 Good afternoon to all our audience. We are hoping that we have as much of a turn out as the signups promised. So welcome to our second seminar in our series under the theme Society, Culture and Law, a research theme within the School of Security Studies at King's College London. I have the great pleasure to introduce two eminent people in the field of strategic communications research. Our speaker, Dr. Claire York, whom I will introduce in a minute, and our chair, Dr. Neville Bolt, who is the director of the King's Center for Strategic Communications. He is also editor-in-chief of the Defence Strategic Communications Journal, a peer-reviewed academic journal of NATO's Strategic Communications Center of Excellence. Then he's a reader in strategic communications and convener of the master's programmes on the same theme, and he has a not misspent previous life in television, both as a television journalist and producer editor at the BBC ITV and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He has the pleasure to chair Claire's talk. And I am now going to hand over to Claire, who is really delighted to have her here because she will be talking to us about an incredibly important subject and one that is really in much need of understanding better and hopefully also, at least that's my part of my mission here, proselytising on the theme, whether a more empathetic politics is possible. Claire is a writer and academic researcher and she has just finished a very successful Kissinger postdoc period at Yale University. And she's currently preparing her book on and related to the theme of empathy in strategic communications, which we will all await with bated breath and she will tell us more about at some later stage. But without further ado, and to give the person who really needs the limelight, the limelight, I hand over to Claire. Thank you. Thank you so much to all of you for having me. Thank you for inviting me to speak. It's a pleasure to be back at King's where I did my PhD and to talk about a topic that I really love and that I care very passionately about and have been studying for the past few years. So thank you. Claire, good afternoon. Thanks for joining us today. And it is a pleasure to see you back at King's actually and we had a great time together. I did certainly I was a pleasure and a privilege to supervise your doctorate. And I think it's fair to point out that your eminent examiners and they were eminent examiners concluded that yours was one of the best PhDs they had ever read. So congratulations to you, but you've moved on since then. Those are those are the old days. So let's talk about empathy. You, you researched in depth the Nixon Mao talks of the 1970s and what engaged you was trying to understand what was the role of empathy. And, you know, we throw this word around empathy and a lot of people don't even know the difference between empathy and sympathy, but more to the point you would argue they actually don't really know what empathy means. Why don't you tell us. Yeah, so I'm really interested in how we understand and conceptualize empathy and I think it's such a critical component of human relations, but it's not simply one thing. And often we see this division and how empathy is defined where it's emotional or it's cognitive. So it's kind of a feeling that we have towards another or towards others. It's very innate, something embodied and we feel that and we experience that sense of connection. But then you've also got this cognitive dimension, which is much more of a conscious process of reflecting on the lived experiences of others and trying to understand how they view the world. What does the world mean to them? Where do people derive value and significance in their everyday lives and how does that inform the way in which they engage and interact with the world around them. And I would argue on top of that we've got these different forms and other people also write on different forms of empathy, but I would categorize them for the purpose of this talk. As interpersonal empathy, which is the kind of empathy that you see between two people, how people develop a sense of connection or rapport with another and feel that sense of, I know this person, I can work with this man as Margaret Thatcher famously said. You've then got what I call strategic or political empathy, which is used to communicate or connect with audiences as part of political discourse. And this is more to do with the communication of empathy from, say, an individual or a small group of individuals to a collective, because often empathy is understood as between individuals or between small groups. Whereas I think it's something that can be very much communicated in dialogues and performances in signaling to show other people that they matter to them, that they're being heard and listened and understood and that their concerns and grievances are being taken into account. And then I think as part of that, I think that's an important role to consider of empathy of performance, so performative empathy and the sense that the very act of performing empathy has itself a value or a virtue, because empathy has these connotations of virtue. So there's then this difference between performative empathy and sincere empathy. And I think that's one of the things that we sometimes see in this space is that people feel the need to demonstrate empathy. And so we need to interrogate, but is that actually translating to genuine empathy and concern? How much is that going into actual decision making processes informing the ways in which they're changing their attitudes and behaviors towards different people in different groups. And so I want to think about it as well in that sense. And as part of that, it really draws our attention to this difference between the rhetoric and reality. Because rhetoric about empathy is far easier. You can talk about it. We know certain codes of expressing understanding for others. We know what it is you have to be saying, I feel your pain as Bill Clinton famously did in that election. And then there's the real hard work of empathy. And that's something I really want to kind of emphasize in this talk that actually empathy is not something light and fluffy. It's hard work. It's a process. It's a practice. And it's about really taking on the very difficult challenge of trying to understand and tolerate difference in order to connect across divides. And I think it's so important right now when we're dealing with such a polarized and divided political space that we're able to start to talk about what does this actually mean? What is the hard work? What are the practices that we have to do to try and create something that's better and that transcends the challenges that we're facing today? And so I think, I mean, empathy, I think it's inherently political. It has a lot of challenges, a lot of problems associated with it. And I think the more we understand