Empathy Neurons

Jeremy Rifkin who wrote a book called The Empathic Civilization stated in a recent blog that over the past 15 years evolutionary biologists and neurocognitive researchers have been chasing down empathy neurons—those little bits of our brains that allow us to feel and experience another’s situation as if it were our own. Our empathy neurons have been kicked into high gear by all the images and sounds from Haiti over the past agonizing days. The NPR reporter, for instance, whose tear-filled voice brought us a vivid account of one little girl shaking and dying before his eyes because there was no medical care for her. Or those sun-burned faces reporting to us that help is too slow, too removed from where it’s needed. Again we see Katrina faces calling for water. Begging for food.

US texting alone has sent at the time of this writing, $11 million in aid—never mind that credit card companies, obviously devoid of any empathic neurons, are charging a 3% fee for each of those transactions. When people hear the stories their hearts and wallets open.

I find myself wondering what might have happened seventy years ago if the victims of Nazi camps had been able to send tweets and videos. We may have heard first hand from German woman named Irena Sendler, a “plumbing-sewer specialist,” as she smuggled babies and children out of the Warsaw ghetto in her tool box. She knew that it was only a matter of time until they would all die, so she did what she could.

Every day, she brought her dog along in her truck and trained him to bark viciously when they passed through checkpoints. The dog discouraged the guards to check too closely  under the wraps. 

Irena the plumber saved 2500 Jewish children. Imagine how many of them have gone on to become empathic adults helping others as Irena helped them. Imagine how many young earthquake survivors may do the same.

After the supply trucks have finally made it through the Port-au-Prince rubble, after the power’s back on, after the dead have been buried, will our neurons continue to empathize with all the poor in Haiti?  Let's tattoo the numbers of the Hatian dead on our arms to remind us that our earth can crack anywhere. Any time. We could be the ones putting toothpaste under our noses to alleviate the stench of decomposing bodies.  

Irena was eventually caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs and arms and beat her severely. But she survived. Being a German, she kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out, put them in a glass jar and buried it under a tree in her back yard.

After the war, she tried to locate any parents who may have survived in an effort to reunite the families. Sadly, most had been gassed. Still she worked to place many of her kids in foster family homes or with adoptive parents. Irena died recently at 98, her empathy neurons still intact.