The Kindest Generation?

[00:00:00] The Why? Curve, with Phil Dobbie and Roger Hearing. Unmarried women forced to hand over their babies for adoption. Gay soldiers imprisoned for their sexuality. Black people refused housing because of their race. The recent past seems to have been cruel in ways now hard to understand. So are we now a kinda better society? Has mankind become more tolerant, more considerate, more humane? Or do we just fail to understand different, older values?

[00:00:28] And are we just as cruel, but in different ways? The Why Curve. Well, you know what? I'm sure there are people who live in the Middle East who are being bombed right now. Pick your country and pick your side. Who are probably thinking, well, no, actually, we're just as cruel as we ever were. You know, we are still bent on self-destruction. Yeah, but I think the point in all this is that within the recent past, there were attitudes. I mean, yes, you know, it's grim what happens. But also what people think about it.

[00:00:58] And that, you know, at least people, I suppose many people have, are embarrassed at least about the fact that people are being killed in this sort of way. But in the fairly recent past, you know, acts of fairly low-level cruelty towards people who you didn't like or you didn't agree with or whatever it was, or you thought was immoral, was just part and parcel. And, of course, if you go further back, I mean, not that much further. Slavery, of course, colonialism.

[00:01:26] I mean, there's all kinds of things that now we just would feel show, you know, a kind of cruelty, really, at the heart of society. I have to say, I look at the compassion in my kids and think they are far more grown up than I ever was. So, and I think back to school days. I wasn't the one bullying, but I look at who was bullied. So, if you were the, I don't even say the fat kid at school, but that's the language we would have used.

[00:01:52] And there'd only be one or two because just there wasn't so much obesity in those days for whatever reason. They were hounded at school. I mean, everyone made sure their life was a misery. Well, I don't think that. I talk to my kids about bullying at school and they sort of give the impression that it just doesn't, I mean, we are. They are in Surrey, so maybe it's definitely in different parts of the country. Yeah, I think. It just doesn't happen anymore. Well, I think it does. It happens in different ways. I mean, cyberbullying is a massive problem, and I think there's a lot of that out there.

[00:02:18] But as I say, it's not so much what happens as kind of what we think about it. Because back, you know, 50 years ago, the state effectively had this incredibly cruel attitude towards lots of people. I mean, and now at least, you know, we have the dignity to say, well, we don't think it should happen. And it's wrong, even if it does still go on. So, I think there is a sort of step change. So, what is the horrendous thing that you think happened? You know, in our lifetime, so we're both about the same age. We're both very old men in our 60s. Indeed.

[00:02:47] But what, you know, what in our lifetime has been disgraceful now we look back at it? Well, where do you start? I mean, there's so much. I mean, what caught my eye recently was this, I think, apology being put out by the government, or some of the authorities anyway, about the way that women who had children out of marriage were treated in the 70s, for heaven's sakes. That's not that long ago. And forcibly, they had to hand their babies over for adoption. They'd never choice in the matter and were treated badly and cruelly along the way as well. I mean, that kind of thing.

[00:03:16] Is that just for being a single mum or for being a single mum who didn't have the means and wherewithal to bring up their children? Yeah, it may be part of that, too. The civilised answer would be to say, well, okay, let's make sure you do have the wherewithal rather than just having you abandon your children. Well, I think it was more disapproval, maybe religious disapproval, moral disapproval. But that was also true of, for example, service men and women in the forces.

[00:03:43] Because they were gay, they were often just dismissed or imprisoned, in fact, for being in the forces and being gay. And you can go that much further to see incredible discrimination against people from racial minorities arriving in this country. Again, people thinking that was perfectly fine and reasonable. So I suppose the interesting thing is, are we now a kinder, better society? Are we, have humans in some sense evolved morally, even in that short time?

[00:04:13] Which seems extraordinary. Yeah. Well, let's investigate that today, then. Yeah. Okay. Well, we've got someone who investigates this kind of thing, Dr. Steve Taylor. He's been on the podcast before, of course. He researches psychology at Leeds Beckett University. Indeed, he wrote a book called Disconnected, The Roots of Human Cruelty and How Connection Can Heal the World. And he joins us now. So, Steve, are we, do you think, more compassionate these days, perhaps, than we were a couple of decades ago, a few decades ago?