that, the more we understand the limitations and the problems with empathy, that it's not just that nice fluffy thing you insert into a debate and suddenly things sound better. But we understand it's real, the courage and the hard work that you have to do, I think we get closer to them being able to realize it. Yeah, that's interesting. And I suppose the question is, apart from the fact that you've written a PhD and very shortly we'll publish a book on this, but why are we increasingly talking about empathy? I mean, I think there's multiple reasons. At first, I think we're seeing in the context of the pandemic, the real importance of trying to understand how this virus that is still so unknown, we still don't know what it means, but it is causing such kind of havoc and hardship to people in terms of welfare and health and livelihoods and well-being. That there is this real need within our political leadership for empathy and for concern and also for compassion for people from many different backgrounds to show that people in the highest echelons of government and politics are taking it seriously. We're also seeing empathy being discussed in new forms of leadership. So we're seeing a lot of praise, for example, for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and others who've really used empathy both in response to the terrorist attacks in Christchurch a couple of years ago, but in her response as well to this coronavirus crisis and really centralizing it as part of her discourse about how politics should be conducted. She spoke about it at the World Economic Forum. She's really tried to put it at the heart of economic policies and welfare policies, and she's also not the only one to do so. Barack Obama in 2006 was talking about an empathy deficit and about the way in which society had lost sight of one another, that we had lost our ability to connect and that actually society and politics had become about interests, about financial gain, about economics, and really what we've missed is that society is about people and politics is about people. And we're seeing it again now in the American elections. It's very much central to Vice President Joe Biden's campaign, this idea that he is a person who connects with the every man. He's a person who really, as a man of character, prioritizes empathy in his dealings with people in his politics. But we've also seen it, as I wrote about in an article recently for the World Today, in how President Trump is talking about himself. It was a feature of the Republican National Convention as well as the Democratic National Convention, where they're talking about how Trump called his staff when they were sick to check they were okay, and how he was talking to certain frontline care workers, and this performative empathy really coming to the fore, that it was seen as a political tool and an asset for both campaigns. But I think with all of that considered as well, what I want to come back to is that idea of empathy offers us a great lens for understanding and interpreting emotions and for understanding what is going on right now when we're looking at the rise in identity politics, we're looking at increased divisions within society and polarization, we're looking at real, really prominent debates about inequality and injustice and racism and the lack of care and the sense of marginalization that people are feeling. And I think it's so important that people are saying we need to be able to incorporate far more awareness of different lived experiences into our politics. And we need to, I think, understand how different people are feeling, how people not only engage with politics in the level of reason and rationality, but how they are experiencing it at a very felt level, and what that means collectively for public moods, for public attitudes, what people are responding to. And I think those emotions in this political space are often unquantifiable and hard to really decipher, but we can and we should be trying to understand what the implications are for different politics on different communities and how then you navigate that with a more nuanced understanding of lived experience. I'm interested in this bridge between rhetorical empathy as performative politics, and also can I just call it individual sincerity on that level, because a lot of the time, and you know the American election is very much presidential election very much in our minds at the moment. And for an awful lot of international, let's call them intellectuals, empathy is associated with Biden as being very much part of his makeup, his personality, and that it's genuine, it's sincere. And yet when Donald Trump employs it with his supporters and sympathizers, somehow we're suspicious of that. We see it as a tool of politics. Is that unfair, do you think? I mean, I think it really speaks to me to some of the challenges of empathy, and you're right to point out the challenges that we have in deciphering and interpreting it. And I think it speaks to the subjectivity of empathy and our own positionality, and I struggle with this as well because I think we have this idea that empathy is about kindness and it's about care. And I think that for the most part is true. But we also have to think about, is it empathy if I don't like what it looks like? If it doesn't speak to me or to the causes and the concerns that I have, is it still empathy? And I think what's so interesting is how particularly populist leaders have been quite effective at mobilising this performance of concern for other people in their politics, at trying to say we understand your grievances, we understand how you view that the political establishment have not spoken to you and have marginalised you or forgotten you. And we are going to offer a different alternative that speaks to what it is that you care about and the insecurity or the uncertainty that you're feeling. And so with Trump, I think it's hard to argue that he has that personal sincerity of care and the way we see with Biden. But I'm also not convinced that his supporters want that from him. I think it's quite interesting looking at how we have different expectations about political leaders, how we have a different need for concern depending on our own experience with politics and what we value within society and our interaction. And I think actually talking to people who do vote for Trump when I was in America, you know, they would say, well, we know that he's vulgar and we know that he says it like it is and sometimes it's not very polished, but he speaks to the concerns we have and we don't see other people doing that in the same way. He says it like it is. And I think that's something we have to be thinking about is what's happened in this political environment that means that people no longer feel that politicians are maybe speaking to them authentically or speaking to them and reflecting in the reality of what they are