Sherry Turkle on Empathy and the Narratives That Shape Our Lives

How do you like it so far?

This week, Sherry Turkle, MIT professor and author, joins Henry & Colin to discuss her new memoir, The Empathy Diaries. Sherry and Henry talk about their shared experiences of teaching arts & humanities at MIT. Since Sherry’s work is usually interpreted as a critique of technology and Henry’s work is interpreted as a support of technology, they both start by sharing some recent optimism that Sherry has about technology, and some recent pessimism that Henry has about technology. Sherry expresses concerns about people’s apathy about the increasing intrusion of technology in our lives, and how that could potentially lead to the erosion of our rights. Sherry reflects back on the process of memoir writing and questioning her own assumptions earlier in life. She shares a story about being asked to make dinner for Steve Jobs instead of being invited to a meeting with him, and how reflecting on that was a humbling experience. Ultimately, Sherry ends with posing a question about not only how we can see empathy as a pathway into politics, but how we can expand the definition of empathy and apply that to our own lives.

A full transcript of this episode will be available soon!

Here are some of the references from this episode, for those who want to dig a little deeper:

Sherry Turkle’s new memoir, The Empathy Diaries

Falling for Science, one of the books she edited of her students’ writing

Henry’s blog interview with Sherry Turkle

Sherry Turkle’s TED talk

The Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen

Henry and his son on the ASMR community

Hannah Arendt on Totalitarianism

Trump’s statement that republicans shouldn’t vote in 2022 and 2024 elections

Depaysement

Fiction that shaped Sherry’s childhood:
Nancy Drew - The Secret of the Old Clock
Jane Austen - Pride & Prejudice
My Fair Lady stage musical

Current TV she’s enjoying:
Succession (Influence of King Lear)
Dickinson

Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding Politics: How Americans Produce Apathy in Everyday Life

Henry’s memoir piece about comics and mourning can be found in Turkle’s Evocative Objects book

Allissa Richardson, Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones, and the New Protest #Journalism

Henry Jenkins’s Farewell to MIT

John Perry Barlow, “Declaration of Independence in Cyberspace”

Julian Dibbell, “A Rape in Cyberspace”

Atlas of the Civic Imagination

Share your thoughts via Twitter with Henry, Colin and the How Do You Like It So Far? account! You can also email us at [e-mail].

Music:
“In Time” by Dylan Emmett and “Spaceship” by Lesion X.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
In Time (Instrumental) by Dylan Emmet
https://soundcloud.com/dylanemme
Spaceship by Lesion X
https://soundcloud.com/lesionxbeats
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
Free Download / Stream:
https://bit.ly/in-time-instrumental
Free Download / Stream:
https://bit.ly/lesion-x-spaceship
Music promoted by Audio Library
https://youtu.be/AzYoVrMLa1Q
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Share your thoughts via Twitter with Henry, Colin and the How Do You Like It So Far? account! You can also email us at [e-mail].

Music:
“In Time” by Dylan Emmett and “Spaceship” by Lesion X.
In Time (Instrumental) by Dylan Emmet https://soundcloud.com/dylanemmet
Spaceship by Lesion X https://soundcloud.com/lesionxbeats
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/in-time-instrumental
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/lesion-x-spaceship
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/AzYoVrMLa1Q
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––