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Dacher Keltner

Dacher Keltner Biography

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“These scientific studies countervail the influential claims of the Kants, Nietzsches, and Rands about the nature of human goodness. Compassion is not a blind emotions that catapults people pell-mell toward the next warm body that walks by. Instead, compassion is exquisitely attuned to harm and vulnerability in others. Compassion does not render people tearful idlers, moral weaklings, or passive onlookers but individuals who will take on the pain of others, even when given the chance to skip out on such difficult action or in anonymous conditions. The kindness, sacrifice, and jen that make up healthy communities are rooted in a bundle of nerves that has been producing caretaking behavior for over 100 million years of mammalian evolution.”

ScienceCompassionPsychologyGoodnessVulnerability
Book:Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life
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“Studies have shown touch to be the primary language of compassion, love and gratitude - emotions at the heart of trust and cooperation - even more than facial expressions and voice. Touch is the central medium in which the goodness of one individual can spread to another. Touch is the original contact high.”

HeartIndividualLanguageVoiceEmotionCompassionStudyExpressionGratitudeGoodnessOriginalsSpreadContactMediumsPrimariesCooperationFacialLove And GratitudeFacial Expression
Author:Dacher Keltner
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“The power paradox is that we gain power by advancing the welfare of other people and yet when we feel powerful, it turns us into impulsive sociopaths and we lose those very skills. If you're in the military, you gain power by forging strong ties in your comrades. And then the irony is that once we feel powerful and we are taken with our own success, we ignore the skills that got us power in the first place.”

PeopleStrongPowerfulTakenMilitaryIronyWelfareParadoxComradeSociopathImpulsive
Author:Dacher Keltner
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“If you have that spark that inspires other people, if you have a spark that gives resources to other people, that shares in really collaborative fashion, a spark of wit that kind of tells a story that gives people novel perspective of something, that's the kind of charisma that really leads to lasting power. It's not the kind of charisma that's seductive and self-aggrandizing. It's really a sort of a kind of social energy that really brings about the best in other people.”

PeopleGivingKindEnergyNovelShareFashionInspirePerspectiveWitSeductiveCharisma
Author:Dacher Keltner
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