My Questions and Comments on Lynn's Lecture
1. How did humans empathize and show compassion in pre-1800's, or did we simply not?
There are many ways that humans demonstrated empathy without the use of pen or paper: laws, word of mouth in tribes and cultures, unwritten rules, religious teachings, etc.
2. I think the speaker seemed a little classist. She mentioned that the lower class couldn't read novels because they were not accessible.
3. The Speaker also seemed to have Westro-centric /Euro-centric standpoint. She mentioned how popular novels were in Britain and in France. Is she implying that no other cultures would provide fictional fables to inspire empathy? Or that it is necessary to write tales down to insinuate that unwritten tales are not equally useful in bringing out human empathy?
4. Novels are not as common today. Today, we can have Google provide us with news flashes, and we use texting and emails. Everything is broken down for us now as time and life, along with innovation and human advances rapidly increase on a daily basis. Netflix catches more people's emotions and brings out more empathy than young adult novels do. Don't get me wrong, I am a crier at some young adult novels, but not everyone enjoys reading them, and some just avoid them altogether because "why read it when you can watch the movie?" People actively avoid reading (if they can) find a summed up version on Sparknotes or the movie on a streaming service.
Overall, I think that novels can bring out empathy in people, but I do not think it is the most common way to do so. Personally, I believe that people telling stories face to face, or watching the news brings out more human emotions than novels about characters that, even if we resonated with, may or may not be real people. (Depending on if the novel is fictional or based on true events.) I think people are more likely to become empathetic over real events happening around them because of something I learned in Philosophy of Human Rights last year. We discussed John Locke and how he believed that there are two priorities for humans in a "state of nature": first, self-preservation, and second, to save other people. In actual societies, humans are still mainly focused on their own self-preservation before they will care about other people, which makes them selfish. It also makes them often only care about issues that they have no choice but to confront. Moreover, if someone is reading a novel with fictional characters, I think they will feel less empathy than if they were reading the memoir of someone who lived through world war 2, or if they were listening to someone talk about their own real life experiences.