| Time |
Speaker |
Text |
| 00:00:00 |
|
Opening Title |
| 00:00:22 |
Len |
Mohammed's Story
Medical Student from Gaza
Working for healing, peace and dialogue
Went to Israel and met other teenagers |
|
Story |
I was at hospital with a Blood clot
Received a flower bouquet from Elias
Knew I mattered to them
It came from the heart |
|
Habibi? |
It's a me culture
Everyone tries to see how far they can advance themselves
It's a self-centered society |
|
Music |
|
|
Len |
Introductions
- Introducing Edwin - Working on Empathy
- put on film
- this is 215th meeting of dialogue group
- How do we or do not experience empathy?
- Where it's easy, hard, etc.?
- Is empathy important?
|
| 00:06:30 |
Elias |
Let's Light a
special candle for VP Joe Bidden trying to move the peace process forward
A light to reach THE middle east
A moment of silence |
|
Libby |
What would lit
look like if all people responded to empathy? |
|
Len |
Remember times
in our life experiencing empathy? |
|
Libby |
What does it
actually mean? |
|
|
- To feel what someone else feels - joy, pain,
problem
- walk
- not born with learn
- examples, Dali Lama, Tutu
- Martin Buber said Jesus is my brother
|
|
|
Do people have
to suffer first?
As social worker I experienced it. |
|
|
Be willing to feel
the suffering, it's not a head thing |
|
|
Listener to also
feel in themselves |
|
|
Move somehow -
action forward |
|
00:14:30 |
|
Mandela had years
of suffering.
Transform suffering to good instead of hatred |
|
Elias |
Empathy toward each
other in this group
- dialogue helped
- be able to speak other persons language
- to be that person - needs to be two way
- mind and heart involved
|
| 00:18:00 |
|
Story NY Times
- Palestinian kills Palestinian thinking he is Israeli |
|
Libby |
Person killed by
accident |
| 00:19:40 |
Len |
My mother - I
could not gather empathy
- she and father divorced - I picked her to
blame
- I went to college
- had conflicts with mother - didn't
understand
- started to learn about stories - started
thinking about her
- Father may not have been a good listener
- the adult, the more powerful, parent,
to start understanding her
- was a great coming together
- a growing up and it un-weighed me.
- we had a relationship and it changed
everything
- a personal experience
|
| 00:23:45 |
Libby |
What's the
difference between empathy and sympathy? |
| 00:24:00 |
|
Feeling sympathetic
for somebody
More of a pity
Empathy is getting inside them |
| 00:24:45 |
|
I'm more of
a skeptic
- here in America people empathize, sympathize
with Israel over Palestinians
- I've been called bad names
- they don't know both sides
- people here are polite but don't understand
- it's a difficult life in Gaza
- check points, humiliations, etc
- unless they have gone through that they
don't know
- that's what empathy really is, going out of
your way to see their life
- instead of cheep talk
|
|
Len |
Do you seek
empathy or give empathy more of the time? |
| 00:28:25 |
|
I'm not one to
seek empathy,
- I try to resolve things myself but
something's ask for help
- I try to give empathy
- Haiti - Palestine
- Black suffering - give program for Haiti but
not for Gaza
- Frustration - caring about Haiti but not
Palestine
|
| 00:32:00 |
Elias |
Ignorance has to do
with it. |
| |
|
It's identifying
with only people you can identify with - race |
| |
Elias |
Need to tell your
story - it's education
The media - I see your frustration
Media is biased
It brings up one side more than the other
That's not part of empathy |
| 00:34:30 |
Ellen |
I think of Haiti
differently - it's been neglected for a long time
Don't use skin color
Israel sent help to Haiti but not to neighbors - Gaza |
| 00:36:00 |
|
I went to New
Orleans and volunteered for a month and a half
Little was done to help the local people in USA |
| |
Len |
We're talking about
short term and long term empathy
How do we experience empathy?
each of us |
| |
Libby |
I agree with Elias
- need to get to know people
it raises empathy
growing up I heard the Russians were bad people
going there I learned how they really feel
I feel empathy for them now.