experiencing. So it's definitely part of the subjectivity of it and I struggle with that because it does mean we have to maybe consider that empathy isn't always something that we find palatable. And because it's so difficult for us to understand or get inside this subjectivity or multiple subjectivities. So let me just go back to your original research back in the which dealt with the 1970s but most importantly, it was transnational transcultural. And so when you were looking at Richard Nixon, who sat down with Mao, both global leaders but from different cultures, but maybe not such different backgrounds, maybe, spiritually. How does that complicate this discussion? I mean, I think what was so interesting with that is seeing the ways in which President Nixon and Henry Kissinger prepared for those talks. And really we're conscious that there would be a divide in how each country approached the topic and the impressions that each side had of the world. And I think again, I mean, Nixon, like Trump, it's hard to argue was sincerely empathetic in the way that we would associate with Joe Biden or others. But he starts when he speaks with Chairman Mao, he tries to find points of connection with this leader of the People's Republic of China. You know, we both come from humble origins. We've both risen to be these great men in our own nations. We both understand the challenges and the weights that are on our shoulders. You know, and it's debatable whether the Chinese saw him as sincere or not, you know, but this sense of performance that he felt that the way we get this done is by building this personal relationship. And he did a lot in terms of reading the literature that Chairman Mao was reading at trying to understand what it was that they would be prioritizing. And I think in many ways, empathy is so critical, particularly across cultures, particularly in terms of trying to bridge those different divides in understanding and meaning within different societies. But I think that's where we find common points of humanity. We find that we're all individuals, we all can find things in common despite our differences. And I see this kind of in the practices they do and Kissinger as well and his much more extended discussions with Joe and I would constantly try to speak to the intellectual interests and the background of his counterpart and try to understand the concerns and the grievances and the insecurities that the Chinese felt at that moment in time faced with the Soviet Union on their borders, faced with a sense of uncertainty in the global environment. Did you get a sense that Mao and the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party were actually going through the same process vis-à-vis Nixon? I did. I mean, I think, I mean, it's interesting. You see, there's one of the transcripts where Joe and I talked about how he watched Patton, the film, because he knew that it was Nixon's favorite film and how this film gave him an insight into the mind of Nixon. And I think it's actually just part of good negotiating practice that you try and understand the person at the other side of the table from you and you try and connect. And I think good diplomats, good politicians are very aware of this that you can't do business as someone if you're not willing to speak their language in some form. You're not able to find mutual points of connection and engage with them and meet them where they are. And I think sometimes we've lost sight of that a little bit, you know, that it becomes just about interests. But you can't do that if you don't have trust and you don't have mutual respect. And that was one thing that really emerged through the archives is how much Nixon and Kissinger spoke about that importance of trust and empathy was a vehicle to build in that. And that's something that people like Professor Nick Wheeler and Ken Booth have written a lot on, you know, this centrality of trust and empathy is a real vehicle to help build that, especially when there's been long periods of animosity between two sides. And so how do those thoughts resonate with what we are seeing with the week to go to the American election with two candidates who appear to despise each other? I mean, I think it's just so interesting to see the nature of discourse in the US right now, the kind of the debates where you see how dialogue is really declined that there is this real division between the two sides and this lack of ability to build consensus. And I think, looking forward, what's going to be key, whoever wins. And I think, especially because Joe Biden has campaigned on a platform of empathy and unity and building back better, this kind of how does he reach out to those people who didn't vote Democrat. And especially for those who are undecided or who are not on the more extreme edge of the political spectrum. How do they say to them, you didn't vote for me, but I'm still going to care about your interest and your concerns. Because to move forward, there really needs to be this period of healing in this period of dialogue. There needs to be this sense of overcoming the divisions, finding areas of commonality because otherwise I think there's a danger they will entrench even more. We're seeing such division within the rhetoric and such kind of shaming as well on both sides. I think that's one thing we're seeing in the US and we also see in the UK that the mobilization and weaponization of shame and humiliation about political opponents. And I think it really makes it very hard to find a political space where both sides can come together when you start to deny another side their dignity, even if you disagree with them and you think that politics is awful. And even if you don't respect where they're coming from to not show them the dignity and give them space to at least engage in dialogue and listen to find those points of commonality to find, okay, we disagree on this. But actually we're both concerned about our economic well-being. We're both actually concerned that our children are healthy, that they have schools to go to, and that we have jobs. And so I think that's going to be key for whoever leads. I'm not sure how a new Donald Trump administration would do that because we haven't really seen that during the last few years from him. But I think it's something we much more would expect from Biden, but I don't think it's going to be easy. I think there's going to be many years ahead of trying to rebuild the kind of bridge and reconnect with society and both in Congress and in their political establishments and institutions, where there's been a real lack of cross-party collaboration since really the period of Reagan, but also within society and communities themselves. Yes, I don't want to be the sound like the voice of doom, but you don't feel that the positions are so entrenched in American society, not just American society, more broadly in Western democratic societies