RSA Animate - The Power of Outrospection

Viva la Revolucion!

This is a great video that I found via Twitter @steven_oriodan. RSA Animate is fantastic. I think empathy and fear are two of the motivating factors that drive us to create change.  However, Roman Krznarik states that for the past century we have been led to believe that the best method for effecting change is to look within and change ourselves thereby changing the world.  This is introspection.  Mr. Krznarik goes on to state that the opposite might actually be true.  The opposite of introspection is the little used extrospection which means to seek change outside of oneself.  On a humanistic level that idea might translate to empathy which is the core of Mr. Krznarik’s thesis.

According to Merriam-Webster online empathy is “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.” Roman Krznarik says “I believe that empathy – the imaginative act of stepping into another person’s shoes and viewing the world from their perspective – is a radical tool for social change and should be a guiding light for the art of living. Over the past decade, I have become convinced that it has the power not only to transform individual lives, but to help tackle some of the great problems of our age, from wealth inequality to violent conflicts and climate change.”

As a theatre director this idea fascinates me.  Isn't this the very thing that makes theatre special? Every day an actor steps into another person’s shoes and views the world from their perspective and by doing so allows the audience to as well. The very act of theatre brings people together and breaks the barrier of separation that seems to be at the very core of humanity.  The theatre has always been a place where it is uniquely possible to create change through empathy. The real question is how much more purposeful can we be as theatre artists with regard to outrospection? 

Finally I love his idea for an living museum whose purpose is to create empathy through time.