[00:04:38] Certainly, I look at, you know, the way my kids talk, and they seem far more compassionate than I was when I was their age, for example. And so, obviously, something has shifted. I think so. I mean, these changes can be so gradual that it's difficult to actually notice them. But I think my impression is that, certainly over the past 30, 40 years, there has been an increasing spirit of empathy and compassion. And maybe it has become especially noticeable over the past two decades or so.

[00:05:06] Yeah, because, I mean, we were just reflecting before you came on, you know, for example, in recent times, fairly recent times, 1970s, women who had, some women who had babies out of marriage, out of wedlock, had them forcibly taken off them. And with some cruelty, it seems, just from reports that are around now in the news. And you think, that's not that long ago. And yet, it seems incredible that people, including officialdom, behaved in that way. I mean, are we just being condescending towards them? Or is that a genuine thing? It's changed.

[00:05:36] Or maybe, Roger, you know, the prevalent way of thinking at that time was that that was the better solution for the kids. And so, it was the more compassionate way. I don't think so. I think there definitely has been an increasing empathy. And, I mean, empathy is, people tend to take it for granted, but it's quite a kind of very special attribute. It's something quite remarkable about empathy. Empathy is the ability not just to, you know, envisage how another person sees the world,

[00:06:02] but it's the ability to actually step into another person's mental space and feel what they might be experiencing. So, if you, if a person is potentially experiencing suffering, you recall from that because you can somehow sense their suffering. So, I think this increasing ability to step into each other's mental space is really what's going on here. But my parents' generation, which is what we're talking about in probably Phil's and maybe yours, you know, they weren't horrible people. They must have been able to empathise as well.

[00:06:32] It can't just be a sudden, you know, move that we now wake up one morning and we're kinder. It must be something different. That's true. But there were certain blind spots to empathy. You know, the treatment of gay people, for example, there was a blind spot in terms of empathy there. And, yeah, as you say, unmarried mothers, there were certain blind spots where it's clear to us nowadays that, you know, these people deserve empathy. They deserve compassion. They deserve support.

[00:06:59] But somehow people were able to switch off empathy in special cases. I mean, people have always been able to do that. And that's one of the kind of negative human attributes that we have the ability to switch off empathy to certain groups of people. Our parents' generation, of course, went through a war. I wonder whether that changes things. So, once you've been through a war, you know, and you've seen the horrors of war, perhaps you see things in a bit more black and white.

[00:07:26] And perhaps, you know, rightly, you're more selfish because you've been through a period of, really, of survival. And we've not been through that ourselves. I wonder whether that's shifted attitudes or a bit. Possibly. I mean, there is a theory that empathy is a kind of luxury or compassion is a luxury of affluent societies. You know, I mean, that makes a certain degree of intuitive sense. It's easy to be compassionate when you've got money. You know, it's difficult to be compassionate when you're struggling to stay alive from day to day.

[00:07:52] But I'm not sure that's the case because, you know, you can go to the certain poor countries, you know, where people are a lot less affluent than in the UK. But you see a lot of kindness, a lot of hospitality, a lot of, you know, altruism. So, I think human beings are innately empathic and altruistic, irrespective of how affluent they are. But maybe, you know, there are certain periods of suffering like war which can cause trauma and that can maybe switch off empathy.

[00:08:21] But if we look at the great sweep of history in all this, I mean, Steve, you know, 200 years ago, slavery was considered relatively normal in certain parts of the world anyway. Colonialism, you know, we go in and steal someone else's country. That was absolutely fine. I mean, are we sort of saying there's just been this gradual increase somehow for some reason of human empathy on a sort of straight line? I mean, it sounds like the Whig view of history almost, you know, things constantly getting better. But that just seems almost naive to say that.

[00:08:50] Well, I'm not sure because, I mean, some historians talk about the humanitarian revolution, which normally is located in the second half of the 18th century. And that was, if we went back 400 years here in England, you know, we'd be appalled by the sort of everyday cruelty that was on display. You know, the everyday cruelty to animals, the everyday cruelty to children, you know, to disabled people, to anybody, to, you know, to people of different ethnic groups.

