Immediately, Mr. deBotton captured my attention by bringing up empathy. His theory about the evolution of empathy throughout human history fascinated me to no end.
Unfortunately his insight, unlike many other Ted Talks, artfully coaxed out the dusty, underused, sarcastic/cynical side of me.
(Do you see what I did there? Sigh...)
Although I sensed a lot more not-so-hidden jabs at capitalism than references to tragedy in this particular Ted Talk, deBotton's point that humans had become less empathetic through history directly attributed to the declining in number and popularity of the literature style of Tragedy. I was also struck by how tenderly the speaker referenced failure. He referenced it like one would reference a graceful turn in a ballet. He gave the thing importance, which I think may be the goal of most writers in tragedy. He approached it as an untouchable, beautiful similarity between humans. A universal truth.
Tragedy teaches us how we fail.
Tragedy teaches us how we fail.
Unfortunately his insight, unlike many other Ted Talks, artfully coaxed out the dusty, underused, sarcastic/cynical side of me.
(Do you see what I did there? Sigh...)
Although I sensed a lot more not-so-hidden jabs at capitalism than references to tragedy in this particular Ted Talk, deBotton's point that humans had become less empathetic through history directly attributed to the declining in number and popularity of the literature style of Tragedy. I was also struck by how tenderly the speaker referenced failure. He referenced it like one would reference a graceful turn in a ballet. He gave the thing importance, which I think may be the goal of most writers in tragedy. He approached it as an untouchable, beautiful similarity between humans. A universal truth.
Tragedy teaches us how we fail.
Tragedy teaches us how we fail.