also, we see similar things happening. You don't think that positions are so deeply entrenched that you, as an advisor to policymakers and politicians, that you would have to just throw your hands up in the air and say, sorry, we have nowhere to go on this. You know me and you know I'm an eternal optimist. So no, I don't, but I do think it's a case of, you know, rolling up your sleeves and being really prepared to go, right, what have we learned from this period? And I think this is interesting because it speaks to the importance, for example, of honesty and for apology and for acknowledgement of error. We have not done this right. We have made errors and I think particularly for the Democrats in the US to be able to say, okay, you felt like maybe democratic politics has failed you. We've had this vision of liberal international politics that was meant to help everybody and create opportunities and some of you don't feel like we have. And this is what we're going to do about it. And the same in the UK, I mean, looking at the way in which the pandemic has been dealt with, I think there is this need to say we haven't got this right. And again, looking last week at the case with Marcus Rashford and Booth for schools, having someone come out and say, we got this wrong. This is how we're going to rectify it and it's a real concerted concrete plan of action that will make a difference and that acknowledges that maybe we misread the mood. And that's one thing we see from leaders who model good empathy is that they're not above accepting where they've made mistakes. You know that they're humble enough to say the facts have changed or my understanding has changed and now I'm going to change course. I, and I do think one thing the pandemic has shown us is the power of communities to come together in a crisis. Yes, it's been complicated by confused lockdown rules and by maybe, you know, breakdowns in trust in society towards political institutions or towards one another. But I think it's still possible that we can reconnect with that sentiment that had people staying home, looking after one another, making sure that those who are most vulnerable were cared for. There's something now that can be built on but it needs real genuine leadership and a commitment for something better. You mentioned before the need for new forms of leadership. And you mentioned two people, very specifically Barack Obama, and just into her in New Zealand. And a lot of people, of course, would be critical of Obama for being really quite intellectual, aloof, arrogant, distant, which is not the case with her visit. How would you, how do you, how would you compare those two and where do you see the positives in either. And yes, and this is, this is a criticism that comes up often in relation to Obama that intellectually he fully understood the power of empathy. And his speeches on it, I mean from 2006 and onwards are beautiful, you know, you see, after this awful attack in a church in America. Yes, well, you know when he starts to sing amazing grace and you see the sense of connection that he has. But then other people would say but he doesn't always do the cross party work and he doesn't know how to connect with people if he's in the cerebral state and he's thinking. Whereas we see then with Jacinda Arden it seems very much integrated into how she engages with the world and those that she comes in contact with. And I think both are valuable. We need people who understand intellectually that empathy should be a form of, should be a tool within our politics that it should be something that we are using to try to understand how different people are living. And I think that's something that Obama did repeatedly in his speeches and in his outreach trying to empower different groups and organizations. But we also need to see from our leaders that they are accessible as well. I think this is what Jacinda Arden seems to do. You see her when she's hugging people after Christchurch when she really goes out into the communities. And she's also when she's there on the Zoom call with her baby and she's being very real and normal and, you know, on TikTok and making cups of tea. You know, people need to see that their leaders are accessible and that they care for them. So is this is so you putting all your money on one bet. Is it basically that we're relying on individuals to emerge in the in the coming years. Or would you propose that there are institutional structures that we can put into place that actually help this bridge building process in order to highlight the role of empathy and the need for it. I mean, I think I think there's multiple areas that we need to be looking at. I think absolutely it's hugely dependent on leadership and the ability to model good behavior, good practice, empathetic concern, understanding and new forms of discourse. But then we also need to be looking. Firstly, how do our organizations and institutions incorporate empathetic understanding into how they design policy and how they engage with diverse communities and reflect the concerns and needs and interests of them and show that they are really taking this inclusive and considered approach towards how we respond to the challenges that we're facing today. I think we also need to be talking about the media and the quality of media reporting on the ability of media to really lend its power. The media is so powerful like being able to shine a light on diverse stories and different accounts of politics and society and people's experiences in a very real and compelling way because it's using stories much more obviously and in a very emotive way. So we need to be looking at how the media provides comprehensive coverage of what we're facing and also holds governments and politicians to account that it's really doing that role in keeping the diversity and the inclusion of debate alive and giving people voice where maybe they don't feel they have one but I think critically we also need to not just look to other people to solve this and I think this is where it really comes down to citizens themselves. How are we in our everyday life going to contribute to more empathetic politics and that isn't about waiting for other people to do it for us. It's about sitting around the table this Christmas and saying you know what my uncle has crazy views on Brexit. How am I going to listen and how am I going to understand and have a dialogue and not just shut them down. And I know that you know I struggle with this as much as anybody else because we have this desire to be right and we have this desire to signal our own virtue. I think we need to be able to say OK where's the commonality what do we have in common what unites us and how do we start to listen and genuinely listen not not to think about what we're going to say next but to really listen to what other people are saying the stories that they have the experiences that they have the