Interviews at Tikkun Magazine and Network for Spiritual Progressives

  Peter Gabel on Building a Culture of Empathy in the Justice and Legal System
    (Incorporating approaches like Restorative Justice, etc.)
    Video on Vimeo or Youtube

• Peter Gabel Introduction: from offices of Tikkun Magazine

  • Associate Editor Tikkun Magazine

  • Law  Professor at

    • University Minnesota

    • UC Berkeley

    • New College

    • Public Interest Law School SF

  • Organizer for Project for Integrating Spirituality, Law and Politics

    • for lawyers, law professors and law students

    • for connecting the longing for empathy and understanding with law and social activism

    • fuse the inner and the outer

    • bring that perspective into the legal culture

  • Empathy is inherently present in law and legal culture because law has a relationship to justice

    • feeling for justice is a present need for all people

    • 2:00 - legal arena - empathic awareness is present

    • other hand - current legal culture was born 1600+ based on individualism and materialism

  • social connection, empathy, compassion, understanding

  • 3:00 The legal model in many ways sees people as distinct, they may lie, must be maximally distrustful

    • goal of an empathic world - legal world is what defines what is binding on us.

    • the socially binding part

    • need to find ways of bringing into the existing legal system the connection part (empathy)

  • 4:00 - the adversary system  - the process of law is people are at war with each other

    • the structure of trials assumes everyone may be lying

    • law school you learn to aggrandize yourself and discredit the other

    • fosters the  gladiator combat which is the opposite of empathy

  • 6:00 - there's so much mistrust build into the system

    • one side against the other with the judge serving as the umpire.

    • Constitution - protects the individual rights was a great accomplishment

      • but nothing about how we connect with each other, empathy

      • only focus on protecting the individual

  • 8:20: Other laws, contracts, torts, etc

    • sees individuals as socially separate actors

    • maximize profits

    • corporations - nothing about empathy

    • about self interest

    • law of contracts

    • no law about concerns for the other - empathy and compassion

    • the very structure of the law is geared toward competition and not toward empathy

  • 11:00 a crime is not a tearing of the communal fabric but the state versus the defendant

    • the defendant is surrounded by bundle of rights that protects them from abuse

    • system is not for taking responsibility and fostering healing and forgiveness

  • 13:30 Project for Integrating Spirituality, Law and Politics

    • Our group is interested in creating new forms of law and legal culture

    • that go beyond the liberal model

    • need a new step that connects people to each other

    • that fosters empathy, concern, understanding

    • creating new processes, new training

  • 14:30 the process is creating a new empathic foundation?

  • Four main goals our group has are;

    • 1. Support the Restorative Justice Movement

      • restorative circles

    • 2. Transformative Mediation

      • understanding based mediation

    • 3. New forms of Law Practice - Lawyers as 'Spiritual Guides'

    • 4. Education

  • 1. Support the Restorative Justice Movement

    • crime as a harm to the community as a whole

    • foster the taking of responsibility

    • apologies

    • forgiveness

    • reintegration into society

    • healing of society

    • may address larger problems

    • Examples:

      • 16:15 Ronny Earl in Austin TX example with small scale crime

        • group process

      • South Africa - truth and reconciliation example

  • 2. Transformative Mediation  (20:00)

  • 3. New forms of Law Practice - Lawyers as 'Spiritual Guides'

    • lawyers have a permanent relationship with the clients

    • heart based connection with clients

    • Georgia project as example

    • coming into contact with justice system is connecting with you as a human being

    • engaging the public space and law is a chance for personal growth

  •  4. Education - changing legal education (23:00)

    • changing legal education

    • law students lose touch with their values of caring

    • legal reasoning: fast talking and cleverness is valued

    • legal mind is cut off from the heart, empathy, compassion, care, love

    • lawyers have a glazed eye way of being

    • people don't like lawyers because they don't act like human beings

    • 26:00 - change education to introduce empathy, caring, cooperation

  • 28:00 - can't have a little empathy class on the side. it needs to be the core of the curriculum

    • need to understand existing law as it is and

    • and how to practice in a way that can bring about a new society

  • 29:00 Have empathy training, how does it work, how to connect people. Build the curriculum on that.

