The host of iTunes top rated “New & Noteworthy” podcast, The Science of Success with Matt Bodnar, interviewed me for an episode called “The Surprising Power of Compassion.” Matt’s questions guided us through a discussion about how compassion can fuel creativity, build emotional resilience and help us achieve personal and professional goals. We took a ‘mindwalk’ with great thinkers ranging from Jean Jacques Rousseau to Charles Munger on compassion’s role in achieving success in the boardroom, classroom and living room.
The episode can be listened to at the following link:
http://redorbit.podbean.com/e/the-surprising-power-of-compassion-with-dr-chris-kukk/
Compassion, Neuroscience and Society: A Radio Interview in 4 SegmentsThe host of WS Radio’s The Enrichment Hour, Mike Schwager, interviewed me on January 28, 2016 for a show called “Weaving Compassion and Neuroscience into the Fabric of Society to Make a Better Future.” We talked about a wide range of topics and issues including education, neuroscience, self-improvement, counter-intelligence, Charles Darwin and my work with the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement on social-emotional learning. The interview is split into four 15-minute segments. Click here to listen to the interview.
Note: Scroll down when on this page to find the 4 segments of the complete interview.
Do you see gorillas? There are gorillas in the midst of the refugee crisis but all some American politicians can see is fear (see recent statements and proclamations from numerous presidential candidates, governors and mayors). When there is a focus on fear, politicians and their followers create a blindspot where facts and even dancing gorillas go unnoticed.
In a famous study known as the “invisible gorilla” experiment, psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons demonstrated that when most people fix their attention on something they are told they are supposed to see, they tend to overlook anything outside their scope of focus. Chabris and Simons asked their study participants to watch a fast-paced video of people passing a basketball and count how many times specific players within that group received the ball (click here for the 2 minute video). The problem was that at least half the observers didn’t see the person dressed in a gorilla suit dance a jig in the middle of the video; their focused or selective attention on counting caused inattentional blindness. Most people see only what they want to see or are looking for. When our politics are focused on fear, our policies are filled with blindspots where facts are overlooked. Inattentional blindness is running rampant in America’s corridors of political power.
We have a gorilla problem in American politics, especially when it comes to refugees and immigrants. There are at least four factual gorillas in the refugee/immigrant issue that some of our current and ‘wannabe’ political representatives just simply do not see because of their focus on fear.
The Sprouting Gorilla. Nearly all the terrorists responsible for the Paris attacks sprouted from within France or the European Union. The argument by some American politicians that we need to “halt” and “ban” Syrian refugees because of what happened in Paris is neither logical nor based in fact. As Francois Hollande, the French president, said in a speech before the joint session of parliament following the Paris attacks: “it was Frenchmen who killed other Frenchmen.” The November 13th terrorists were homegrown and that fact seems to be lost on Governor Christie and others who would ban even Syrian “orphans under fiver [years old]” from seeking refuge in the United States. Shouldn’t we be concerned about why and how ISIS can recruit people from some of our neighborhoods rather than with refugees, who happen to be mostly women and children, hoping to be our neighbors?
The Screening Gorilla. Refugees already go through between 18 months and two years of an intense screening process (including interviews and biometric data) by intelligence agencies. It takes some refugees much longer than two years to clear the process so the argument of making it even stricter is surreal when you combine the sprouting gorilla idea of why this is akin to climbing up the wrong tree with the reality of the extensiveness of the process. While we screen, many seeking asylum in western countries don’t make it through … alive. The image of 3 year-old Aylan Kurdi’s lifeless body washing ashore in September generated a wave of civic compassion throughout the western world. Approximately half of the 4 million Syrian refugees are children. Too many politicians running for our country’s highest office and running our states’ executive branches, however, seem to be running in fear from families needing our help (I am fortunate to live in a state where the governor has followed a compassionate path on this issue). Politicians ride fear to build their own careers but statesmen redirect fear into building a stronger, united world. Do we want more statesmen or politicians?
