A note on the uses of empathy in Cold War rhetoric
This is going to be a short note, actually. I commented in my last post on the use of "empathy" as a keyword for development scholars following Daniel Lerner's ideas about how to modernize traditional societies. Writing during the 1950s and 1960s, Lerner describes empathy as key to getting people in un(der)developed societies to consider alternatives to their current situations. Starosta indirectly criticizes the "Lernerian" type of empathy as an attempt by Western rhetors to create dissatisfaction and alienation among people of other societies.
Another instance of empathy in Cold War rhetoric has come to my attention via Christina Klein's Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945-1961 (which I've also written about here). Klein cites a 1957 speech by Francis Wilcox ("a mid-level State Department official") that was published in the Department of State Bulletin's July 29, 1957 issue. The speech, entitled "Foreign Policy and Some Implications for Education", argues that in the current conflict with the Soviet Union, Americans needed to "'cultivate the quality of empathy--the ability to put yourself in the other fellow's position and see things from his point of view'" (qtd Klein 22). He recommended that providing Americans with an "'education for overseasmanship'" that focused on the cultivation of empathy was crucial to curbing the influence of Soviet propaganda. If Americans, who would be increasingly living and working abroad, had this capacity, they could more easily help in the American project of providing people in newly decolonized countries with alternatives to Communist ideology. Klein characterizes Wilcox's rhetoric as part of what she calls a "global imaginary of integration" that contrasts with the "global imaginary of containment" that is usually considered the dominant strain of American Cold War rhetoric.
The fact that both Americans and the people of developing countries are called upon to cultivate empathy is not something I've seen yet in my reading. I think one of the things I'll have to consider about this, though, concerns the different objectives that empathy was supposed to serve, and the different activities to which empathy was linked. (Wonder if it's possible to do an activity system analysis of empathy? Hmmm...)
Another instance of empathy in Cold War rhetoric has come to my attention via Christina Klein's Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945-1961 (which I've also written about here). Klein cites a 1957 speech by Francis Wilcox ("a mid-level State Department official") that was published in the Department of State Bulletin's July 29, 1957 issue. The speech, entitled "Foreign Policy and Some Implications for Education", argues that in the current conflict with the Soviet Union, Americans needed to "'cultivate the quality of empathy--the ability to put yourself in the other fellow's position and see things from his point of view'" (qtd Klein 22). He recommended that providing Americans with an "'education for overseasmanship'" that focused on the cultivation of empathy was crucial to curbing the influence of Soviet propaganda. If Americans, who would be increasingly living and working abroad, had this capacity, they could more easily help in the American project of providing people in newly decolonized countries with alternatives to Communist ideology. Klein characterizes Wilcox's rhetoric as part of what she calls a "global imaginary of integration" that contrasts with the "global imaginary of containment" that is usually considered the dominant strain of American Cold War rhetoric.
The fact that both Americans and the people of developing countries are called upon to cultivate empathy is not something I've seen yet in my reading. I think one of the things I'll have to consider about this, though, concerns the different objectives that empathy was supposed to serve, and the different activities to which empathy was linked. (Wonder if it's possible to do an activity system analysis of empathy? Hmmm...)
posted by Jonathan Benda | 4:02:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home