    • We all need empathy training because we live in an alienated world

    • Tikkun means to repair and heal the world

    • It's imagining how to connect your empathy with your work as a lawyer

    • there's always the cooperative aspect

    • peoples aspiration to cooperate versus just self interest

    • looking for the empathy in every case and bring that out.

    • need to learn the rule of separation  and how to foster greater empathy, compassion, connection

    • society is cooperative - it doesn't work unless everyone is working together.

    • the cooperative element

  • 32:00 How's that effort progressing? A Culture of Empathy?

    • it's a dawning transformation of consciousness that takes a long time

    • it took thousands of years to get to a Constitution, where we are  not bound to the king

      • a great achievement

    • now going to a new form of human connection that values longing for love,

    • that's going to take a long time

  • 34:20 Other ways to create a Culture of Empathy?

    • Stay with the law

    • imagine how powerful it would be if every city, in the law centers, if empathic efforts were taking place?

    • OJ Simpson trial, for example - if social healing would be there

    • it would change the culture

    • build new forms of legal culture in these centers and the media

    • that's how law could and will contribute to this.

  • 37:30 Other ways to create a Culture of Empathy?

    • overcome the alienation in every sphere of life that separates

    • Network of Spiritual Progressives, Tikkun fosters new ways of social activism

    • connect spirituality and politics, Empathy is a spiritual aspect of reality

    • Empathy is invisible, a way of experiencing the other

      • that is as important as any material change

      • material aspect is essential and not to be minimized

    • empathy and caring is also essential to politics

  • 39:30 I went to Democratic and GOP conventions to talk about empathy?

    • with the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor it shows what a challenge it is

    • when you introduce connection to each other, business, courts, parties

    • the fear of the isolated individual of being controlled and manipulated by others comes to the surface

    • Obama saying he wants a Supreme Court judge with empathy created a firestorm

      • it's argued that Empathy can mean anything

      • they will be imposing their view on the individual

      • there is no objective empathy

    • the key to overcome that fear is that we are unique but also the same

      • we have the same longing,

      • are the source of each other's completion

      • we can't do it without each other.

      • empathy and compassion are essential forr justice

    • Justice Scalia wants nothing to do with what he calls subjective factors in law

      • we're all detached individuals and only rules are objective

      • same with Senator Jeff Session who lead challenge to empathy

      • the paranoid and understandable view

      • they say it's empathy for one side and not the other?

      • the notion of scarce resources

      • at it's core is a paranoid and fearful model of human relations

  • 45:00 Empathy for one side or the other? a fear they will not receive empathy?

    • it assumes that if empathy is brought into this area the individual will be harmed in some way.

    • if empathy is excluded, then it's everyone for themselves and everything you can get for yourself you can keep

    • the fears are legitimate, some could be advantaged

      • but there's no morality in that

  • 47:00 If the conservative has a fear of not being empathized with, a way to deal with it is to actually speak to that fear, acknowledging it?

    • some people out of fear hold themselves back and build a wall around themselves, emotional wall, financial wall,  and out of fear of the other, exist in this isolated state.

    • social change activists need to move forward with care, respect, and not manifest bitterness, rage

    • We need to become militant empathy advocates,

  • 49:00 There's a real fear that you can be manipulated and abused

    • if you're open you are more in danger of being hurt

    • don't deny it.

    • but there's the need, the longing for even the most walled in person to get out and to be see by the other,

  • 50:00 How to deal with empathy in the current structure?

    • need a militant empathy

    • changing this system toward empathy

    • what's going for us is that we all want it.

    • we're taping into something that is within all of us.

    • the fearful person would come out if they felt safe

    • a new activism - all change has to have that spiritually sensitivity

    • not touchy feely, but firm, militant - compassionate

  • 53:20 What does militant mean?

    • It means you're not a wimp!

    • you stand up and insist this is the right direction to go.

    • When you talk about spiritual needs, people think this is just psychobabble

      • fantasies, it's not the real life

    • spiritual people are not seen as being willing to engage in moral struggle, encounter

    • strength confidence, determination has to be part of this.

    • we can move this way, we will move this way

    • let's take care of one another

    • let foster a cooperative economy

    • doesn't mean you're rage full, hateful, sanctimonious - that's go to go.

  • 55:20 How about focusing on the empathy and being open about what the policies and strategies are?