The Reversing Gorilla. The front-runner in the Republican presidential campaign, Donald Trump, has called for a “big & beautiful wall” across America’s southern border to stem the influx of Mexican immigrants. It appears that Mr. Trump’s fear of immigrants has blinded him to the gorilla of reverse migration. As recently reported by both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, “More immigrants from Mexico are leaving the United States than coming into the country…All told, the number of undocumented Mexicans in the U.S. has dropped by more than one million since 2007.” Immigration reversal is a fact but we still have leading political candidates such as Mr. Trump calling for constructing a wall to stop immigrants from coming into the United States. If we follow Mr. Trump’s blind lead on building a “big & beautiful wall,” wouldn’t we be building it to keep immigrants in the country? We all know what happens to walls throughout history anyway: they fall (Berlin Wall, The Great Wall, etc…). In contrast, there’s a statue from France overlooking New York that is doing pretty well standing the test of time. Our politicians might want to focus on her for a little inspiration on the topic of immigration; some might even be inspired to become statesmen.
The Repeating Gorilla. This is Yogi’s gorilla: “It’s like déjà vu, all over again.” We seem to be repeating the same mistakes with ethnic groups all over again. The United States turned away Jewish refugees on the eve of World War II and we are considering doing something similar with today’s refugees? The recent call for creating a special I.D. for Muslims (Mr. Trump) and the Mayor of Roanoke’s not so subtle recommendation for modeling America’s World War II internment camps bring back to life our national embarrassment of how we treated fellow Americans of Japanese descent. We can’t let our fears blind us to literally and figuratively walking into the same mistakes we made in the past. We need to learn from fear rather than continually learning to fear.
When politicians make decisions and policies out of fear, the results are usually outside the realm of logic. Under current law, for example, if someone is on America’s no-fly list, they cannot board a plane but they can still buy a gun. Because of their fear, some political leaders can’t see the gorillas of fact because they apparently can only see guerillas of terror everywhere (even in five-year old refugee orphans) except in their blindspot; and homegrown terrorists are very thankful. Maybe, just maybe, when more of our politicians start seeing gorillas, our world will have less … guerillas.
Words sometimes help people see and pictures sometimes speak messages everyone can understand. Words do matter and pictures can speak. There was one picture this past week that spoke to the hearts of people everywhere and made me see words that were hidden in plain sight. The image was of Aylan Kurdi’s lifeless body being carried by a Turkish policeman. The words I finally saw (words that I had looked at since I was 7) make 
up the Latin motto of my state’s (Connecticut) Great Seal or coat of arms: Qui Transtulit Sustinet. I didn’t know what they meant before this past Labor Day weekend but, for some reason, the image of Aylan made me notice them more and pushed me to discover their meaning: He Who Transplanted Sustains.
The dream of Aylan’s father (Abdullah) was to transplant his family from a worn torn country into a place of peace where he could sustain and nurture his family. Aylan, as the world now knows, didn’t make it through the journey. Abdullah’s dream became every father’s worst nightmare. We can only imagine what it was like to be the Turkish policeman carrying Aylan Kurdi’s limp body in the photo that has appeared in almost every social and traditional media outlet in the world. You don’t have to be a father to feel Abdullah’s pain of loss when he not only had to identify Aylan in the morgue but his wife (Rehan) and older son’s (Galip) bodies too. The wave of refugees from conflicts in Africa and Middle East (especially the Syrian conflict) into Europe has had a severe undertow of suffering for years but Aylan’s death, captured in a single image, made it impossible for people to ignore any longer. A wave of empathy has finally met the wave of refugees (over 2,500 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea this year alone).
