Looking at Bryan Fuller's adaptation of Thomas Harris Hanniball saga, we find a show that uses the outsize psychopathy of its villain as a way to examine the pains and struggles of empathy: humanity as a type of insanity, and vice versa.
John N. Gray's review in The Guardian described the theme of Rifkin's argument as "a struggle between the polar forces of empathy and entropy" and that "as civilisation has extended the reach of empathy beyond the family and the tribe... the expanding infrastructure of industry and transport has needed ever larger inputs of energy, increasing entropy and wrecking the planet".
One of the chapters of the book is titled "The Struggle," and offers founders a level of empathy that is almost too real (this was part of a post he wrote on TechCrunch in 2012).
His blitheness and seeming lack of empathy for those struggling to get through an ordeal were plainly on council members' minds.
Mr Obama himself is increasingly, if unfairly, described as over-analytical and short of empathy with ordinary Americans struggling to cope with the economic downturn.
According to Rifkin, the progress of civilization has been a constant struggle between empathy -- increased human connection -- and entropy, the deterioration of the health of the planet.
I really do have a sense of empathy for my students and their struggles".
If we doctors can recognize that impulse in ourselves, it will give us a dose of empathy for our patients, who are struggling with the same challenges when it comes to changing behavior.
Because I am also a successful, capable person with, I think, heightened levels of empathy that come from my own struggles, accepting that I have a predisposition to being anxious has helped me get better.
That doesn't mean they shouldn't be mentors, but they need to "have a certain degree of empathy and know what a protégée is struggling with," she said.
