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Cultivating Empathy: The Worth and Dignity of Every Person -- Without Exception
In this personal and emotionally honest exploration of conflict, the Reverend Nathan C. Walker introduces a creative and compassionate way to develop empathetic responses. He introduces the concept of the moral imagination--a vital character trait used by those who have the courage to project themselves into a conflict and understand all the perspectives, aware that understanding need not imply agreement.
"Cultivating Empathy" presents a collection of essays about the author's wrestlings with personal and cultural conflicts and his commitment to stop "otherizing"--which occurs when we either demonize people or romanticize them. Walker's remedy for these kinds of projections is to employ the moral imagination as an everyday spiritual practice. He shows that through this approach, we can save ourselves from irresponsibly using our imaginations by cultivating genuine empathy for those we previously held in contempt. We can visualize ourselves playing various characters within a conflict and choose not to play a lead role in the drama. Throughout the book he endeavors to find connection with skinheads, murderers, homophobic preachers, privileged 1 percenters, and Monsanto executives.
An online companion workbook will help readers to hone these skills through a variety of exercises.
"Cultivating Empathy" presents a collection of essays about the author's wrestlings with personal and cultural conflicts and his commitment to stop "otherizing"--which occurs when we either demonize people or romanticize them. Walker's remedy for these kinds of projections is to employ the moral imagination as an everyday spiritual practice. He shows that through this approach, we can save ourselves from irresponsibly using our imaginations by cultivating genuine empathy for those we previously held in contempt. We can visualize ourselves playing various characters within a conflict and choose not to play a lead role in the drama. Throughout the book he endeavors to find connection with skinheads, murderers, homophobic preachers, privileged 1 percenters, and Monsanto executives.
An online companion workbook will help readers to hone these skills through a variety of exercises.
- GenresSpiritualityReligion
128 pages, Paperback
Published May 31, 2016
About the author
Nathan C. Walker
7 books8 followersDr. Nathan C. Walker is a First Amendment and human rights educator. He is president of 1791 Delegates, a public charity named after the year the Bill of Rights was ratified.
Nate has published five books, including The First Amendment and State Bans on Teachers’ Religious Garb (Routledge 2019), which Kirkus Reviews called “a thorough, magisterial account of a timely and historically important legal debate.”
In November 2016, Publishers Weekly listed Nate’s Cultivating Empathy (Skinner House Press 2016) as one of the top “six books for a post-election spiritual detox.”
In endorsing his book Exorcising Preaching, the Rev. Meg Riley says that “Nate Walker is boldly creative—a visionary, on-the-edge kind of thinker.”
Nate coedited with Michael D. Waggoner of The Oxford Handbook on Religion and American Education (Oxford University Press 2018).
He coedited with Edwin J. Greenlee the book, Whose God Rules? (Palgrave Macmillan 2011), which Cornel West called “provocative and pioneering.”
He coauthored with Lyal S. Sunga the policy report, Promoting and Protecting the Universal Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief through Law (IDLO 2017), which was presented at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Nate was formerly a resident fellow in law and religion at Harvard University and received his doctorate in First Amendment law from Columbia University, where he received his Masters of Arts and Masters of Education degrees.
He received his Masters of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary and is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, currently serving as the community minister for religion and public life at the Church of the Larger Fellowship.
He lives with his husband Vikram Paralkar in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Nate has published five books, including The First Amendment and State Bans on Teachers’ Religious Garb (Routledge 2019), which Kirkus Reviews called “a thorough, magisterial account of a timely and historically important legal debate.”
In November 2016, Publishers Weekly listed Nate’s Cultivating Empathy (Skinner House Press 2016) as one of the top “six books for a post-election spiritual detox.”
In endorsing his book Exorcising Preaching, the Rev. Meg Riley says that “Nate Walker is boldly creative—a visionary, on-the-edge kind of thinker.”
Nate coedited with Michael D. Waggoner of The Oxford Handbook on Religion and American Education (Oxford University Press 2018).
He coedited with Edwin J. Greenlee the book, Whose God Rules? (Palgrave Macmillan 2011), which Cornel West called “provocative and pioneering.”
He coauthored with Lyal S. Sunga the policy report, Promoting and Protecting the Universal Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief through Law (IDLO 2017), which was presented at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Nate was formerly a resident fellow in law and religion at Harvard University and received his doctorate in First Amendment law from Columbia University, where he received his Masters of Arts and Masters of Education degrees.
He received his Masters of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary and is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, currently serving as the community minister for religion and public life at the Church of the Larger Fellowship.
He lives with his husband Vikram Paralkar in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 11, 2016
I finished this book, sitting in a hospital bed, weeping wt the news from Orlando, Florida. Feeling powerless to DO anything. And when I finished this powerful book, I had something more I COULD do, more than send Love out into world. I could practice the deep and difficult empathy Nate Walker writes about. If you are longing to move beyond thoughts and prayers, start here.