    • (working toward a culture of empathy and being open about how to get there)

    • a good idea about not being rigidly set on one fixed policy

    • whatever will foster the sense of connection is more important that the fixed outcome

    • up to a point - for example illness - we need healthcare - can't compromise on that

    • it's basic to what we mean by empathy that we care for one another and act from a place of caring.

    • no one is expendable, I assume your not saying to give up on that too?

  • 57:00 It's that we want a culture of empathy and how we get to that culture is left open.

    • if someone is suffering like that, we are obviously not empathizing with them

    • we have to keep working until their needs are incorporated into our world view or policies.

    • That's worth trying.

    • maybe Obama relies too much on the process and not enough on the underlying values?

    • perhaps a stronger stand is needed to have his supporters feel they are fighting for a particular vision of the world. It can't be mushy.

    • in terms of the exact details of any policy or proposal I agree with you.

  • 58:30 Oscar Grant Shooting - and the peace and justice communities

    • an example of where there should be a process where the police officer should be able to fully feel he can convey what he thought he was doing.

    • an incredible tragedy

    • shouldn't be this situation

    • need a process to create connection

    • how to heal suffering,

    • we haven't yet created this healing structure

    • how do we transcend this situation

    • processes that can foster empathy between 2 communities

  • 1:02:00 We have a lot to talk about.

    • Justice and Obama?

    • Why has Obama backed off of empathy

    • Why have progressives not supported him more strongly on empathy?

  • This is a new discourse that we are trying to bring forward.

   

  Michael Lerner on Building a Culture of Empathy
   Video on Vimeo or Youtube

• 0:00 Michael Lerner Introduction: from offices of Tikkun Magazine

  • Editor Tikkun Magazine

  • Chair Network Of Spiritual Progressives (NSP)

• What's your Life Story of learning about empathy?

  • Started with a consciousness of the Holocaust and destruction of my people

  • why do some people care about others and other people can kill?

  • I'm not in anything alone

  • I had empathy for people there.

  • Own experience of being a minority

  • Could empathize with African Americans

  • From early age had empathy for those who had been suffering or oppressed.

  • 2:40 From there it took a long time to have empathy for those who were oppressors

  • took considerable education to come to see that people acting in horrible ways are also people in pain

  • the hardest step

  • Started in my late 20's and been working on it since

  • been trying to  get progressives to see that those who don't side with us, as fellow human beings

• You started empathizing with their pain?

  • The question I struggled with since I was 11 is how could Germans hate/murder others

  • there were 2 cultural explanations

    • 1. Germans are evil

      • idea didn't fit with Judaism - people couldn't be born evil

      • Grandfather had great respect for Germany in 1920

    • 2.  Somehow Evil had descended on Germany

  • 6:00 - got into psychology to understand evil

  • Studied time of Nazi

    • Wilhelm Reich and sexual suppression

      • didn't make sense

    • Herbert Marcuse

  • Why is this still the case?

    • got Phd. in Psychology

    • did 10 yr. study of American society

    • National Institute of Mental Health

    • What made Americans embrace Conservativism?

  • The left said

    • Americans are stupid, sexist, homophobic, etc

    • 11:40 My studies showed it was because the Right spoke to a hunger for meaning

      • for a more caring society

      • people are terrified the way family and friendship was falling apart

      • the depravation of love and caring.

    • For the left-- it's the economy stupid

      • Their interest is broader

      • left still doesn't get that

    • 13:50 since found that everyone has that need

    • doesn't mean they don't have needs for material, sexual, food, etc

    • equally significant is love and meaning

    • the capitalist world view denies that

    • capitalism says look out for number one

• The overall system is suppressing the need for care and love?

  • also suppressing  people's natural empathy for each other

  • it makes people feel bizarre if they let their empathic part out

  • 15:10 people talk about all the lights going out, disasters as being great moments

  • why? because at that moment they felt it was legitimate to care for strangers

  • the hunger for empathy is normally suppressed

  • it is seen as shameful to be seen as caring and empathic

  • it can happen in a large crisis, or rooting for the team

  • 17:20  the social order suppresses empathy

    • in places where it's legitimated.

      • family

    • building places where love is allowed

• 19:00 How do your values of caring, generosity, wonder, awe etc relate to empathy?

