Some of the Really Big Questions

Last night I was pleasantly surprised to hear on our public radio a remarkable program about emotions that exactly coincided with my recent readings about the necessity of EQ and Empathy in Daniel Pink's book, A Whole New Mind.

The Really Big Questions SoundVision's The Really Big Questions is hosted by NPR's Lynn Neary and will air on public radio stations around the country. In Atlanta on WABE, 90.1 FM. I've attached the link, you might want to give the program a listen: http://www.trbq.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=16&Itemid=43 Here is a description of the radio program: What are emotions? | Print | E-mail “In the modern world where computers are capable of calculating faster and more accurately than any person, we like to believe our emotions, not our analytic abilities, make us human." Those are the words of Boston University scholar Charles Lindholm. "Accordingly," Lindholm writes, " we say that people who are cerebral and unemotional are 'inhuman' and 'heartless.' We want our friends and lovers to be compassionate and ardent, not rational and calculating. For the same reason, our leaders never portray themselves as logically minded technocrats, but as empathetic individuals who 'feel our pain.'" But, if emotion is what makes us human, does the masking of emotion make one less human? What does it mean when a society's collective emotional response results in genocide? Are they less human, or more? NPR's Lynn Neary discusses these, and other questions with some of the greatest thinkers of our time. What are emotions and how do they shape our worldview?