vulnerabilities that they're sharing and how do we understand sources of humiliation that people have felt because of the way our political systems are structured. How do we understand the inequalities that they're experienced because systems are not working for them. How do we start to create spaces for more tolerance and I will specify that this also should include creating clear boundaries and I don't mean that sitting and listening to other people is about just listening. No matter what they say it also means setting clear boundaries of if you're going to say anything racist or sexist or homophobic or misogynist or anything like that. There's no space in this dialogue for that. And that's what we need to get much better at doing it being able to kind of have tolerant inclusive understanding conversations with people while also being very clear on the limits of what is not acceptable. And I think that's how we start to change the conversation and I think it's a symbiotic relationship citizens and leadership and we start to then co create something. Very good. That's a perfect point for me to hand over now and to open the conversation out Andreas can actually lead this conversation from now on and over to Andrea. Thank you. Thank you very much to Claire and Neville for giving us an absolutely exciting intellectual ride through a lot of really interesting themes. Before we go into the discussion Q&A period. Can I first let everyone know because now names might be read out that we are recording this. So if you would rather not be known by your name then try to stay anonymous and I will not indicate that you would rather not I read out your name. And secondly for your questions. Could you please type them into the Q&A box and then I will be able to read them out and put them to Claire. While everyone is thinking to pick up a theme Claire that you almost ended on and that is the question of once uncle's awkward views about Brexit. If a particular theme or topic or political almost one ideology has been become almost weaponized or hijacked by arguably by a by by a group of people who have a very clear agenda which may or may not some people may not agree with me. But maybe very much narrow very much more hard line than perhaps many of the people who voted for Brexit intended because for them. The reason for voting for Brexit was another than the reasons for which we're now leaving potentially with no deal or if we have a deal with a very thin deal and the people. Some of the people who voted for Brexit might actually end up having to be punished for being punished for that decision. Now if there are so many other influences which have skewed the debate is there a comeback via empathy or does it take more or something different in addition to empathy beyond the individual level. In terms of bringing different people together again yeah yeah I mean empathy is always just going to be one of many tools. I think what it does is it lets people feel seen and it lets people feel that they are being listened to which is valuable but I think as well it also needs to be matched with a genuine understanding of where are these more extreme views coming from. And in some times you're actually not going to be able to negotiate with them you're not going to be able to say to kind of give validity to some of their views. So then it's are there other points of connection are they talking really about frustration to do with unemployment to do with their financial situation to do with opportunities like how do we find other points of connection. And I think there's interesting there's some interesting work done in kind of conflict resolution on how you bring in groups from the extremes, you know, and sometimes it's, sometimes it's impossible some groups will be beyond the scope of bringing them into the fall but then there might be ways in which, offering small amounts of power or offering opportunities to connect on issues that are important to them but that do not do harm to others. And might then help kind of neutralize some of that I mean I think it's, it's incredibly problematic and that's the problem and we see this as well politically when you do get people such as Hillary Clinton talk about the need to empathize with America's then that the question then in the house about do you really mean we're meant to empathize with ISIS, you know, and how do you politically make a case like that. You know, and how do you try and say well actually yes we do and maybe, maybe what it is about is understanding the difference between public and private spaces it's about understanding what kinds of expressions of understanding should be done publicly, what should be done about private initiatives or trying to find ways to build relations and build trust so that people then feel that they are able to engage in a process again that they're not being marginalized or sidelined in it. But I don't think empathy is a magic bullet I think it's a real critical asset but I don't think it's a magic bullet. Yeah, I entirely agree. I think another sort of set of people I had in mind was that the vertical question of those who voted for Brexit and those who are not driving the implementation of it but we can park that for the moment because we have a question inviting you to please, but from Nikki to please speak on the role of vulnerability and also gender as we've talked about just in the adan in empathy. So the role of vulnerability and of gender in empathy. Yes. I think this discussion about gender and empathy is fascinating and also any discussion of vulnerability I think just speaks to one the work of Brené Brown, who's kind of sociologist who really talks about vulnerability. And the power of people to be able to share their concerns in a in a way that is safe and how do you build political environments where we don't need to see the strong man who actually doesn't have all the answers but therefore creates more problems because they aren't able to be vulnerable or humble enough to accept that they didn't get it right, or they don't really know what they're doing and then don't really know how to manage a situation. And therefore we'll talk you through the process and I think in gender terms we've seen throughout this pandemic. A lot written about the power of female of women and leadership and female leadership to express concern for others to show care and compassion for citizens and to seek advice and change course when it's being needed. And I think it's really important because it shines a light on different forms of power that power is not just about might and domination and strength and this sense of being an impervious figurehead that actually power can be about vulnerability and showing that you care and that you want you want the best for the people that you're serving in a position of leadership. But I also would argue that empathy is not an intrinsically female trait. I think