January 5, 2022
I really wanted to like this book. It was clear that the author, Rev. Nate Walker, has spent a long time trying to grapple with the problem of justice and empathy: how do we approach those who we see as the enemy? After reading the book cover-to-cover, I did not feel that the book presented a satisfactory conclusion. Even worse is that the conclusion the book reaches is one that goes well beyond seeing the humanity in those we disagree with—it opens the door to injustice and oppression, which is the exact opposite of what the author (who describes himself as a liberal) likely desires.
Against what he describes as "liberal fundamentalism," a term which he does not meaningfully define but seems to be more about disagreement with liberals who he sees as sufficiently intolerant, the author concludes with a series of dangerous false equivalences: he describes a deficit of "moral imagination" and "dehumanization" in his and others' interactions with an entitled rich white woman who stole his partner's seat at an event, the Rwandan genocide and South African apartheid, the use of Agent Orange on Vietnamese civilians, the AIDS epidemic, murderers, skinheads, a homophobic preacher, and Monsanto executives. Some of these are very clearly not like the others, and it should go without saying that his anger at the entitlement of a rich woman who took his seat is not comparable to, nor related to, the hatred that led to the slaughter of the genocide of Tutsi people in Rwanda.
Near the end of his book, he describes his interactions with a skinhead band that wanted to use his Unitarian Universalist church as a venue to perform. Anti-racist groups, Unitarian Universalists across the country, and concerned residents understandably reacted in outrage. His response is to simply… talk to the skinhead band, which agrees to cancel the event at the church but extremely notably does NOT disavow its hatred of others, which it chalks up to wanting to more or less 'trigger the libs' with its racist and homophobic lyrics. Nathan then claims he was better in his tactic of speaking to the skinhead band over the "liberal fundamentalist" tactics of the anti-racist groups who wanted the band deplatformed. He then further implies that the dehumanization of the skinhead band that no one had actually spoken to is an example of how those claiming to defend the oppressed can become the oppressor. Nathan's solution when speaking to the skinhead band was to ask the skinhead band to donate all the proceeds of their concert to anti-racist organizations and marriage equality groups, but the skinhead band refuses because it would affect their 'edgy' image and ultimately chooses to cancel the event instead because it appreciated how Nathan did not "make them out to be monsters." I find it amusing that Nathan takes so much pride in "not making out the skinhead band members to be monsters" and then claiming a sense of moral superiority when he ultimately… didn't actually do anything good? The skinheads canceled the event rather than give their proceeds to anti-racist and anti-homophobia groups that would tarnish their image; it's not as though Nathan changed their minds. And where is this same commitment to empathy for the people of color, other LGBTQ people (Nathan is gay), immigrants, Jews, and others in his church for whom this skinhead band is actively promoting hatred against?
Furthermore, there is minimal recognition of the ways in which structures and institutions actually operate in society, nor is there any real commitment to justice beyond a milquetoast 'we should all get along' approach. His desire to respectfully engage with Monsanto executives at the end of his book reads more like a pro-Monsanto PR piece than an attempt at radical empathy, as he writes that he and his congregation learned that these Monsanto executives have lofty aims of ending food insecurity while also acknowledging that the corporation has done terrible things in the past. Yet there is no recognition that Monsanto as a corporation is NOT motivated to end food insecurity (its sole purpose is to create profit), nor did these Monsanto executives show any desire to right the wrongs they made in the past or alter their corporation's behavior so that it stops committing atrocities.
My final verdict: I do not recommend this book. Nathan is concerned about a "liberal fundamentalism" of anger at injustice, but ultimately his rejection of this anger breeds something worse: an excusal of those who perpetrate injustice.
Against what he describes as "liberal fundamentalism," a term which he does not meaningfully define but seems to be more about disagreement with liberals who he sees as sufficiently intolerant, the author concludes with a series of dangerous false equivalences: he describes a deficit of "moral imagination" and "dehumanization" in his and others' interactions with an entitled rich white woman who stole his partner's seat at an event, the Rwandan genocide and South African apartheid, the use of Agent Orange on Vietnamese civilians, the AIDS epidemic, murderers, skinheads, a homophobic preacher, and Monsanto executives. Some of these are very clearly not like the others, and it should go without saying that his anger at the entitlement of a rich woman who took his seat is not comparable to, nor related to, the hatred that led to the slaughter of the genocide of Tutsi people in Rwanda.
