The Roots of Humanity
Topic: Courage, Integrity, & Purpose
“Gentleness and goodness are the roots of humanity.”
Confucius
ConfucianismThe Book of Ritual
Wilson, Andrew, editor. World Scripture - a Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts. Paragon House, 1991, p. 144 [Book of Ritual 38.18].
Confucius
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Book of Ritual 38.18
“Gentleness and goodness are the roots of humanity.” But the initial goodness is ordinarily corrupted…
Krista Tippett with Neuroscientist Richard Davidson (excerpt)
Ms. Tippett: You, I believe, have taken these ideas into school settings, and you’ve actually asked the question, “Can we cultivate compassion?” I remember you saying to me, years ago, that you believe that we are hardwired to learn compassion as we are hardwired to learn language. Has that borne itself out?
Mr. Davidson: I’m happy you remember that. I think the evidence today is even stronger than it was when we spoke about it last. The reason I liken it to language is that we also know that we come into the world with a biological propensity for language, but it requires that we be nurtured in a normal linguistic community for that propensity to be expressed. There are case studies of feral children who’ve been raised in the wild; they don’t develop normal language.
So even though there’s a biological propensity, it requires this context, the appropriate context, to nurture it. And I think the same is true for kindness. We come into the world with this innate propensity, but for this propensity to be expressed, it requires nurturing.
Ms. Tippett: Right, because we don’t actually learn language — yes, there’s an aspect of being taught language, but it’s more just that people do it around us.
Mr. Davidson: Yeah, and so if we’re in a context where people are doing kindness around us, we will osmotically absorb it, and it will be nurtured.
–Krista Tippett [On Being Interview with Richard Davidson: A Neuroscientist on Love and Learning].