as it's dimension that women have maybe been traditionally socially constructed or being conditioned to care because of the roles that people have taken within society. But actually, if we view it as just a female trait, I think we do a real disservice to many empathetic men and we should be empowering men to express more emotion and more empathy as a source of power and strength. Thank you very much. That was really enlightening. I hope Nikki is happy with the answer. If you have further questions, please just type type them in. Here's Olivia Kearney asking thanks for first thanking you for a great presentation. And then she was wondering if you could speak a bit more about what you were discussing with the mobilization of shame, especially during a campaign time I feel like there's too often too often a do as I say not do as I do approach from politicians. In the case of Biden and Trump, Biden obviously doesn't have a brush comments as brush comments as Trump, but they're still strong political rivalry and opposing Twitter comments. What have you seen in terms of the disconnect between leaders promoting some sort of empathy through their words but their actions say otherwise, which is a stronger force how can we work towards not undermining to not undermine attempts at empathy. I suppose that speaks to your distinction between sincere empathy and and performed empathy and I was going to ask on that as well so I hand over to you. Yes. So I hear two questions in there. The first is about the use of shame, which I'll come to second. And the second line is about this mismatch between what people say they are, and then what they do. And to me this really speaks to the importance of integrity and we don't really talk about what it means to have integrity and politics anymore but we need to return to a view of people valuing the idea that you are who you say you are and that you will do what you say you will do. And I think it's quite interesting looking at what happened in the UK. During the lockdown first lockdown I'm originally from up north. And it's so interesting to talk to people up north who really say the moment that Dominic Cummings broke lockdown is the moment we lost trust with the government. I know that's understood fully in the capital and people really felt like they're being, they're actually willingly giving up freedoms and giving up their social life and their, and their kind of everyday normality to try to protect people and to look back to the NHS and then it's being broken and that sense of trust. And it speaks to the kind of the importance of trust within society that politicians are doing what they say they'll do, and that they are also doing it in the best interest of society and I think the politicians deviate from that, the harder it becomes for people to trust them. And that has implications that extend beyond the immediate act itself because it starts to deteriorate the kind of the fabric of the social contract, the fabric of what we expect from positions of leadership and government. And I think again, it's interesting what we would tolerate from Trump and what we would tolerate from Biden may be different. I think it's quite interesting that what Trump is able to get away with politically is very different to what we would permit from Joe Biden. And I think it's interesting to say why is that what is the perception of the character of the man that someone can do so much more with so little consequences, where someone else we hold to a different standard, and we need to be reflecting on that like why is that that's happening. And so I would really speak to the power of integrity and really understanding how we rebuild integrity and political office. And then I would also look as well this idea of shame is I think so key we, it's such a powerful political tool but I think it's incredibly destructive. Because the more we shame people I think we find that it has a counterintuitive logic we think by shaming people for not wearing masks for not behaving according to certain norms of society for deviating from the standard expectations of behavior we think that they will change their course of action and come back to behave in the way that we expect they should. But actually shame often forces people to entrench even more in that identity or to do other behaviors that are equally provocative. And I think it also makes it harder for them to then feel heard and understood which makes it harder to then connect to bring them back into the political space to then create something that's more inclusive and fair and so we need to be looking at how we're using it. And shame certainly has a role, but we need to look at when it's when the balance is wrong. Thank you very much Claire that was very enlightening. You talked earlier in your in your in your presentation you talked about morality and and that was sort of linked into the question of sincere empathy versus performative empathy. Could it be that there and what you also talked about how we don't necessarily see Trump's empathy, even though his followers might see his approach as empathetic, whereas we are for us it's easier to recognize Biden's empathy. But this have something to do with different moral codes so that the value set Trump appeals to gets transmitted through a vehicle that is recognizable by his followers as empathetic and not by us because we have a different value set which is more likely to be a certain value set of morality and this is where one can then start talking about maybe different types of morality, which made it make a difference in what we recognize as empathy. I wonder whether you had any thoughts about that or on that. Yes, I mean I think, I think discussions of morality is so interesting and also again quite subjective and we can, we could have a kind of incredible philosophical discussion about. I really think it speaks to as well as the diversity in people's expectations of politics and politicians, and what they feel their role is, and what they feel their engagement with it is and also how involved they want politicians to be and it's one politicians who are taking up a moral crusade to end hunger and poverty and provide education for all or do you actually believe that the imperative of politicians is to leave you well alone, and to just provide the very basics and then it's up to you to be a powerful citizen who provides it. And I think we see this especially in America that there are different expectations and demands made. And it's slightly less I think in the UK because we have different systems and structures. And I know throughout Europe and beyond this kind of every society has its different kind of origins and evolution that it speaks to but I think especially in America. So morality is connected to what people want to see and what they feel is needed and required of society. And we're seeing that really play out right now. Thank you very much. I have a question from Monica Jill. Thank you for you for a great discussion could Claire possibly speak to the relationship between empathy and compassion, how as tools might they be deployed in different ways in politics. Thank you Claire. And I really probably should have given a definition in the first opening section on the difference between everything compassion so thank you for that question. So, everything compassion, I think are connected, but they're not the same. Compassion is an expression of care for another and it's often pro social acts of compassion often compels action it compels a response for you to try to alleviate or help the suffering or pain of another. And there's this amazing movement right now compassion and politics which is really looking at putting care back into politics and really looking at how do we design societies that really privilege individuals, especially vulnerable individuals but everybody as part of a society. And so I think compassion therefore becomes a really motivating tool for this citizen centric approach to politics and empathy is connected to that and empathy is about acknowledging that there is no unity, unitary experience of society and politics, and that there is there is a diversity and plurality of experiences, but it doesn't necessarily compel action to alleviate pain or suffering. I think as a model could but as we spoke about the subjectivity of empathy means that it's multi directional. And so you then get into questions of, who are you empathizing with, what are the implications of that empathy, what's the power of that empathy, who, who should you direct your attention towards whose story should you be listening to. So empathy serves as a tool to try to gather as much information, and as much understanding to make informed, sensitive responsive policies to the very different communities and experiences that we have with any within any country. But it doesn't necessarily compel that same action, we then determine how much it informs the responses. So it's more cognitive in some ways. Thank you very much Claire I have two more questions both are slightly lengthy but I will still read them up because you need the context in which they've been asked both contributors thank you very much for a wonderful or fantastic discussion. So they both were enamored, which is good. So Caroline Faber is asking, when you were talking about the role of empathy informed policy and particularly in US China relations. She was thinking about how empathy might connect to or be more central to administrations that have adopted an explicitly feminist foreign or development policies such as Sweden and Canada. And so Caroline was wondering whether you had any thoughts on what role empathy might play in a feminist foreign policy. I think it's absolutely key to a feminist foreign policy. And again, there's some great people who are doing work on feminist foreign policy right now, such as essential from feminist foreign policy. And it really, because of, because the very idea is saying there is not one voice within a foreign policy, it forces people to confront alternative voices. And to say how do women for example experience politics differently how do policies have diverse implications depending on your gender or your sexuality or your position within society. And what are the implications then for the impact of that policy and I think these countries that you mentioned that have started to consider it recognizing that politics has manifold applications. And if we only look very narrowly at politics as being about dealing with a citizen who is kind of homogenous and data driven, we miss the fact that there are so many different stories. We miss the fact that people come from so many different backgrounds and that there is this very different encounter with politics. And so I think it forces self reflection and I think that's also one of the things that's key to empathy for me is for people to be empathetic they have to be willing to self reflect both on their own assumptions their prejudices their experiences and their past actions and behaviors and be able to acknowledge how that's had an impact on others and be willing to kind of recognize and change it where appropriate. I think it's that kind of management of ego that's really key. Management of ego I like that concept. That is a very, very important concept. I think underwriting the power of humor is partly related to self defecation. So Callis Loggins, I hope I didn't completely mangle and mispronounce that surname. Thanks you for a fantastic discussion and says, I'm interested in your recent work on strategic empathy you spoke earlier about that crucial difference between performative and sincere empathy, but where do you draw the line between the strategic empathy is almost inherently a tool for achieving political aim. Is it more about the motivation behind that expression of empathy or rather about the goal it's trying to achieve. Or is that judgment simply made from an individual's own subjectivity. So the difference small western really cool and the difference between strategic and performative empathy. I say strategic empathy, as I understand it is. It's about using empathy as a way to inform sound decision making that takes into account the longer term in longer term, longer term implications of a policy, and really being able to consider how do other people experience what we're doing. How have other people in the past experienced us. So for example in the case of the US and China, the US would ask, how does China view the United States based on its past interactions with it. But you know the opening of China in the 1800s and that sense of century of humiliation it's understanding the other to then determine how you design policy and strategy that's more responsive and nuanced towards someone else. And so it comes, it covers a much broader range of processes within policymaking and politics in terms of decision making in terms of diplomatic practice in terms of the ideas and intellectual process involved. Formative empathy is then about this sense of using empathy to signal your virtues to signal your character and your care. And that then can be sincere or it could be solely because you acknowledge people right now need to see that I am on top of the great wall of China talking about China's cultural heritage, because people need to feel within China not the people across the table in the room, I mean, but the people of China need to see that America is thinking differently about China, and that we're acknowledging the civilization and the decades of animosity that we've had and to signal that it's coming to an end. And it's not then about understanding the whole Chinese population in a strategic sense to understand the formative power that empathy has in saying, we are changing, we are listening, we are caring. And so for me, it's slightly