[00:09:19] It would be appalling. You know, the kind of practices which we would see as brutal now were just normal practices like animal sports that were based on cruelty to animals, like bear baiting and cat dropping were normal sports in the 17th century. And, you know, the kind of punishments that were routinely meted out to criminals were incredibly brutal. But something happened in the sort of late 18th century and people seemed to develop a new sense of empathy. And that was when a whole lot of movements began.

[00:09:46] And the anti-slavery movement began at that time, the women's rights movement, the animal rights movement. There was a whole kind of like explosion of empathy which seemed to occur around that time. So it's like around the time of the Enlightenment essentially. Yeah, the Enlightenment was part of it. And also the Romantic movement was part of it. The Romantic movement in art and literature, which was based on a connection to nature and a new connection to emotion. So I think something remarkable happened at that time. So it's a bit like seeing society as having more value for all the people within it.

[00:10:16] So we look less selfishly and look at how our own life is rewarded by the ingredients of all the people that are around us, I guess. Yeah. I mean, in the late 18th century, there was an emphasis on rights. For the first time, there was this idea that people, everyone is entitled to equal rights, whether you're, you know, no matter which race you belong to, no matter which gender you belong to. Even if you're an animal, you know, you're entitled to a certain degree of respect. You're entitled to rights.

[00:10:46] So this idea that, you know, everybody is entitled to rights is based on empathy. It's based on the ability to step inside another person's mental space and to realise that they, you know, they can suffer and, you know, it's based on the ability to recoil from another person's suffering. And you mentioned about the 18th century. Okay, so we say we take 1750. Would you be able to then draw a line, a graph, which says, just goes up and up and up gradually till we reach now? And that's the way that empathy has gone in human psychology.

[00:11:14] We are just gradually every year getting kinder and better. Or are we at peak empathy right now? Peak empathy. Hopefully it's not going to deteriorate. Well, I don't know. We've got local council elections coming up next week. I mean, they might show. You never know. Yeah, I mean, that's another question. It seems that when you look at certain presidents and prime ministers around the world, it just, you know, well, you know, that's another factor. But I think, you know, I think there have been certain, you know, explosions in empathy in historical terms.

[00:11:43] The second half of the 18th century was an important moment. And I think after that, there was a gradual increase in rights and a general increase in empathy, which led to, you know, increasing rights for women, increasing ideas of democracy, increasing ideas of equality. I mean, all the kind of the revolutions around the world were connected to this. And I think that increased in the 20th century.

[00:12:09] One of the interesting aspects of this was a sense of connection to nature. You know, we can also empathize with nature. I think the environmental movement, the ecology movement, that's part of this as well. It's a growing sense of connection to nature and even a growing sense of connection to our bodies as well. Because, I mean, in the Victorian era, the body was kind of repressed. Sex was repressed. But in the 20th century, there was kind of an opening to the body and an increasing sense of connection to the body. And I think in the 1960s was also an important period of that as well.

[00:12:39] You know, the hippie movement. So I think, you know, roughly, there has been a growing empathy in a general sense over the past 250 years or so. Yeah, so what's happening in our brain? I mean, you look at psychology. Has something fundamental shifted in terms of, you know, the way our brains work? Or do we connect differently in our take on things? Because it seems such a radical change within a fairly short period.

[00:13:06] It's difficult to say, you know, whether there is any specific neurological change which is associated with this. But it could be that, you know, we're connecting with each other in physical terms a lot more. I mean, 250 years ago, it was very rare to meet any foreigners if you were an English person. It was very rare to meet anybody from a different, you know, if you were a working class peasant person, it might be quite rare for you to meet people from higher classes or the upper classes. But now we intermingle so much more.

[00:13:36] We have so much more connection with different groups, different social groups, different ethnic groups and so forth. Maybe that's a factor, just that, you know, barriers are breaking down. So there's a theory that prejudice is simply due to a lack of contact. You know, if you don't have any contact with a specific group, you can develop prejudice towards them based on an imaginary idea of this group. But when you actually encounter these people, you find, oh, they're not so different to me. They're actually, you know, they're actually nice people.

