While there are many different factors playing an important role in the madness, it all boils down to a simple conclusion: Mankind suffers from a serious lack of Compassion, one’s ability to be concerned for another being’s welfare.
Immanuel Kant, a respected figure of modern philosophy, considered Compassion a weak and misguided sentiment: “Such benevolence is called soft-heartedness and should not occur at all among human beings,” he said. Unfortunately his thoughts continue to have a major influence in contemporary thinking even though the guy clearly must have been born with a huge biological deficiency: The G gene.
Human genes are made of bases, the nucleotides, which come in four types: A, T, C, and G, which again appear in combinations, AA, AG or GG, the latter one being associated with empathy, positive emotions and sensitivity to the weaker links and the underdogs of society. People carrying the GG gene are believed to be more caring which reflects in their body language, such as smiling, loving gestures, head nodding, eye contact and the willingness to listen. Furthermore a person’s hormonal balance and small differences in it can have far-reaching effects on empathy. This fact in itself should raise a gigantic red flag and opens another can of worms: Mankind’s mind boggling consumption of hormone loaded meat and dairies and all the misery that comes from and with it.
Remedy may be here in a practice which in recent years has become not only main stream in the Western world but has grown in popularity: MEDITATION.
Appreciative Joy (Mudita)
Meditators begin with cultivating loving-kindness towards themselves, then towards their loved ones, friends, strangers, enemies and all sentient beings, replacing negative and destructive emotions with positive ones. Ancient Buddhist collections of texts “Pali Canon” define the benefits of Loving-Kindness meditation (mettā bhāvanā) as followed: