Dimensions
160 x 236 x 30mm
Humans are fundamentally social beings--and have evolved to be so. Remember that for most of our history as a species, a lone human could not survive outside the protection of the group. From the moment of birth, when our fingers instinctively cling to those of adults, our bodies and brains seek connection. Empathy is the bridge that allows us to connect with another. It is the currency of social life, the basis for language and every other type of communication we have.
Based on renowned child-psychologist Bruce Perry's groundbreaking research, BORN TO LOVE will explore exactly how important empathy is to children, adults, and human communities. It will also examine how many policies ostensibly aimed at protecting children end up reducing empathy. In the last fifty years, changes in technology, childrearing practices, education, and lifestyles have resulted in a dramatic reduction in the number and quality of "relational experiences" in which children can participate. Our children have been robbed of real human contact and deep relationships by everything from television, strollers, excessively structured free-time, computers, video games, and countless other aspects of modern life. In Perry's own work, he has seen that, increasingly, many children are less empathetic and less able to form lasting and meaningful connections with each other. This decline in empathy is cutting into the heart of our communities.
Using specific narratives of cases to tell this larger story, BORN TO LOVE will explore the nature of empathy, the conditions necessary for its normal development, the way American society and child-rearing practices are not optimizing these conditions or are actively encroaching on them, the effects this can have on civil society, and what we can do about it.