[00:14:04] And, you know, they're entitled to the same rights as me. So then prejudice begins to break down and empathy grows. So that could be a factor. But that wouldn't work, say, with, you know, I mean, think of one period of exceptional cruelty in the recent past. I suppose you think of Nazi Germany and the way they dealt with Jews. I mean, Jews were, to a large extent, integrated in Germany at the time and they knew them perfectly well. And yet that is a supreme example of cruelty, isn't it? Yeah, that's true.

[00:14:31] I mean, these kind of examples, they obviously contradict the idea that empathy has been gradually increasing. But, I mean, like I said before, human beings have got this appalling ability to turn off empathy in certain cases. And we often do that towards certain ethnic groups. And I think that happened at that time. There was somehow in the Jermal population, there was this ability to switch off empathy to certain other groups, in particular Jews, and to pretend that they were not human beings in the same way that we were. That happens a lot in war as well.

[00:15:00] You know, you have to switch off empathy to our enemy in order to fight a war effectively. So this, you know, this moves into the pathological side of human nature. And it often begins with a pathological government. I mean, the Nazis were obviously psychologically disordered people. And they somehow had the ability to extend or spread their psychological disorder to the population. And that shows, though, just how brittle empathy is in that case. So, I mean, you know, it's only partially joking about the local council elections.

[00:15:30] But if we've got a party that becomes dominant, that is really against migration, and has turned people against migrants, the individuals, rather than just the idea of the sheer numbers, then that's playing on people's empathy as well. That's trying to quash that, you know, that empathy quotient. And, you know, and hardwire people against them. That's true.

[00:15:57] Yeah, I mean, empathy is quite a fragile thing, even though I think it has been growing gradually over the past 200 years or so, even over the past couple of decades. It remains quite fragile. And this blinds, the blindness in human nature is quite easy to exploit. So right-wing politicians, extreme right-wing politicians tend to exploit this ability to switch off empathy. And it's the ability to create scapegoats, you know, to blame other groups for your problems,

[00:16:23] which the Nazis did and which reform are doing towards immigrants. You know, it's quite easy to manipulate this negative aspect of human nature. Well, I mean, I should say, by the way, you know, in the interests of balance, left-wing governments around the world have, you know, been a little bit good in that sort of way as well. You know, whether you talk about the Khmer Rouge or Stalinism or whatever. I mean, lack of empathy to kill other members of your society isn't confined to the right-wing. Oh, no.

[00:16:51] I mean, I think there are just as many extreme left-wing politicians who are pathological and psychologically disordered as there are right-wing politicians. I mean, you know, obviously Soviet Russia was allegedly left-wing, but it was just as pathological, or almost as pathological as the Nazis. So, you know, you're right. It doesn't, you know, it's not just right-wing governments. So is education a big part of this? So when you look at, you know, you start watching the TV shows that we were growing up with,

[00:17:17] like the Black and White Minstrel Show or some of the comedy routines, which might, you know, quite openly attack gays or blacks. You know, we... Just the sort of stuff now that the BBC has in its archives but can't show because it doesn't relate to present-day values. What's changed there? Is it just education? Because, I mean, you look back at it now and you think, how could we?

[00:17:45] How could we have watched that and seen it as acceptable primetime entertainment? Yeah, it seems amazing now. And these are obviously very positive developments. And I think there is a sort of natural progression that partly comes from having increased contact with other groups. And as other groups become more integrated into a society, then prejudices seem to fade away. I mean, I think one of the biggest changes in my lifetime,

[00:18:14] and probably in all our lifetimes, has been attitudes to homosexuality. I mean, I can remember, you know, 30, 40 years ago, it was, you know, it was still taboo to be gay, and it was still kind of under the carpet. But now, within 30 years, it's changed massively. It's much more acceptable. And, you know, why is that? It's partly because it's no longer taboo. It's out in the open. People have realised that it is a natural thing to be gay.

[00:18:41] And, you know, there's no rational reason to be prejudiced against gay people. And I think, you know, again, it comes from increased contact, increased integration. Well, let me add another element into that, and that specifically, which is religion. Because another reason for the underlying reason given for attacking gay people, or also for discriminating against women who had marriage, who had babies out of wedlock, was religion. It was wrong. It was forbidden.