It takes more than empathy, however, to make a difference in the lives of refugees and immigrants throughout the world; it takes compassion. It appears that the image o
f Aylan’s little legs and shoes dangling from the arms of a Turkish policeman has ignited citizen compassion where there has only been political callousness in many of the world’s capitals. While most developed countries have been trying to keep back the waves of refugees attempting to enter their borders by walls of ignorance (strict border patrols and immigration policies with few exceptions), the citizens of European countries have decided enough is enough and have transformed their empathy into compassion.
Examples of citizen compassion have been reported from Hungary to Austria to Germany to England. National Public Radio (NPR) reported how Hungarian citizens were lining up along the road where the refugees from the Budapest train station were walking 110 miles to the Austrian border and providing food and clothing. We’ve all heard the empathetic saying of “Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.” Well, one Hungarian woman, according to the NPR report, went one compassionate step further and took off her sneakers and gave them to a refugee woman wearing flip-flops. While British citizens have taken to social media with pictures of themselves holding #welcomerefugees signs, Austrian and German citizens have been lining up with their cars along their respective borders waiting to drive refugees into their countries. We should all be riding the wave of citizen compassion. It appears that European governments are now following their compassionate citizens with the announcements of new and more humane immigration policies over the last few days.
Mahatma Ghandi said “Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior.” We should all live by our words. If we did, a handshake would still mean everything in the world to more than just a few of us. Trust, which builds strong societies, would gather strength. People would feel at home no matter where they are in the world. We all would know what Qui Transtulit Sustinet means.
Some nations are beginning to build paths into their countries for fellow human beings where all can walk no matter what type, make or size of shoes being worn. When you meet a refugee or immigrant from another country, are you a shoe giver, taker, thrower or ignorer? My hope is that you and I always have the compassion to answer in Hungarian. There is, however, at least one pair of little shoes no one can ignore.
Will the real Atticus Finch
please stand up? He stood up on July 11, 1960 when Harper Lee published To Kill a Mockingbird and he has not sat back down since, even with the publication this month of Go Set a Watchman. Many book reviewers of Go Set a Watchman have echoed the thought that “This is a story of the toppling of idols; its major theme is disillusion” because Jean Louise’s Atticus is the darkness to the light of Scout’s Atticus. However, because Go Set a Watchman was the first draft of Mockingbird, the Atticus of Watchman came before the Atticus of Mockingbird. This is important because the context of the two novels is what makes me fill with hope and keeps my idol on a pedestal even as he becomes more human; the context reminds me of the saying that darkness is not the opposite of light but simply the absence of light. The callous bigotry (the dark) of Jean Louise’s Atticus was simply missing the compassionate understanding (the light) that flowed from Harper Lee’s pen into Scout’s Atticus. Atticus represents, in raw form, how compassion can evolve.
While compassion is certainly about kindness, it is also about anger and callousness. Compassion is not the absence of anger, callousness, indifference or even hate but a way of thinking and acting that overcomes them all. Just as courage does not occur in the absence of fear or conformity but in the moment of overcoming each of them, compassion’s strength arises in conquering ruthlessness and indifference. Compassion is the courage to be kind. With the release of Go Set a Watchman we now can see the depths through which Atticus’ ‘courage to be kind’ had to evolve from. If Atticus can transform from a racist hypocrite to a compassionate hero, we all can become better people; we all can write a narrative for our own lives that is filled with compassion and kindness. No longer is Atticus “a god” or heroic figure out of reach for us mere human beings to model, but he is one of us with all his imperfections. He is still the same hero that many of us have idolized for decades but now his character is more of a human hero … a hero that we all can choose to be.
There aren’t two Atticus Finches, there is the one and only Atticus. There are many first drafts in life and Harper Lee’s Atticus represents how we shouldn’t let them define who we become but we must acknowledge that they do make us who we are. Our strengths and weaknesses as individuals help to define the character of our communities. We choose to be divided or united.
