Jeremy Rifkin: 'The Empathic Civilization'

"Empathy" became a political buzzword during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor: As a "wise Latina woman," was she too empathetic, selectively empathetic, or just-right empathetic? Perhaps time will tell, but in the meantime, says controversial social critic Jeremy Rifkin, empathy is our best and possibly only model for global survival in the early 21st century.

Rifkin, founder and president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and author of The Empathic Civilization, believes we sit on the cusp of a great experiment to date refashioning human consciousness so that humans can live and flourish in the new globalizing society and that the development of empathy is central to a future in which we think and behave like the whole world matters.

Presented by the Town Hall Center for Civic Life, with University Book Store.

Series supported by the Otto Haas Charitable Trust.