I never met a Palestinian - now I feel passionate about them
Education, the story
That's the work we have is telling the story |
| 00:40:15 |
|
You are not a
cynic, you're a realist
The world does not work on empathy
Our government doesn't work on empathy
Everyone wants to sell us something
How to overcome that - education is the way
NY Times says - the disaster of education |
| |
Len |
What is True? |
| |
|
The propaganda is
for Israel
Almost nothing positive about the terrible plight of Gaza
There are Israelis who try to help
There are very few people who have courage to defy what seems to be popular |
| 00:43:00 |
|
I have a weird
twist
I've always been aligned with the underdog
Jews and fear of annihilation
I try to understand the Jewish side |
| 00:44:37 |
Judy |
Empathy is critical
to ending conflict
We can make a decision to be empathetic
Giving up resentments and hurts
I grew up empathetic - to the point of my detriment
Every creature is deserving of attention and safety
Haiti gets little attention |
| 00:47:15 |
|
Why did Obama
announce all the help to Haiti?
So refuges don't come to USA
Proves my point that the world does not operate on empathy
Americans are philanthropic |
| 00:49:00 |
Len |
Story of neighbor -
conflict - and being better at empathy
Gave them a Basket of Fruit as gift - he had been a great nurturing person
The act of empathy did a lot of good. |
| 00:55:44 |
|
Sometimes an act of
kindness before your feel it can lead to the feeling |
| |
|
A great story of
empathy
A Stanford Student went to Africa and she was murdered
Parents went there and gave forgiveness to murderer
The forgiveness was the greatest story - that's empathy
A documentary was made about it.
Isn't that empathy? |
| 00:58:20 |
Len |
Mohammed - you lived in Gaza and you have such
a great spirit
What have you gone through to get that way |
| |
Mohammed |
Empathy is the most communication skill
**
Giving people the feeling of security
They can share their feelings
People can talk freely and solve any problem
Most empathy experience - Iliad - Israeli soldier - said he killed
Palestinian people
People fight so that the other will listen to them
I have the option to talk or to go back and fight
For me empathy is a productive discussion |
| 01:04:00 |
|
Empathy needs more knowledge
Can a blind person understand a racial problem if they can't see color?
More education
In general certain people fit into my framework, and can have empathy for
them.
Maybe I need to dissolve the frameworks? |
| 01:06:00 |
|
People are operating rationally in some
system |
| 01:06:45 |
|
It's about stories
Story about neighbors in Oakland
The mother has an illness
Try's to connect with them. |
| |
|
Take the chance and take food over, it's a
metaphor
Push yourself a bit more and you learn |
| 01:12:18 |
Denise |
Stories are about unexpected behavior
Act kindly.
Do the unexpected toward kindness. |
| 01:15:00 |
Elias |
Empathy as a reaction, to sympathy, to empathy |
| 01:15:50 |
Len |
If we have an enemy and give dignity or giving
sympathy or empathy heals.
The power of the oppressed is to give dignity to the oppressor
Could be the power of the week |
| |
Libby |
Be empathetic all the time
And caring about everybody all the time
Neighbor spraying poison in the garden story.
Challenge about being more thoughtful |
| |
|
Empathy - we are human beings
Every person is a valued human being |
| 20:40:00 |
|
People have isolated themselves - suburbs
Don't spend time with different people
I'm part of a music community and around a wide variety of people/races
Allows for more empathy |
| |
|
I never saw color until I came to this country
Here I saw black and white because the way society saw them |
| 01:23:00 |
Len |
We had a Fresno Dialogue |
| |
|
Had tough time with neighbor upstairs - can't
imagine kindness yet
It's hard when the rubber hits the road |
| |
|
Give him the movie grumpy old
men |
| |
Len |
New insight - felt the vulnerability
The enemy when they are vulnerable |
| |
|
People do select because there
is so much grief |
| 01:26:50 |
Eric |
Empathy is taught by parents of school or
teacher
Close to justice - to be compelled to act justly - fairly
A wonderful thing when parents can teach compassion |
| 01:28:50 |
|
If someone falls |
| |
|
Story of studying abroad in Russia
Saw a woman laying in the street
Heart did not go out to her.