different. They're very connected, but it's slightly different performative is very much that kind of you see as well a lot of people talk about how empathetic they are and then you see that actually behind the scenes they're not necessarily practicing it or putting it into effect. It's very much about the need to be seen to be virtuous and that virtue signaling. Thank you, Claire. I'm Marina de Largi. I hope that's correct. So does empathy exist in politics and post Soviet countries, for example, in Russia or Ukraine, which I think is a really interesting question. I'm assuming it does exist, but let's see what Claire tells us. Yes, I mean, I think whatever you have a sense of shared history or shared identity or common stories, you will find that there are sources of empathy that people will feel a sense of connection for the other. The question is then what do people do with that. How does that then inform the way in which they engage with others, their sense of identity. How does it inform politics and I think we've seen in some of the post Soviet countries that some leaders have really played on the empathy that they've, you know, that sense of connection that they feel in terms of identity to their history to try to create a different sense of national identity today. But I'm not an expert on kind of the post Soviet states themselves to be able to give very concrete detailed examples of exactly where we're seeing it. So Vladimir Putin is quite skilled at creating performative empathy, his photo series of, of riding their chested through Siberia or gambling with little baby tigers probably is meant to create empathetic connections with a large part of the Russian population. So I'm assuming there's quite a lot, a lot in there. And one last questions, question. Nikki has come back, which is welcome back Nikki. She asks, in my reading on empathy, I have recently discovered the topic of empathy fatigue, particularly from Professor Kristen Neff, often referenced by Brené Brown. Is this something that you have seen in your research and could you speak to that please. Yes, I think it's absolutely key this idea that we only have so much bandwidth emotionally, personally, politically. And this idea of empathy fatigue where you can no longer take in the concerns of others and this is why when I'm in the concluding part of my remarks really talking about the need for boundaries within this and again it's something that this authors also speak about that need to set the sense of, I care, but these are the boundaries like this is what I cannot engage with. And so I think we need to look at how we manage that kind of fatigue, how do you learn about different experiences and really understand some of the hardships that people are going through that maybe we're unaware of either because we haven't thought to before because actually, it feels like too much to care we need to be able to engage with that and I think the more we're able to discuss it, and we're able to talk about for example Britain's history of slavery and colonialism we have to be having that conversation. And I think in that process there will be a sense of empathy fatigue that people will, because they don't know what how to process the emotions that arise with that storytelling but we have to do it. And then you have a storytelling process. The more we talk about the problems of those stories, like how it is hard to learn these things that have not been told or shared, but absolutely should be told or shared because they're part of our collective history. The easier it becomes to manage it that this isn't something that you have to do on your own. It's a collective effort and I think that therefore helps to alleviate some of that fatigue but we also need to recognize that it's okay to say, today I need to turn off the news. Today I don't need to hear another story about the pandemic. I cannot watch a documentary about war. I'm going to take a break and then I'm going to come back to it when I'm ready. Like this need for us to always be on and always be empathetic is I think also harmful for ourselves. So it's finding the way to balance it intelligently. So we use it most constructively and most powerfully. Thank you Claire. Now, this is really the last question that we can just about squeezing. This is from Francisco Lobo. Thank you for your presentation he says. Do you and I'm very glad we have a little bit more gender balance here because it was very much skewed towards the female part of the audience. Initially so Francisco, you've done well. So yes, do you believe empathy is the modern equivalent of the revolutionary concept of fraternity and if so how can it do better than its predecessor in the 21st century so how can it do better now than its predecessor had been doing. Yes, I mean I think in some ways yes I think all of these concepts have in common is a desire to recognize our shared humanity. We're all individuals. We're all part of the same community in so many ways and we need to then reconnect with others. And I think empathy is about that process of recognizing the shared humanity with others and of trying to work, not for our individual self aggrandizement and our own gain. But for the collective good and to work together as part of a society to create something better that really addresses the inequalities and injustices that people are seeing and to try and reduce the harms that people are experiencing. I think these themes are recurring. I think empathy broadens it beyond fraternity to sisters and everybody else within the spectrum of humankind and we need to be doing that. Well, thank you very much Claire. We are almost entirely on the dot. I mean that is well organized. Thank you for what I thought was an amazingly interesting last hour. It was one of those highlights of the day. But if I don't learn anything else today, then I shall have done all my learning and then some. I hope everyone in the audience goes away as enriched and stimulated for further thoughts and has lots of other creative ideas around empathy. Thank you again for joining us and for making this such a rewarding experience. I shall formally close the session in a second, but I want to ask never whether he would like to have the last word. Forgive me I'd already switched off just so you wouldn't hear me me drinking my coffee. I'd just like to thank Claire very much for being so open and responsive as well because some of these questions have been really, really quite challenging questions. And thank you. Thank you for addressing them and embracing them with great sympathy and understanding. And I agree with Andrea. I've learned a lot today and I'll carry a lot away from this from this session. Thank you. Thank you to everybody as well for taking part and joining us. Yes, thank you to all the participants for asking very, very good questions. So have a great afternoon and when the weekend comes a great weekend.