Why We Care About The People Of Syria
Modern western cultures have shifted their focus from groups and classes to the individual and his or her personal right to pursue happiness. Each one of us feels that whatever is within the mantle of our skin is ‘self’, and whatever is outside is something else, something ‘out there’. In this vision of the world, you and I are two separate entities with very little connection between us.
This view of human nature raises a terrible question: is there anything inside us that makes us care about other people? The response of the international community against the Syrian government gives us a positive message: it seems that we do care. Never have there been as many humanitarian actions in the world as today. But if we are disconnected, separate individuals, derived from ‘the survival of the fittest’ why do we care about other people? Religion for thousands of years gave us an ultimate answer: because God tells us to do so. Here I will show how recent brain science proposes a different, more proximal, and I trust, more universal answer. Evolution has equipped our brains with ‘shared circuits’ that make us share what other individuals do and feel. These circuits exist because they help us learn from and collaborate with each other. But they have an important side effect: they make us care about others. They equip us with a conscience, that makes us feel that it would be horribly wrong to stay silent while thousands get butchered.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-empathic-brain/201108/why-we-care-about-the-people-syria
