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A Radical Experiment In Empathy Summary

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“Common Assessment” Sam Richard’s TED talk, “A Radical Experiment in Empathy,” asks the audience to step out of their comfort zone and pretend to be in the mindset of someone else. He specifically justifies the perspective of Iraq Muslims on the American military. Richards uses an imaginary story of Chinese aggression against America to widen his listeners’ awareness of their biases. The sociological symbolic interactionism provides a frame work for his argument by highlighting shared meanings of symbols in different groups, how those meanings can change with time and interaction, and the challenges these different meanings cause in interactions. Symbols stand for things. One thing that causes a group of people to feel connected is when they agree on the meaning of symbolic things in their lives. One example from the TED talk is the American flag. Typically, the American flag is a positive patriotic symbol for most Americans (pre- NFL controversy), and the image of the grieving widow receiving the folded flag at a military funeral is a mixture of sadness and pride. However, that same flag can represent fear and anger to our enemies. Word choices have more meaning then just the …show more content…

I agree that it is unfair to judge people without even trying to understand where they are coming from with their ideas and actions, but I also feel there are some actions that are wrong no matter what the reasons behind them are. Empathy demands that we acknowledge and attempt to understand and care about someone else’s feelings. To connect this to Richards’ argument, I agree that it is important to understand that war is not a simple good and evil conflict because it involves people with real feelings, real situations, and unique perspectives. To disagree with his argument, while I may understand another person’s perspective, my beliefs might make it impossible for me to approve of the actions that perspective leads

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