LET THEM EAT DEATH
Yes, that’s a play, and a not-so-nice one, on Marie Antoinette’s famous, “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” (“Let them eat cake!”) comment when people were dying of starvation during the French Revolution. Substitute “COVID-19” for “starvation” and what you get is basically the title of this post.
I’ve long been fascinated by the difference between a “good” and a “bad” leader. After much research (and authoring), I have come to believe that it is the same difference between a “good” and a “bad” person, namely, who empathic, or at least capable of empathy, the person is. Empathy is something between an emotion and a feeling, having it’s own brain cells (“mirror neurons”) required to possess the trait.
We typically call a person or leader without empathy, a sociopath, as he or she is capable of doing anything, including murder, directly or indirectly, without feeling or remorse. It’s the polar opposite of the Native American saying, “Great Spirit, help me never to judge another until I have walked in his moccasins.” I’m often asked what I think our contemporary world lacks, and, in my opinion, it is more than anything else, empathy.
While I don’t speak directly of empathy in either TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2016) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese, or in the sequel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, I tried mightily to convey the idea through the actions, reactions and thoughts of my three brave protagonists, facing, like each new generation, an ever more complex and challenging world. That’s one reason I like to characterize THE EDGE OF MADNESS primarily as a relationship work. Empathy emerges from developing relationships and vice versa. Call it the “real” circle of life, if you will, but it’s, in the end, what all non-sociopaths live and eventually die for.
The Edge of Madness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je6CC...
I’ve long been fascinated by the difference between a “good” and a “bad” leader. After much research (and authoring), I have come to believe that it is the same difference between a “good” and a “bad” person, namely, who empathic, or at least capable of empathy, the person is. Empathy is something between an emotion and a feeling, having it’s own brain cells (“mirror neurons”) required to possess the trait.
We typically call a person or leader without empathy, a sociopath, as he or she is capable of doing anything, including murder, directly or indirectly, without feeling or remorse. It’s the polar opposite of the Native American saying, “Great Spirit, help me never to judge another until I have walked in his moccasins.” I’m often asked what I think our contemporary world lacks, and, in my opinion, it is more than anything else, empathy.
While I don’t speak directly of empathy in either TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2016) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese, or in the sequel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, I tried mightily to convey the idea through the actions, reactions and thoughts of my three brave protagonists, facing, like each new generation, an ever more complex and challenging world. That’s one reason I like to characterize THE EDGE OF MADNESS primarily as a relationship work. Empathy emerges from developing relationships and vice versa. Call it the “real” circle of life, if you will, but it’s, in the end, what all non-sociopaths live and eventually die for.
The Edge of Madness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je6CC...
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