The Early Show: "Horse whisperer" subject of award-winning film - First-time filmmaker Cindy Meehl tells the story of "Buck" Brannaman and his unorthodox method of gentling horses...
Brannaman recalled, "One thing I started off with was empathy for the horse, and then, as my understanding grew with the horses, then I started to learn how to help them. A lot of times, rather than helping people with horse problems, I'm helping horses with people problems."
Buck Brannaman, subject of the excellent documentary Buck, spends most of his year driving through the West, holding clinics on the gentling of out-of-control horses. An inspiration for The Horse Whisperer, Brannaman had been a rodeo performer from early childhood. Despite his successes, Buck's stage-managing father beat the boy and his brother so viciously that the county had to intervene.
The narrator of the film says, 'Two natural predators in empathy. How is it that these dogs and these bears have reached such a remarkable understanding?" A strange relationship between dogs and bears. Taken from the show "Jailed Polar Bear"
Kids are kind of inclined to connect with animals. We teach compassion, and we teach empathy. If you can empathize with an animal, you can empathize with people.
As the one-person education department, Nius, 33, is behind the SPCA's burgeoning list of in-house camps, school "show and tails" and publicity campaigns targeted at teaching children about animal welfare. Her agenda, however, is larger than that.
The Ethology of Emotions and Empathy, today. Ethology of Emotional Empathy goes even further and calls upon human beings to find a balance between soul and reason, a necessary agreement through which human beings can be really able to make changes in their life, especially in relational life, also improving a new radical awareness in the present.
In Ethology of Emotional Empathy all animals have equal opportunities and relational potentiality.
My interview with the noted primateologist and author of Age of Empathy, Frans de Waal. I asked. "How can we build a culture of empathy?"
I think it is important in society, especially at the moment. Now that we have come out of this period where greed was so good. I think it is important to emphasize that there are alternative ways of looking at society. A society where solidarity is important and caring about others is important.
The other things, that I'm not an expert on, is education and culture of course. A cultural and educational change that emphasizes empathy more. I would also warn that empathy is not invariably positive. People think that empathy is automatically a positive characteristic. Empathy can be used for bad purposes also.
Today classroom activities are not enough for children, they need to learn more. We need to teach kids more apart from mathematics and science. Children need to learn empathy to grow up into caring and responsible adults. Kids can learn empathy from animals; they often help kids to see the world from the animal’s point of view – that is, children will look at the world from the animal’s eyes.
Empathy can be thought to kids by organizing fun activities, which would include classroom activities like showing movies and making use of free programs like TeachKind from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).
The hypothesis behind this study is based on the observation that Vegetarians and Vegans tend to base their decision to avoid animal products on ethical grounds.
Assuming that Vegetarians and Vegans - because of their underlying moral philosophies - show greater empathy towards animal suffering, it is very well possible that these differences in empathy extend beyond the animal domain and show up as general differences in the degree of empathy felt towards other humans also; even at a neurological level.
YES YES YES VERY TRUE!!! That is exactly why I became vegan, I could NOT stand for the suffering/killing of animals, especially in the bio-industry.. makes me sick to my stomach.. I don't really understand how people who have pets and love them can eat meat.. ALL animals are pets and loved and mourned, even among animals themselves..
It may be the highest form of flattery, but imitation is among the lowest forms of empathy. But that doesn't make it meaningless. A new study has shown that orangutans imitate each other's facial expressions, the first evidence that empathy may exist in non-humans...
Overall the presence of emotional contagion in orangutans suggests empathy is deeply rooted in human nature, stretching back as far as 12 to 16 million years ago, when humans and orangutans shared a common evolutionary ancestor. Alex Dixon (img http://bit.ly/gcaHEw)
As Bekoff and a few other sensible scientists are arguing, nonhuman animals share with us the primary emotions of fear, anger, surprise, sadness, disgust, and joy, which are hardwired into the brain. Many would additionally argue, as does Bekoff, that they also share secondary emotions, notably empathy and compassion.
The evidence for emotions in nonhuman animals is overwhelming, as any dog or cat owner knows from firsthand experience.
It becomes clear that compassionate relationships with animals are integral to a more compassionate world.
There are two main steps we can take toward fostering these compassionate relationships. First, we must recognize that animals have active minds and deep feelings. Second, we must “mind” them as their caretakers in a human-dominated world, where their interests are continually trumped in deference to ours.
Ultimately, I believe compassion for animals will make for more compassion among people, weaving more empathy, respect, dignity, and love into all our lives. Animals and future generations of humans will surely thank us for our efforts.
This is true. From when I was a child and tamed a guard dog because my need for a friend was as fierce as his, until today, when my cat knows exactly when and where my pain is and jumps up the warm the pain away, I greet animals as equals and they respond in kind. We share love.
Let's raise awareness and hold a special day to help promote and teach Empathy and Compassion for all Animals! Stop the abuse, beatings, cruelty, fighting, neglect, suffering and torture of animals around the world. Share your personal comments, stories, photos or videos of feeling empathy and compassion for animals. Help generate ideas for how we can build a culture of empathy.
Abuse of animals, children, woman, minorities, as well as, conflicts, wars and genocide, etc. are all related and come from a deficit of empathy and compassion. Developing and promoting these values can heal the world.