How do we make the world a better place if we don’t acknowledge our weaknesses and foibles just as much as we celebrate our strengths? Atticus is based on Harper Lee’s father, Amasa Coleman Lee, a man who “was a Deep South Southerner” and segregationist until middle-age. Mr. Lee evolved into an advocate for integration in the last half of his life so much so that his words of “Equal rights for all, special privileges for none” became one of Atticus and Scout’s most famous quotes in Mockingbird. Atticus is the literary parallel of Amasa. Just as the first draft of Atticus in Watchman does not define who he becomes in Mockingbird, Amasa’s first part of life did not define who he became in his daughter’s eyes (I and my fellow Atticus idol worshippers are grateful for that). Watchman is simply the first draft of Mockingbird and not the toppling of Atticus.
Atticus has been standing for our moral conscience for 55 years and now is certainly not the time for him to sit down or topple over. We need him to walk … to walk beyond Maycomb and into the Springfields, the Charlestons and the Baltimores of our country.
‘It’s My Own Invention’
~Title of Chapter 8 in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass
As artificial intelligence (A.I.) develops, humanity’s strengths and weaknesses will increasingly be reflected in the machines we create. I couldn’t help but think of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass as I exited the theater after watching Alex Garland’s A.I. masterpiece, Ex Machina. Ava (Garland’s A.I. character) is the personification of Carroll’s words, especially the exchange between Alice and the White Knight over his horse’s anklets:
‘You see,’ he went on after a pause, ‘it’s as well to be provided for EVERYTHING. That’s the reason the horse has all those anklets around his feet.’
‘But what are they for?’ Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity.
‘To guard against the bites of sharks,’ the Knight replied. ‘It’s an invention of my own.’
Artificial intelligence is helping us (human beings) with “everything” from cooking and calculating to driving and flying. We are increasingly using A.I. because, in part at least, it can help us “guard against” our own mistakes in driving, flying, etc … for to err is human. A.I. is an ‘invention of our own’ to help us provide for everything we need (or want) and to guard against the bites of our own mistakes. However, what if, as some notable leaders in business, science and technology recently remarked, our own invention has a strong and devastating bite?
Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk all recently warned of the threat that artificial intelligence poses to human existence. While Musk characterized A.I. development as “summoning the demon,” Gates posted the following answer to a question on a Reddit forum: “I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don’t understand why some people are not concerned.” Dr. Hawking told the BBC in December 2014 that “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”
Gates, Hawking and Musk all temper their ‘danger-Will-Robinson’ remarks, however, by explaining the potential benefits of A.I., if people are able to control and manage it well. As the Future of Life Institute (FLI), which received a $10 million donation from Musk, recently wrote in an open letter signed by Hawking, Musk and many other well-known scientists and technologists: “Success in the quest for artificial intelligence has the potential to bring unprecedented benefits to humanity, and it is therefore worthwhile to research how to maximize these benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls.” The FLI is calling for an interdisciplinary approach to the development of A.I. because how and what we choose to emphasize in its evolution will determine whether A.I. provides greater benefits than pitfalls. As Ava sarcastically said in Ex Machina, “I’m interested to see what you’ll choose.”
We need to emphasize the moral, ethical and social-emotional aspects of learning just as much as—if not more than—the technological and intellectual factors in A.I. development. Values such as compassion, empathy, gratitude and forgiveness should be woven into this new version of the body electric, which Walt Whitman used as a symbol for the oneness of all people. If we do not choose to emphasize EQ (emotional quotient) as much as IQ (intelligence quotient), then I do not know how we avoid the pitfalls of A.I. Cognitive intelligence without emotional intelligence tends to lead to unstable and even psychopathic behavior; such a combination has been used to describe serial murderers. Do we really want our technological “anklets” to become man-eating sharks?
As we step through the looking glass of A.I., it is wise to remember William Durant’s words regarding the collapse of civilizations: “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.” A.I.’s role in the fate of our civilization will be determined by how much human compassion or indifference we emphasize in our body electric. The next chapter in the story of humanity could be titled: ‘When Ava Met Alice.’
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