Mental idea -
I have to stop.
I didn't empathize but had to stop, felt guilty if I didn't stop
It was an ideal to stop. Intellect vr feeling |
| 01:32:30 |
Libby |
When you have empathy you are conscious but not
stuck
Sympathy - you feel sorry |
| 01:33:50 |
Len |
You are so sympathetic it was
hard to |
| |
Judy |
As social worker it was a bit paralyzing
I was taking on the emotions of other people
Grew up in a home where I didn't have models of how to deal with peoples
hurts
I have compassion for all people in conflict |
| 01:36:45 |
Eric |
We live in a crazy world - it's not sane
Israel's or Palestinians are not acting in their own best interest
If you want empathy we can do it on an individual basis
But can't expect the world to sign on |
| |
Elias |
You're saying the world in not empathetic
and we have to take it to the individual basis |
| 01:40:00 |
Len |
Sympathy and empathy - if your too sympathetic
- you can't make good decisions
It's not helping - discern the difference is important |
| |
Denise |
Survival mode - the primitive mode of the brain
- don't have capacity for empathy
When happy and safe it's easier to empathize |
| 01:43:00 |
Libby |
Communities with very little and share what they
have
we feel we have a lot to lose
it's both and
they take care of each other - we are always look out for |
| 01:43:30 |
Habibi? |
I was talking with Edwin
The American Society is selfish - every person as individual, me, me, me
People in poor society can be more open, compassion, and empathy |
| 01:46:00 |
Len |
Go Around the circle - One of two memories
about empathy |
| |
Elias |
We are all equal - then empathy comes naturally
Separate us from the animals |
| |
|
Tells a war story - In
Vietnam when in battle the soldiers felt the same - but when they got back
the
differences of race, class, etc, emerge. |
|
Sergi |
try to work at killing with kindness |
| |
Denise |
Like having the word to focus around
Tend to feel helpless when I feel empathy - try to go beyond that |
| |
|
This group has changed the way I
listen to people |
| |
|
Come away with the stories - they are real
The kindness
Right balance of sympathy and empathy |
|
|
I'm moved by what Mohammed said - empathy is a
productive discussion
empathy and justice |
| |
Libby |
Having empathy is a choice
it does make a difference |
| |
Mohammed |
I'm a believer in empathy |
| |
|
I said enough |
| |
Eric |
Glad to have privilege to spend
2 hours in an island of sanity |
| |
Hildegard |
When we empathize with someone
we may think back to this group |
| |
Fanny |
I was very touched with your mother
relationship story |
| |
|
Mohammed made me think about the power of
listening
The feelings of someone wanting to listen to you
Len's mother story was very personal - shifting frames |
| |
Len |
About the unexpected - has great power |
| 01:57:15 |
Edwin |
Q: You came here to film on empathy, what's it
been like for you here?
it's the process and the exploration
this should happen all around the country doing the exploration
together
it's an ongoing personal growth and creating a Culture of Empathy
Q: Anything new come out?
Following the spontaneous - don't know how do it reliably
Been exploring this theme for about a year so many of the topics
I've heard before,
For example the question of empathy vrs sympathy.
People need to know the differences
Q: How did you get into this?
I like exploring topics thematically. What got me into empathy was
that Obama talking about it.
Q: What's the power of film?
It's way of spreading those stories
I'll be going to the Republican GOP Convention to listen to the
conservative point of view on empathy.
Can carry a dialogue through film between different sides.
Film can be an extension of dialogue.
Q: What's goal with film?
Ideal is a 12 hour Definitive piece on empathy.
Trying to get a ball rolling, step by step
Q: In this group listening to stories is transforming?
I feel it as you speak.
Thanks for interviewing me,
I'm always behind the camera, good to be in front of it. |
| 02:06:00 |
|
End |
