PENGUIN Zero Degrees of Empathy: A new theory of human cruelty and kindness

Really liked it very scientifically based wished he had talked more about normal people being mean but a whole chapter on that

Un livre fort utile ,bien clair ,même pour un "non professionnel" .Un livre clair et logique qui ne reprend pas le charabia ésotérique de la psychiatrie pour expliquer tout un concept de façon claire et utile .

Whatever Jesus may or may not have said about the importance of loving one another, Christians have nevertheless often resorted to violence down the ages. Martin Luther, for example, although a follower of a man who was born a Jew, lived as a Jew, and died a Jew, wrote a pamphlet entitled "Against the Jews" in which he called on his fellow Christians to burn synagogues and destroy Jewish homes. Four hundred years later, the young Adolf Hitler quoted Luther "to give his own Nazi racist views some respectability". The two Nazi scientists, pictured performing a cold water immersion experiment on an inmate of Dachau Concentration Camp, share at least one character trait with Luther: an absence of empathy. All three were educated and intelligent individuals who were nonetheless capable of disregarding the thoughts and feelings of other human beings, of treating them as objects, with tragic consequences. How could they do this?This one image, the first illustration in this engaging and important book, stands for the millions of instances of human cruelty that occurred in that war alone, to say nothing of what can be found in any newspaper on any day of the week. Simon Baron-Cohen's main goal is to understand human cruelty and to replace the unscientific term "evil" with the scientific term "empathy". He wants to move "the debate out of the realm of religion and into the realm of science", not because he is anti-religion (indeed, he regards Archbishop Desmond Tutu as a candidate for someone with super-empathy) but because "religion has been singularly anti-enquiry on the topic of the causes of evil".Baron-Cohen is not satisfied with the circularity of the concept of "evil", with tabloid explanations that would have us believe that the reason so-and-so did such-and-such an evil thing is because, well, so-and-so is evil. Instead, he makes a compelling case for the explanatory power of empathy, how it's distributed in the population, how any individual can experience ups and downs of empathy, how neurological damage can reduce or even eliminate empathy altogether, and how empathy can be acquired or encouraged, either through practice as an adult or, perhaps most importantly, by means of good parenting endowing each child with his or her very own "internal pot of gold".Don't be misled into thinking that this short book must be short on ideas. As with any work of popular science, we see only a fraction of the research that has gone before (much of which is cited in the notes and references). The "ten new ideas" summarized in chapter six give a feel for the scope of empathy as an explanatory tool. These concepts include the "empathy spectrum" and the idea that people at one end of this range have "zero degrees of empathy". Also important to this scientific account, but which may be hard to swallow for anyone used to thinking of evil in metaphysical terms, as some kind of stain on a non-physical soul, is the idea of an "empathy circuit" in the brain. The ventral part of the medial prefrontal cortex doesn't (I imagine) get taught much in Sunday school, and yet its role in thinking about other people's thoughts and feelings marks it out as a crucial region in the brain. The remarkable case of Phineas Gage shows what can happen when the vMPFC is damaged. Gage survived, but he was not the same: his empathy circuit went down."Treating other people as if they were just objects is one of the worst things you can do to another human being, to ignore their subjectivity, their thoughts and feelings." This is exactly how those Nazi scientists treated the subjects of their experiments (an ironic term, since the prisoners were reduced to mere objects), and it might strike some as strange for science - with its emphasis on objectivity - to have anything at all to say about human feeling. When Baron-Cohen begins listing brain regions and "genes for empathy" (with the usual caveat that genes only ever directly produce proteins), these same sceptics may well feel vindicated.As with all good science, however, the arguments are well supported with evidence and reasons. More broadly, I think this kind of work is an example of the science of human flourishing in action. In  The Moral Landscape  Sam Harris develops a powerful case for the importance of science in discriminating between moral values, widely thought to lie outside its scope. However, once we're dealing with facts about human well-being - including, say, facts about levels of empathy - then science not religion is the tool we need.For example, people with zero degrees of empathy divide into Zero-Positive and Zero-Negative. Both types have no awareness of how they come across to others and think only about their own interests. The important difference is that Zero-Positives (e.g. people with Asperger Syndrome), although they are insensitive to others, do not generally commit acts of cruelty, unlike Zero-Negatives (e.g. psychopaths). Such knowledge is vital in sentencing policy. Clearly, while incarcerating some Zero-Negatives who have committed a crime is justified, in a civilized, compassionate society we should be helping Zero-Positives "to find friendship, companionship and other forms of comfort, without jeopardizing anyone's safety".Simon Baron-Cohen makes a bold claim in this brilliant book, that empathy is one of the most valuable resources in the world. I'm persuaded by the arguments, and impressed by the humane motives driving the science. Those whose stories he tells are still people, however damaged they may be, and deserving of the best understanding we can manage. His belief that this is scientific will be controversial to some, but that's nothing new. For me, given that empathy is all about switching from a single- to a double- (or triple-?) minded focus of attention, I wonder if one reason why I enjoy the theatre so much is that it is such a good workout for my empathy circuit. Certainly, anything that helps put you in someone else's shoes is good for world peace! The Moral Landscape