[00:19:10] And therefore, it was somehow right to discriminate, to treat these people cruelly for that reason. I mean, maybe the grip of religion's diminished. That's perhaps what lies behind some of this. That's an interesting point. I have this model which I call the continuum of connection, which I described in a book of mine called Disconnected. And the idea is that every society can be located at a certain point on this continuum. There are some extremely disconnected societies, which tend to be very, very religious,

[00:19:39] and also have extreme sexual repression. They also have extreme punishments and extreme cruelty to animals, and they're very patriarchal. And then you have more connected societies. And in today's world, there aren't many connected societies, but maybe Scandinavian societies are some of the most connected societies. What do you mean by disconnected and connected exactly, Steve? What does that mean? Well, there are societies that are based on a lack of empathy, you know, and oppression towards certain groups, and also oppression towards the body.

[00:20:08] So there are societies that are based on a principle of extreme separation and a lack of the ability to empathise and feel compassion for others. That's what I mean by disconnected. And yet religion, I mean, we talked about, you know, and Christianity is what we're talking about historically, at least here in Britain. And yet the whole thesis, I suppose, of Christianity is, you know, love your neighbour as yourself. You know, it is a religion of empathy in theory. Well, in theory, that's the important point, in theory.

[00:20:37] I mean, if you look at the MAGA Christians in America, there's not much empathy going on there. It's very dogmatic. I mean, religion, you know, is a very wide spectrum. It covers the entire spectrum of human nature, really. But I think in general, the most religious societies tend to be the most disconnected. There are societies with, you know, the highest levels of oppression, sexual oppression and social oppression. And so it's probably a positive sign that we are becoming less religious in general, even though, you know, I'm not anti-religious.

[00:21:07] I think religion kind of play an important role. But in general, it is a sign of increasing connection, I think, that we are becoming less religious. So what's the role of the internet in all of this then? And, you know, this could be an argument for peak empathy in that, you know, OK, we go out into society, we mix, we meet people of all sorts of different backgrounds, and we go, oh, they're not so bad. You know, I feel for them. I have empathy for them. But if we're getting out less because we're spending more time online

[00:21:35] and we're spending more time online hanging out with people who think the same way that we do, then maybe we start to become less tolerant of those people that we're not seeing in our day-to-day life. And could it actually reverse, you know, the steps forward that we've been taking? I think there are both positive and negative trends. The positive trend is, as you mentioned, that people are becoming more connected, they're having more interconnection, more relations with each other. And that tends to break down barriers. Prejudice tends to exist in abstraction.

[00:22:04] You know, if you don't meet any gay people or any black people, you can develop prejudices against them. But once you meet them, your prejudices tend to fade away. That's sometimes called the contact hypothesis. So, yeah, in general, in terms of the internet, if you get people from different nations or different ethnic groups interacting with each other and realising that they're just the same and, you know, they're nice people and they can develop relationships with each other, then that's a good thing. That's going to reduce prejudice and reduce conflict. I mean, it's difficult to fight a war against people

[00:22:34] that you are connected to in some way that you have a relationship with. But isn't there an element of disconnection in those too? Because if I go online, if I feel my prejudice, if I feel I don't like black people or gay people, I can go online with a certain amount of anonymity and throw my bile at people and hide. And so perhaps the societal pressure, which then in the old days perhaps made people homophobic, now it says homophobia is wrong, but I can still do it because I'm online and I'm anonymous.

[00:23:03] Yeah, that is the negative side of it. Yeah, that people can express prejudices with less, you know, you know, with more impunity and less reluctance. That's the negative side. Yeah, on the positive side though, so my son is a gamer, you know, spends an inordinate amount of time online, but he's also hugely empathetic. And I wonder if that is because he's meeting up and gaming with people he doesn't know and really doesn't care about their background.

