Empathy and Evil

Simon Baron-Cohen in the Guardian talking about empathy. It's basically an ad for the book it only mentions at the end, 'Zero Degrees of Empathy: a New Theory of Human Cruelty by Simon Baron-Cohen'. It makes me very uncomfortable for sideways skittery reasons.

He suggests that 'evil' should be relabelled: "let's substitute the term "evil" with the term "empathy erosion".

He does this from his suggestion that nobody tries to understand evil they just use it as a word for inexplicable (not remotely true, come to think), and to lead up to his idea of fixing all evil by more empathy (I rather thought there was a lot of that suggestion around. only they call it compassion or charity or loving kindness, which come to think again is significantly different.)

I think this suggestion is a problem because of the way language works. You can't swap out one word for another once and for all, you just link the two together and make them interchangeable. So if he's saying that 'evil' is just another way of saying 'no empathy', he's unfortunately also making the connection 'no empathy' is 'evil'.
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I don't know. *big shrug* I think I wandered off from what the article's point was. He was writing about how people can treat other people as things. Use them, kill them. Turn them into literal things, objects. He reckons it's a lack of empathy. Empathy as defined by...? Something like accurately understanding the feelings of others, knowing they have the same interior life you do, can feel grief and fear and pain. I think he's saying if you don't understand other people have their own feelings then the bad things happen. But I don't see how that's true. You can understand the other guy is just like you - hell, in science fiction they can be you - and there's still a million reasons to screw them over. You can understand that everyone feels grief and fear and pain, but some people just decide today will be someone else's turn. I don't see how his argue is useful.

BBC audios

I listened today to The Jade Pyramid and The Deadly Download.

Matt Smith is not the best audio book reader. I think he could do with reading more stories aloud. Possibly to demanding audiences that will tell him to read that bit again if they don't get it. It's not that he can't do the voices, whatever accent he attempts seems to fall off in the middle of sentences but that's okay, not everyone can do voices. It's not speaking the grammar very well that made it feel sort of muddy. Sentences didn't end very much before the next began. Mushy mixy sentences.

Or I'm grumpy and picky about readings.

I liked the actual adventure though. Medieval Japan makes a nice change in venue. And there's scary things and fightings and fast talking and figuring things out with science. And Amy was clever.

... I miss David Tennant doing the reading. He's done lots of audio and he can do lots of voices and he reads it out real clear. I may get out that bit of the collection later. I've got a window open to his website to find what other audio things he's done. I keep thinking it's possible I should try listening things that aren't Doctor Who at all. I hear that's popular.


I like the Sarah Jane Adventures one. Clear reading and a plot with lots of running around and an everyday object being scary but not too plausibly scary. Covers the basics.


... I have caught up with Big Finish Audios to the point where I have to wait each month for them to make new ones. I think I miss them. I'm re-listening to some but it's not quite the same.
Maybe I should buy like Gallifrey and stuff, the not-monthly ones.
Once I've finished my stack of BBC audios. I tend to buy things on the ooh shiny principle and also because once I've started A Collection then not buying things leads to gaps.
But I like long full cast adventures rather a lot better than the reading out sort.