In Michael Stone’s lecture on caring for the caregivers and burnout, he presents some unique perspectives that help deepen our interconnectedness with compassion and loving kindness.
His discussions on burnout and compassion fatigue relate directly to animal lovers. I see this happen regularly when animal lovers want to work with animals and help rescue them succumb quite quickly to emotional exhaustion and empathy fatigue.
f you’re in the know about horses, chances are good you already know a lot about Buck Brannaman, the celebrated trainer and equine expert famed for spreading the gospel of “natural horsemanship” — the process of communicating with horses through empathy and instinct, not threats and punishment — at the four-day clinics that occupy three-quarters of his time every yea
Today classroom activities are not enough for children, they need to learn more. We need to teach kids more apart from mathematics and science. Children need to learn empathy to grow up into caring and responsible adults. Kids can learn empathy from animals; they often help kids to see the world from the animal’s point of view â that is, children will look at the world from the animal’s eyes. Empathy can be thought to kids by organizing fun activities, which would include classroom activities like showing movies and making use of free programs like TeachKind from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Another way is to take children to animal shelters or sanctuary.
What do Christianity and animals have to do with each other? I get that question all the time. My response, "Where shall we begin? They have so much to do with each other!"..
In all of these cases, animals are included in the circle of God's compassion and care; according to the Biblical texts this is a God who saves humans and animals alike (Psalm 36). ...
Christianity, which not only focuses on justice for humans but also has a rich tradition of thoughtful eating, is no longer living up to its own calls for compassion.
Please do not be put off by what seems like a 'religious' post. No, it is more of a plea for compassion to a silent and seemingly indifferent Church. I can't believe that we do not have a teaching on compassion for the animals.
I hope one day that there will be a pope who will write an encyclical re compassion for animals. You might think -what's so important about that? Well, since there are over a billion Catholics in the world who look to the teaching majesterium of the Catholic Church for moral guidance, it follows that a compassionate teaching would have hopefully a great impact on how we view animals and our treatment of them.
Presently, to my knowledge, there is no official teaching (encyclical) re compassion for animals. I am told to look in the Catholic Catechism for the pitifully small reference to them.
Today classroom activities are not enough for children, they need to learn more. We need to teach kids more apart from mathematics and science. Children need to learn empathy to grow up into caring and responsible adults.
Kids can learn empathy from animals; they often help kids to see the world from the animals point of view that is, children will look at the world from the animals eyes. Empathy can be thought to kids by organizing fun activities, which would include classroom activities like showing movies and making use of free programs like TeachKind from PETA .
Animals are a great influence on kids, teaching them empathy and compassion. Learn more about the positive effects pets have on kids.
Pets and children share a deep bond, one that teaches children empathy, compassion and respect. ..
Legacy of Empathy - That legacy includes the lifelong skill of empathy – feeling the feelings of others, knowing when someone is uncomfortable, caring enough to change your behavior so that the other person becomes more comfortable.
We’ve all seen it: the joy on a child’s face reflecting the happiness of a pet who is being fed or patted or played with. This simple arithmetic (my caring + your need = happiness) seems like the simplest thing in the world.
It turns out, though, that what we’re seeing is something far more important than we realize– compassion is experiential, the product of life learning.
Both the good and bad in our species come from our primate background, says primatologist Frans de Waal, author of The Age of Empathy.
Richard Dawkins has declared that humans are “nicer than is good for our selfish genes.” Emory University primatologist Frans de Waal argues against this popular picture of evolution as a Hobbesian wilderness of selfishly competing individuals, where life is “nasty, brutish, and short.” De Waal focuses his research on the social behavior of primates, studying questions of culture, altruism, morality, and empathy.
It is hard to imagine that empathy—a characteristic so basic to the human species that it emerges early in life, and is accompanied by strong physiological reactions - came into existence only when our lineage split off from that of the apes.
It must be far older than that. Examples of empathy in other animals would suggest a long evolutionary history to this capacity in humans. Frans de Waal
Marc Bekoff explains how many different animal species show grief, friendship, gratitude, wonder, and a range of other emotions...
Many animals also display wide-ranging emotions, including joy, happiness, empathy, compassion, grief, and even resentment and embarrassment.
It’s not surprising that animals—especially, but not only, mammals—share many emotions with us because we also share brain structures, located in the limbic system, that are the seat of our emotions. In many ways, human emotions are the gifts of our animal ancestors.
Animal abuse, animal neglect and in-depth discussions of where food comes from were all portions of a lecture at Wells...
“It’s about empathy; humans have it when they look into the eyes of a person and an animal. The workers in these farms aren’t looking at the animals’ faces and in their eyes; they’re looking at their bodies, and pieces of meat,” Baur said.....
On Baur’s claim that farm workers lack empathy for farm animals: “I think that there is a misconception in that 99 percent of the farms in New York state are family-owned; they are families that care about the animals and the food they produce.
"Chimpanzees can be very empathetic, loving but they also have this darker side. They have war, they kill each other, they beat their females. Bonobos don't really have any of that," explains Woods. "They're different because they've managed to live in a society virtually without violence. How do they do that?
Humans, for all of our intelligence and all our technology, we haven't managed to live without war, and so I think that's something very important that bonobos can teach us."
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