[00:23:31] Just they're playing online together. So, I mean, that's a positive, you know, it'd be nice if he got outside and saw some sunshine. But, you know, on the positive side, maybe he's empathetic because he's not drawn to distinguishing people because in his clan, they game. It doesn't matter about their background. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I think that is true. And I think there is something going on with the present generation of young people. I mean, I've got kids who are aged from 16 to 23 and I've got students at university

[00:24:01] who I see regularly, sort of late teenagers, early 20s. And there is something different about them. They are more, they seem to be more sensitive and more empathic generally. And, you know, where does that come from? Maybe it does come from increased connection online with people. But I mean, we can talk about something called the zeitgeist, which is kind of intangible and difficult to pin down what it actually means. But maybe the zeitgeist that we're living through at the moment, maybe it is, you know, there is an increasing spirit of empathy. Whilst also, you know,

[00:24:31] there are some tendencies to go in the other direction. Well, let me inject a little note of negativity into this, which I think some people might be thinking is, well, one of the things about having society not being empathetic towards certain sorts of people doing certain sorts of things was an element of control, but in a good way, perhaps. You know, the idea of shaming people, which is what used to happen to some extent, for doing antisocial things, being judgmental about that, and that that actually had a good effect on society because it tended to make people

[00:25:00] less inclined to do those terrible things. And that because we now say, oh, no, everyone's free to do whatever they want, everything's fine, we've lost something about societal cohesion. Possibly. But does that really work? Does the idea of punishing people for those transgressions, does it really work? Because punishment doesn't necessarily need to lead to, you know, a change of mindset. It can increase the mindset sometimes, punishment. But I'm not sure if that's necessarily true. It's like blind obedience, isn't it? That's not necessarily a good thing. But at the same time,

[00:25:30] you've got, you know, the idea that everything goes. There are no limits. You can do whatever you want. Isn't that slightly dangerous in some ways because some people will do terrible things? Yeah, and the internet kind of encourages that by, you know, anonymising people and giving them the space to do those things or to say those things. That's true. But I mean, maybe I'm naively optimistic, but I do believe that there is an increasing spirit of empathy. And, you know, it is kind of counteracted by certain trends in the world,

[00:25:59] by certain populist leaders and their movements, the people who back them. But I think, you know, the tide of history is in our favour. The tide of history is moving towards increasing empathy. And it has done for 250 years or so. So I think we're going to continue to move in that direction. Well, Steve, a little while ago, we did one of our episodes talking about the difficulty, almost impossibility, of governing Britain at the moment for all sorts of reasons. And one of the things was the necessity when you do anything, make any decision, to make sure

[00:26:27] every possible interest group is consulted and that it's all fine with them. And that this was leading to a kind of paralysis. And isn't that a problem? You know, if you're almost over-empathetic, you don't end up having to make the hard decisions and actually doing anything. Well, that's true. But I mean, surely that can't be a bad thing to take different interests into account, to take different groups into account. I think maybe the problem is that we expect too much of our leaders. We expect them to make snap decisions and to be decisive

[00:26:56] and, you know, immediately effective. But I think to be sensible, you have to take a long time over decisions. You have to take lots of different factors into account. And, you know, maybe the idea of a decisive leader is wrong. Maybe we can't expect leaders to be like that. Maybe we have to be more kind of inclusive. Maybe we need to make decisions in a more, you know, on a group basis rather than in terms of individuals. I don't know. Maybe the whole idea

[00:27:25] of modern politics is wrong and we need to come up with a different system. Well, that's a different... I mean, it's like, you know, people talk about when you're building some housing development, you have to take into account some tiny little shrew that happens to live there. And that means that they can't build the housing development and thousands of people are homeless, but the shrew is fine. And that these sort of things, when you take too much into account, you don't go anywhere. Well, that's true. You have to balance things out. You have to balance a lot of different considerations. But, I mean, I'm quite in favour

[00:27:55] of political movements like sortition or lotocracy, you know, where decisions are much more based on consensus when different people get together and balance their interests and reach an overall conclusion. rather than the top-down approach, which is so more, a more consultative approach to government. Yeah, I'm not sure that elective democracy actually works so well and I think we're becoming more aware of that in recent decades because we often end up with the wrong people being elected leaders. You think? Wow.

