ‘The ability to take the perspective of another person, to identify commonalities through our shared feelings, is the best peace pill we have.’

I recently wrote a report for Oxfam encouraging the UK government to introduce Roots of Empathy and other innovative forms of empathy education in the English school system. Though they have begun some empathy programmes such as Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL), they still haven’t seen the wisdom of bringing babies into the classroom as teachers. Let’s just hope a few government ministers read Mary Gordon’s inspiring book.