Near the end of his book, he describes his interactions with a skinhead band that wanted to use his Unitarian Universalist church as a venue to perform. Anti-racist groups, Unitarian Universalists across the country, and concerned residents understandably reacted in outrage. His response is to simply… talk to the skinhead band, which agrees to cancel the event at the church but extremely notably does NOT disavow its hatred of others, which it chalks up to wanting to more or less 'trigger the libs' with its racist and homophobic lyrics. Nathan then claims he was better in his tactic of speaking to the skinhead band over the "liberal fundamentalist" tactics of the anti-racist groups who wanted the band deplatformed. He then further implies that the dehumanization of the skinhead band that no one had actually spoken to is an example of how those claiming to defend the oppressed can become the oppressor. Nathan's solution when speaking to the skinhead band was to ask the skinhead band to donate all the proceeds of their concert to anti-racist organizations and marriage equality groups, but the skinhead band refuses because it would affect their 'edgy' image and ultimately chooses to cancel the event instead because it appreciated how Nathan did not "make them out to be monsters." I find it amusing that Nathan takes so much pride in "not making out the skinhead band members to be monsters" and then claiming a sense of moral superiority when he ultimately… didn't actually do anything good? The skinheads canceled the event rather than give their proceeds to anti-racist and anti-homophobia groups that would tarnish their image; it's not as though Nathan changed their minds. And where is this same commitment to empathy for the people of color, other LGBTQ people (Nathan is gay), immigrants, Jews, and others in his church for whom this skinhead band is actively promoting hatred against?
Furthermore, there is minimal recognition of the ways in which structures and institutions actually operate in society, nor is there any real commitment to justice beyond a milquetoast 'we should all get along' approach. His desire to respectfully engage with Monsanto executives at the end of his book reads more like a pro-Monsanto PR piece than an attempt at radical empathy, as he writes that he and his congregation learned that these Monsanto executives have lofty aims of ending food insecurity while also acknowledging that the corporation has done terrible things in the past. Yet there is no recognition that Monsanto as a corporation is NOT motivated to end food insecurity (its sole purpose is to create profit), nor did these Monsanto executives show any desire to right the wrongs they made in the past or alter their corporation's behavior so that it stops committing atrocities.
My final verdict: I do not recommend this book. Nathan is concerned about a "liberal fundamentalism" of anger at injustice, but ultimately his rejection of this anger breeds something worse: an excusal of those who perpetrate injustice.
October 1, 2020
I really was looking forward to reading this book - I think empathy is such an interesting and important spiritual value, and I was looking forward to some deep thinking about what it means and how we live it. Instead, I got a short series of self-congratulatory anecdotes.
The author seemed to put a premium on having a nice conversation with someone you disagree with, which felt to me like a pretty shallow definition of empathy. For example, when a skinhead ban was booked to perform at his church, he felt it was important to have a conversation with the band about their views and lyrics. But while he can try to see things from their perspective, he never once reflects on how the people of color in his congregation might have felt having their sacred space entered by people who deny their full humanity. He acts like people in the community who got angry at the booking were the problem, rather than trying to balance the band's humanity with the harm they're causing.
What frustrated me most was that I agree with his point that we shouldn't dehumanize people we disagree with. But I'd argue that he doesn't engage with why that can be challenging; instead, he flattens it to "if you're feeling angry, you become the oppressor." I think that's bullshit, and I was hoping for something that went into any depth at all about the tension between empathy and justice.
The author seemed to put a premium on having a nice conversation with someone you disagree with, which felt to me like a pretty shallow definition of empathy. For example, when a skinhead ban was booked to perform at his church, he felt it was important to have a conversation with the band about their views and lyrics. But while he can try to see things from their perspective, he never once reflects on how the people of color in his congregation might have felt having their sacred space entered by people who deny their full humanity. He acts like people in the community who got angry at the booking were the problem, rather than trying to balance the band's humanity with the harm they're causing.
What frustrated me most was that I agree with his point that we shouldn't dehumanize people we disagree with. But I'd argue that he doesn't engage with why that can be challenging; instead, he flattens it to "if you're feeling angry, you become the oppressor." I think that's bullshit, and I was hoping for something that went into any depth at all about the tension between empathy and justice.
January 22, 2020
I just couldn't get into this book.
September 29, 2016
This book describes what I aspire to be able to do. As a 60's teenager I am very aware of the damage done by our angry confrontations. I firmly believe that is a major part of what we are living with today.
Somehow if we are going to truly change the world we have to learn to talk and listen to each other.
While Nathan Silver definitely acknowledges times when he does not live up to his ideals and gives outcomes where nothing obvious is accomplished except people did talk, he is an inspiration to me as to what I aspire to and how I truly believe we can change the world.
Somehow if we are going to truly change the world we have to learn to talk and listen to each other.
While Nathan Silver definitely acknowledges times when he does not live up to his ideals and gives outcomes where nothing obvious is accomplished except people did talk, he is an inspiration to me as to what I aspire to and how I truly believe we can change the world.
May 24, 2017
This book is written in response to the Unitarian Universalist first principle, "The inherent worth and dignity of every person...." The author, a UU minister and director for the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute in Washington, examines various aspects of this principle in the best way possible...by telling stories. Many of the stories will resonate with readers--incidents in which people were not treated with dignity; stories when people who did not "deserve" good treatment received more than that. Each incident is thought provoking and well chosen.
September 16, 2016
This was centering and honest. I am grateful to him for writing it.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews