Sam Richards' lengthy talk about empathy was driven by his experiences as a sociologist. A few factual points I learned from this TED talk were that sociology is, "... the study of the way people are shaped by things that they don't see.", in the words of Richards. Being a sociologist begins and mainly consists of putting oneself into another's shoes. Through his heart-touching examples of Arab Muslims in Iraq, I learned a few hard-fact items about the war the US is currently engaged in; for example the main reason so many countries are invested in other poor countries are not solely because of justice and freedom, but the issue of resources. Richards explained that the Arabs in Iraq have a reason to be angry because they know this fact and have realized that, "... someone else has a design for your resources..." for the advancement of their own well being. This has given me a new insight on how to view other people without prejudice.
A few techniques Richards used successfully in his TED talk were powerful pictures that allowed the audience to empathize easily, an enthusiastic and passionate voice, as well as an active body that emphasized points rather than took away from the listening audience. His visual affects were especially intriguing because they had a clear purpose to the interactive exercise he led the audience through. This is one aspect I enjoyed that would possibly make my future TED talk more enjoyable and would have engaged the audience into better understanding in the last TED talk I reviewed by Sir Ken Robinson.
Richards' serious but passionate tone was perfect for the point he was trying to get across, but was not as engaging, personally, as Sir Ken Robinson's humorous speech. Mr. Richards' style was much less of a laid back, story-telling piece with a profound connection, it was more of a persuasive and informative format in which much of it was examples, but not even enough connection. This is one quality that lacked and lost my interest toward the end. His experiment was partially the main point of the talk, but took up too much of the time to get the point across. I would have liked to have seen more explanation on why empathy is such a big part of sociology and why this matters and how it connects to anything and everything.
The main idea here, what matters, is that society needs to think more in fresh perspectives to understand the world around them. Sam Richards said empathy is the key to being a sociologist, but he unfortunately did not realize that empathy can be connected to so much more. Personally, I can use empathy in the way he taught it to be used; as means of understanding where other people are coming from with their own emotions. However, used on broader terms such as education and the rest of the world it can mean exactly that, or lead to something otherwise unrelated. The novel A Whole New Mind includes empathy as a key factor in succeeding in the future of creativity. The practice of empathy can be interpreted as the ability to think abstractly most likely by using the creative part of the brain. Therefore, empathy should be taught in education in order to enhance student interaction as well as creativity for the future. This, in turn, can teach the world the empathize in an emotional and mental way. All of these factors bring up the question, if people learn to empathize, will the world be a more peaceful place?
A few techniques Richards used successfully in his TED talk were powerful pictures that allowed the audience to empathize easily, an enthusiastic and passionate voice, as well as an active body that emphasized points rather than took away from the listening audience. His visual affects were especially intriguing because they had a clear purpose to the interactive exercise he led the audience through. This is one aspect I enjoyed that would possibly make my future TED talk more enjoyable and would have engaged the audience into better understanding in the last TED talk I reviewed by Sir Ken Robinson.
Richards' serious but passionate tone was perfect for the point he was trying to get across, but was not as engaging, personally, as Sir Ken Robinson's humorous speech. Mr. Richards' style was much less of a laid back, story-telling piece with a profound connection, it was more of a persuasive and informative format in which much of it was examples, but not even enough connection. This is one quality that lacked and lost my interest toward the end. His experiment was partially the main point of the talk, but took up too much of the time to get the point across. I would have liked to have seen more explanation on why empathy is such a big part of sociology and why this matters and how it connects to anything and everything.
The main idea here, what matters, is that society needs to think more in fresh perspectives to understand the world around them. Sam Richards said empathy is the key to being a sociologist, but he unfortunately did not realize that empathy can be connected to so much more. Personally, I can use empathy in the way he taught it to be used; as means of understanding where other people are coming from with their own emotions. However, used on broader terms such as education and the rest of the world it can mean exactly that, or lead to something otherwise unrelated. The novel A Whole New Mind includes empathy as a key factor in succeeding in the future of creativity. The practice of empathy can be interpreted as the ability to think abstractly most likely by using the creative part of the brain. Therefore, empathy should be taught in education in order to enhance student interaction as well as creativity for the future. This, in turn, can teach the world the empathize in an emotional and mental way. All of these factors bring up the question, if people learn to empathize, will the world be a more peaceful place?
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