David Eagleman’s central thesis is we as humans naturally have empathy for other human beings until we are socially constructed, through the media and radicals, to view people as “others” or the “out group” and in turn lose empathy for these groups of people. This relates to Gandhi’s philosophy that we must overcome this idea of “other” and loving everyone, even if they have hurt you because they didn’t know any better and we are all humans. Eagleman showed an experiment he did with videos of hands being stabbed and the brain activity of the person watching them. The brain scans showed activity in the areas of the brain that display empathy. But, when the hands were label with certain religions, the empathy went away. This one word was enough to dehumanize the person getting stabbed immediately (Eagleman clip). Dehumanization comes from the propaganda we see and hear everyday of our lives. Mayton explained that violence eclipses nonviolence in the media everyday which gives us a certain perspective on religions or groups of people (Mayton, 11). When in reality, it’s only a small radicle group getting the attention that’s shaping the image of that entire religion or group of people. Gandhi believes we should ignore this propaganda and love everyone, even if they hurt you. Gandhi’s philosophy is about forgiveness to those who wrong you, …show more content…
Gandhi believed we should forgive those who oppress us or wrong us because they believe what they are doing is right. Based on their social construction on the “other” and them being different than themselves and stopping the feeling of empathy for these people, they believe their actions are right because what they are doing is in sight of the term “absolute truth”. Therefore, we must forgive them because they didn’t know better in their actions and we must now show them the truth through love and