[00:28:25] That's not a very radical conclusion, but... So are we, it's perhaps the reason we are becoming more empathetic is because we are a little bit more authentic ourselves in that we now, because this movement has started to happen, we feel that we don't need to fit in in the same way we did before. So I remember going through school, I mean, there was enormous pressure to fit in. If you were slightly abnormal in any way, you just had to try and hide that side of you because you needed to fit in.

[00:28:55] And maybe kids today now, they're more authentic. They feel there's less need for them to fit in and because of that they can be themselves more. Because they can be themselves more, they can be, you know, more accepting of others because everyone is more accepting of them. Is that where we've moved to? I think that is definitely a trend that has been occurring over the past few years, the past few decades. You know, there's a lot of emphasis now on neurodivergence, a lot of acceptance of neurodivergence. So it has become more acceptable to be different. And that's got to be

[00:29:25] a positive sign. You know, I remember the same thing. There were kids at school who were bullied when I was at school because they were just slightly different in some way. But I'm not sure if that occurs so much anymore. So that's a positive sign. Well, let's talk in positive terms. Where does it go from here? I mean, we mentioned the concept potentially of peak empathy. Or do you just see it growing and growing and growing in the same way that we're now saying it's been growing over the last 50 years? That's definitely the trend, you know, I mean, and I assume that the trend will continue.

[00:29:55] And as I say, it's not just about increasing empathy between human beings. It's also increasing empathy towards nature, towards other living beings, and even to our own bodies, you know, in terms of more openness and acceptance of the human body and sexual instincts and impulses. So these are definitely positive trends. But there seems to be a reaction to it. You know, at the moment, there's a kind of resurgence of right-wing populism. And I sometimes think that that's a kind of counter-reaction to the positive trends. It's almost as if, you know, the old kind of

[00:30:25] patriarchal trends are feeling threatened and they're trying to reassert themselves so that they're sort of growing stronger in reaction to what's happening. And without bringing politics into, well, I am bringing politics into this, but I don't see a great deal of empathy from Mr. Netanyahu and the US president towards the people of Gaza who are homeless, many of them. So there's a, you know, surefire sign of whole-scale abandonment of any empathy whatsoever. Yeah, well, this is what, I refer to this as a problem of pathocracy.

[00:30:54] There's a tendency for people who completely lack empathy, people who could be described as psychopaths who definitely have psychopathic and narcissistic traits. There's a tendency for these people to rise into positions of high power. Now, these people feel a tremendous desire for power and they find it quite easy to attain power because they're so ruthless and they also tend to be quite charismatic and manipulative. So the people like Netanyahu and Trump, they're definitely examples of these kind of people.

[00:31:23] But they get support, don't they? And I mean, that suggests there are people out there and you sort of hinted that and the way in which some right-wing populism has grown, perhaps certain groups, who actually think that's right, that we've maybe gone too far, you know, that psychologically they don't go with this trend. No, I think they feel threatened by it and they're trying to resist it. And, you know, people, right-wing populists present simple solutions, they present scapegoats, they show targets for prejudice, people who we can switch off empathy towards.

[00:31:53] So, yeah, in some ways, you know, these people do gain support quite easily because they present such simplistic solutions. And also, maybe those empathetic people that are now inhabiting the planet try and avoid talking about it. You know, they're empathetic towards people they know, but things that are just too abhorrent, that's not in their realm. And I am thinking very specifically of my son, who is very empathetic towards people he knows, and I might say something and he might say,

[00:32:23] oh, that's a bit out of line, Dad. But if I start talking to him about what's happening in the Middle East, it's really not in his headspace. And I wonder whether, you know, we're empathetic locally, but not globally. That's right. It can be quite painful to empathise, to empathise with people is to expose yourself to other people's suffering, which can be painful. It's painful to feel other people's suffering and to sense all of the problems in the world. So there is a tendency

[00:32:53] to want to switch off to that, to preserve yourself, you know, to shield yourself from psychological pain. And I think also empathic people are not really interested in positions of power. They often don't want to be leaders, which is a problem in itself. That's why we end up with people like Trump and this and the Iowa in power. Well, so what you're saying is the more empathetic we become, the easier it is for these people to run a rough shot over us. Well, maybe there is some truth to that. Yeah.