Simon Baron Cohen is a psychology professor in Cambridge. He has been studying empathy for thirty years.He sets off by explaining “evil” and human cruelty which is pretty grim reading. Various scenarios are described and in particular experiments performed by medical staff in World War II concentration camps.He demonstrates that there is a bell-shaped curve for empathy and we all have greater or less amounts of it but there is a normal distribution. Men generally have slightly less than women. He describes the empathy mechanism down to neuronal detail and the different parts of the brain that appear stimulated when empathy is seen in experiments. There are a series of areas in different parts of the brain but a very important area is the amygdala. The dorsal medial pre-frontal cortex deals with identifying other’s thoughts and the ventral pre-frontal cortex our own thoughts and feelings.Reduced empathy or “empathy erosion” is when we cease to treat a person as a person and start treating them like an object.Without empathy we risk the breakdown of relationships and then become capable of hurting others and cause conflict.The case is made for zero degrees of empathy when negative can take the form of a variety of personality disorders such as Type B (borderline personalities), Type P (psychopathic personalities) and Type N (narcissistic personalities). He goes on to describe how the features of these demonstrate poor empathy. The description of the types certainly brings about recollection of various patients, especially Type B (could be described as I hate you / don’t leave me).He also describes how empathy can be eroded and this can be temporary (eg tired, drunk) or permanently reduced as in the personality disorders.However there are individuals who have low levels of empathy but this positive in that they appear not to have the ability to interact and understand people’s emotions but nevertheless show caring attitudes. These groups come under the autistic spectrum. He goes on to describe how such people can be very valuable to society.Also considered is whether there are hereditary aspects. Some evidence that prenatal testosterone and masculization of the brain in utero may lead to stronger systemization and weaker empathy.There are very useful appendices on how to spot zero degrees of empathy (negative) and also the Empathy Quotient questionnaire which you can do yourself. There is also a child one.The EQ scores normal for adult men: around 42 and women 47 (average range 33-52).0 – 32 is low. Most with Aspergers or high functioning autism score about 20.Psychopathic Personalities: Bowlby’s concept of parent giving the child an internal pot of gold.Michael Rutter – ability to bounce back and resilience are shown with people who show affection and intimacy.Gray – Behavioural Inhibition System (filtering system). Psychopaths have less anxiety about the consequences of their actions. They have problems thinking about consequences.Excessive stress can damage the hippocampus and cause over-activity in the amygala.James Blaire – Violence Inhibition Mechanism – Normally if people cry out you stop what you are doing. Psychopaths do not.Zero – Negative Empathy Type N (narcissistic) believe themselves to be entitled, self-centred but not aggressive. Believes themselves to be superior. If the person is no use to them they get rid of them.Zero-Positive Empathy:• Exact mind – processes information in a way that can lead to talent.• Brain – super-moral• Affective empathy may be in tact so can care for people.Empathy is essential in any conflict: work, home etc. It is free and cannot oppress anyone.There is an extensive list of references and detailed expansion of the psychological experiments in the appendix so that you could look up the original papers.A most fascinating book with insights into people with autism, personality disorders (I have a clearer view of borderline personality now) and my own levels of empathy. A definite must read for any healthcare professional who has contact with these groups of patients. It is also a definite must if you have ever wondered why you do not have as intense emotions towards others as you think you might.

Who would ever thought of 'positive' zero emphathy, if not sometimes we detected male and female might belong to different species!? This book gives those hard answers to us all.