Our next speaker to be introduced is Professor Jerzy Vetulani, PhD (Medical University of Silesia and the Medical University in Łódź). Dr Vetulani is a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and is currently a professor at the J. Dietla Małopolska Higher Vocational School in Kraków and, after hours, at the Institute of Pharmacology at the Polish Academy of Sciences. In addition to his award-winning academic work, Dr Vetulani strives to popularise the field of neurobiology through his blog, “Piekno Neurobiologii” (“The Beauty of Neurobiology”) as well as his books How to Improve Memory, The Brain: Fascinations, Problems and Secrets (Kraków book of the month in January 2011) and The Beauty of Neurobiology.
His talk at this year’s TEDxKraków will focus on two prominent human emotions: empathy and aggression. Both emotions can be either beneficial or harmful, but it is their meeting that gives the most interesting results according to Dr Vetulani.
The explosive combination of empathy and aggression can be awoken in us by many events – for example, empathy for the victims of a tragic accident can lead to aggressive searching for the perpetrators and a desire for bloody revenge. It’s also responsible for many misguided political decisions. A deep empathy for the victims of the Smolensk catastrophe led to acts of mass aggression, directed not against the perpetrators but against those who didn’t display as much empathy.
This mixture of aggression and empathy can also lead to harsh and socially destructive laws. Thankfully, in Western civilisations we are observing an increase in empathy and the limiting of aggression, which has led to a transformation in the perceived purpose of punishment (a tempering of the law). However, the innate aggression and empathy that is present in all humans means that the majority of more primitive societies accept the death penalty or call for its return.
This fascinating association, amongst many others, will be examined in detail at this year’s TEDxKraków. Have you registered?