  • empathy is central

  • we are all in it together

  • we are all brothers and sisters

  • The torah starts talking about making humans in gods image

  • holy, sacred

  • The story of Adam and Eve

  • the concept of same family

  • core is our unity

  • legitimates our empathy, they are the same as us

• 20:30  When did the word empathy start become important to you.

  • caring, generosity, forgiveness wonder, awe are aspects of empathy

  • feeling the others pain

  • if it doesn't manifest if it's not in behavior

  • how to create a space for these

  • Created Network of Spiritual Progressives and Tikkun magazine

  • bring empathy to center of public life

  • for homeland security, personal security - develop empathy, caring

• 24:40  How to build a Culture of Empathy?

  • great to try to build a culture of empathy

  • part of doing that is to articulate a politics of empathy

  • doing that with Network of Spiritual Progressives and Tikkun magazine

  • create a new bottom line - every organization and personal behavior

    • so it maximizes love, caring, empathy

    • that is efficiency

    • support us

    • this is a new bottom line

• 27:30 How about not focusing on policies but rather empathy with conservatives?

  • not focused on conservatives

  • speak to those who are heart committed

  • legitimating it

  • a struggle that goes on between people

  • right hand of god: you have to dominate - worldview of fear, domination

  • left hand of god: world is based on love, caring, generosity

  • a continuum between these poles

  • where's the social energy?

• 32:00 If you want to create an empathic society one thing you need is to help support people to go for the empathic and loving voice

  • individual work

  • and social reality

  • creating communal institutions

  • creating a political movement

    • for example - Network for spiritual covenant

    • schools should have a course each year

      • mentoring

      • developing empathy

      • not in the abstract

• 34:45  What is the process of creating an empathy movement? there's infighting even in a empathy group.

  • we are all screwed up people

  • we've all been subject to this distorted world that didn't give us the love and recognition we needed

  • every group is going to have screwed up dynamics

  • don't project perfection on people

  • wounded healers is all that we have

  • we are going to screw up

  • step number one is have empathy for our screw-ups

  • there's going to be people acting out,

  • that's all we have on the planet, but they all have a desire to transcend that

  • each group has it's own dynamics

  • need a great deal of practical wisdom

• 38:40 How has your journey been of organizing and the problems and successes with empathy?

  • screw-up after screw-up after screw-up

  • some successes

  • was helpful in being a psychologist

  • the more loving I became the better the groups I led became

  • I'm proud to have the NSP that is holding together

  • proud of my synagogue

  • it's important to start out with the power

    • used to start out with ultra democracy

    • everyone's opinion is valuable

    • not everyone knows what to do

    • our anti authoritarianism has a deep problem in it

  • large power differences vr. small power differences

  • or demean leaders

  • violence in struggle is a bad idea

  • need acknowledgment that people are at different moral, spiritual, development

  • groups set up that see that

  • 43:00  experience is useful

• 43:30 Story of republican state convention?

  • converting fear to the empathy

  • we have to empathize with others and love ourselves into a loving society

  • can't dominate our way into a loving others

• 45:50 What about NVC and reflective listening?

  • I'm all for it

  • it's an important process

  • the difference I had with some practitioners is those processes can be used in a mechanistic way

  • like anything else

  • words can be turned to their opposites

  • in 60's and 70's people beat each other up for not being loving or caring enough

  • what we want to do is empathize with them

  • any set of words can be turned into a dogma

  • some say I want to empathize with that one and that one..

  • well that's a part but need to help people understand the world will need collective action

  • I want to be empathic toward the war maker but not toward the wars

    • want to fight against the wars, against the policies

  • this hasn't been developed enough in the NVC community

• 50:30  A metaphor of empathy?

  • an explosion of deep joy into the world

  • empathy undermines the sense of being alone

  • the world is full of human beings who reflect us

  • an explosion -

• 52:44 A metaphor for the opposite of empathy?

  • closing down, the clenched fist, the cave with a big rock in front

  • build of a home with no doors and windows

  • closed off from others and sad

  • very sad

• 53:40 Anything else?

  • please join us

    • Tikkun.org

    • Network Spiritual Progressives

    • my synagogue

  • remove the blocks to empathy, love, generosity