[00:33:23] I think, you know, there was a phrase by, I think it was by Yates where he said that the worst are filled with passionate intensity. The best lack all conviction. Yeah, that's right, the best lack all conviction. And that's true. If you are a non-empathic person, you're often filled with an intensity. You feel a drive for power. You feel a drive to dominate others. And you're not restrained by inhibitions of empathy and compassion. But if you... I was going to say, as well, I mean, it's interesting that we get to that point because it suggests that

[00:33:53] we have evolved as a species in a way. I mean, we were talking earlier about history, but, you know, back to the 18th century, but you go much further back and say, have we, you know, as we move from being cavemen struggling to live through all kinds of forms of civilisation, but actually as human beings we've evolved, we are evolving into kinder people and that that is going to continue and that this is part of our human evolution or is that too much? No, I believe that is the case. I think slowly

[00:34:22] and fitfully we are moving in that direction. If you compare human beings now to human beings 300 years ago, there's no doubt that we are much more empathic and compassionate than we used to be. And probably if you compare human beings now to 50 years ago, that's also the case. So this is definitely the direction we're heading in. Maybe it's part of our evolution. Maybe it's a natural progression through evolutionary reasons. And maybe it's, I mean, we started along this line, maybe it is the fact

[00:34:52] that you've got money now, you don't have to worry about things. So maybe people were, you know, slave trading because it was the only way they knew how to make money. Whereas in these days you maybe run a nice cafe chain, you know, because you're making enough money out of that. You don't have to do something which is quite so horrific. But in the olden days, maybe we were so fearful of money, you turned to more desperate measures and just blindsided what harm it could be causing other people. And fearful of other people too. I think a lot of this is

[00:35:21] a root fear of difference. Fear of people who might come and steal your house or your home or your neighbourhood or whatever it is. I think so. But on the other hand, as I said before, you know, you can go to poor countries where people are very kind and hospitable. So there isn't necessarily a correlation between empathy and affluence. On the other side of the equation, it's well known in psychology that rich people tend to be less compassionate and affluent, sorry, and empathic. Like the owners

[00:35:49] of expensive cars behave less altruistically on the road than other cars. Maybe that's how they got rich. Well, that's what you said. The rich and the rulers tend to be the least empathic people in our society, maybe. That's true, yeah. Those people tend to gravitate to wealth and power. Maybe they're compensating for a lack in themselves, they're compensating for a sense of separation or disconnection by trying to acquire wealth and power. Well, I can guarantee they're the people who turned off five minutes into this podcast and

[00:36:19] going, I'm no interest in what these guys are talking about. But evolution's going the right way, and that's a good note to end. I'm sure it is, yeah. And it will continue to. Great to talk, Steve. Thanks for your time today. All the best, thank you. So next week, where are we going next week, Roger? Well, I think we're looking at, and I've heard this in a lot of places, suggestions that it's a slightly strange situation in global economics because you've got, I mean, major problems. You've got the closure, the strikes of Hormuz, the energy price rocketing, the lack of

[00:36:48] supply of energy being a real issue. And you've also got great concern about where AI is going. And yet, and yet, Wall Street just keeps zooming up. Classic bubble coming of some kind. Could we be seeing a major economic crisis? Well, the AI thing is interesting, of course, because it is so energy intensive. There's not a lot of energy around. And then the other big fear is that we have demand destruction because we're spending so much on fuel, which is just only going to get higher, I think.

[00:37:18] They were spending more and more money on fuel. We've got less money to spend on anything else. So things like, you know, AI, if they're trying to attach a revenue model to it, might fall in the nice-to-have basket. And so, yeah, it's like a house of cards. Is it all going to come coming down? Well, yeah, Wall Street crash of some kind. I mean, I know people often think of this as coming, but it does really seem at the moment that things are aligned in a certain way. We had the deputy head of the Bank of England warning that a correction, as she called it, is around the corner. So,

[00:37:48] is it going to happen? Are a lot of people going to lose their shirts? Is it going to be a big problem? And are central banks going to expedite it by pushing up interest rates? That might help as well. Or not. We'll look at all of that next week on The Why? Curve. Join us for that. We'll see you then. The Y Curve.