The Empathic Civilization
Jeremy Rifkin
 The Empathic Civilization is divided into three parts with an introductory chapter that summarizes the contents and arguments of the book. The first part consists of four chapters and analyses empathy from the perspective of psychology, biology, and philosophy. Rifkin provides a history of empathy in psychology, including how it relates to the works of Freudian psychology, Melanie Klein, Ronald Fairbairn, Heinz Kohut, and Donald Winnicott, leading to John Bowlby and Attachment Theory. As psychological theory has evolved, empathy has played a larger and larger role, especially in the emotional and intellectual development of children. In terms of biology, Rifkin connects the biological function of mirror neurons with the capacity for empathy. Philosophically, Rifkin explores empathy-altruism, the faith versus reason debate, and truth versus reality debate. Rifkin argues in favour of relationalism, that the meaning of existence is to enter into relationships. From the lens of empathy, he deconstructs the concepts of truth, freedom, democracy, equality, mortality. The second part consists of five chapters and focuses on the rise, development, and fall of civilizations. Rifkin connects the qualitative changes in energy regimes and communication techniques with changes in how people understand and organize reality. Hunter-gatherer societies were all oral cultures and thus only existed in geographically-limited small groups and identified themselves symbiotically in terms of that group. Spiritually, these societies believed in local gods who were only known to others through oral tales. The development of writing, as well as hydraulics and irrigation, allowed agricultural societies to better organize themselves so that a larger geographic area and a larger population could be controlled. Hydraulic power was labour intensive, requiring large populations of subservient people. With scripts, there was a shift from a mythological consciousness to a theological consciousness; individuals thought of themselves less in terms of a small, local group and more with a monotheistic religion which included a personal relationship with a god. Decentralization followed the collapse of the Roman Empire, as each town operated a water or wind mill and the printing press distributed literature, empowering more people. Autobiographies started to be written, more people married for love rather than other arrangements, and the concept of privacy, democracy, and market capitalism was more prevalent. People began to organize themselves more into nation-states. Steam and fossil fuels became the dominant energy regime and electronic communications, like telegraphs, radios, telephones, and television, became the dominant means of communication. With vastly more interaction with other people and cultures, there was more emphasis on studying people and psychology. Personal investments, social exploration, and creativity became highly valued. The third part consists of the remaining five chapters. Rifkin extrapolates the changes in energy regimes to predict a shift in production towards renewable sources like wind and solar power under distributed (i.e. personal) management. Rifkin also extrapolates the changes in communication to predict a proliferation of wireless, mobile personal communication that allows people to be constantly connected to others regardless of distance, language, or other barriers. This will evolve people's sense of empathy to create a biosphere-wide consciousness and a mode of production he calls distributed capitalism. Rifkin believes this new system will allow people to solve more complex issues, such as climate change and pathogenic pandemics, focus more on quality of life (rather than materialistic) issues, and value collaboration over competition.