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Abstract
My paper analyzes the play Homo Empathicus (2014) by Rebekka Kricheldorf. The play describes a community of hyperempathic people in which the distinguishing traits of religion, biological sex, and age have disappeared. In representing a postdramatic society, Kricheldorf takes the ethic of ‘political correctness’ to the extreme (that is, the linguistic practice through which discrimination on the basis of social class, gender, bodily characteristics, etc., can be eliminated): the elderly become ‘Long-Lived’, and the young are ‘Young-Lived’. The grave digger is an ‘Earth-Rester’, and the manager of a public spa is a ‘Hygiene Specialist’. Jeremy Rifkin’s book, The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis, in which the Homo empathicus was theorized for the first time, was the main impulse behind the play. Another significant inspiration came from the Guide to Non-Discriminatory Language, Behaviour, and Representation published by the Austrian Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs in 2010.
Notes on Contributor
Massimo Salgaro’s areas of research are: Robert Musil (Robert Musil in der Klagenfurter Ausgabe. Bedingungen und Möglichkeiten einer digitalen Edition, Fink: 2014), the intersection between science and literature (Mythos Rhythmus. Wissenschaft. Kunst und Literatur um 1900 (with M. Vangi), Steiner Verlag: 2016) and cognitive/empirical studies on literature (‘How Literary Can Literariness Be? Methodological Problems in the Study of Foregrounding’, SSOL, 5/2, 2015, 229–49).
Notes
† English translation by Wendell Ricketts.
1 Hans-Thies Lehmann, Postdramatisches Theater (Frankfurt a.M.: Verlag der Autoren, 1999), pp. 464–66.
2 Zimmermann rightly asks, ‘Ein Drama ohne Konflikt — kann man das schreiben, kann der Zuschauer das aushalten?’ Dietmar Zimmermann, ‘Vorgewärmtes Klopapier’, Theater pur.net, June 2015 <http://theaterpur.net/theater/schauspiel/2015/06/muelheim-stuecke-homo-empathicus.html>.
3 Citations from the German version of Homo Empathicus are taken from: Rebekka Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, Theater Heute 1, 1–11 (here p. 7).
4 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 4.
5 Ibid., p. 3.
6 Kricheldorf’s epigraph, ‘Hell is your private creation’, which appears in the play’s script before instructions to the director, favours a dystopian interpretation. Rashid Ben Dhiab also focuses his attention on the dystopian nature of Homo Empathicus in his article in Kindlers Literaturlexikon. The main model for Homo Empathicus is likely George Orwell’s 1984, particularly in its annulment of difference of all kinds (sex, age, religion) and in the use of ‘Newspeak’. For Ben Dhiab, the society Kricheldorf creates, strongly conformist in its way of dressing and governed by rules of both behaviour and diet, is striking for its dystopian and unearthly absence of conflict (Rashid Ben Dhiab, ‘Homo Empathicus’, in Kindler Kompakt, ed. C. Freudenstein-Arnold (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2016), pp. 198–200, here pp. 198–99).
7 Indeed, in a postdramatic work, the final curtain does not mark the real end of the action. As a result, repetition is the most typical technique of postdramatic theatre (Lehmann, Postdramatisches Theater, p. 334).
8 Sidler, director of the Deutschen Theater in Göttingen, Germany, where Homo Empathicus received its world premier on 3 October 2014, said in an interview, ‘Rebekka Kricheldorf und ich haben überlegt, was Sprache kann. Klar ist, dass Sprache unser Denken beeinflusst. Political Correctness betont dies auch, sagt etwa, dass man hierarchische Verhältnisse eliminieren kann, wenn man entsprechende Begriffe aus der Sprache nimmt … . Theater glaubt auch an die Sprache. Wir haben gedacht, es wäre interessant, durchzuexerzieren, was passiert, wenn wir das politisch Korrekte verwirklicht haben … . Kricheldorf hat dazu eine Utopie entworfen und spielt das durch’ (Bettina Fraschke, ‘Interview mit Erich Sidler: “Das ist ein Glaubensbekenntnis”’, HNA.de, 28 September 2014 <https://www.hna.de/kultur/das-glaubensbekenntnis-3992883.html.2014>).
9 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 6.
10 Ibid., p. 5.
11 The term ‘Vorgewärmtes Klopapier’ is also the title of one of the most perceptive reviews of Homo Empathicus; see Zimmerman, ‘Vorgewärmtes Klopapier’.
12 Daniel Mercure, ‘Le Nouveau Modèle de pouvoir et de Domination au Travail dans le Mode de Production Post-Fordiste’, Sociologies (2013), 1–16 <http://journals.openedition.org/sociologies/4227>.
13 Ibid., p. 15.
14 As sources of inspiration for Homo Empathicus, Kricheldorf notes the Austrian government’s Guide to Non-Discriminatory Language, Behavior, and Representation (I. Voglmayr, Leitfaden für diskriminierungsfreie Sprache, Handlungen, Bilddarstellungen) (Vienna: Bundesministerium für Arbeit, Soziales und Konsumentenschutz, 2010), Jeremy Rifkin’s The Empathic Civilization (The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010)), Orwell’s 1984, and Huxley’s Brave New World. In addition to these, she also made use of sources that ‘I stole from the internet and can no longer reconstruct’ (Rebekka Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, ed. by Massimo Salgaro (Imola: CuePress, 2017), pp. 78–79).
15 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 4.
16 Ibid., p. 8.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 H. J. Wagner, Der Homo Empathicus: Ein Leitbild für die humanökologische Neuordnung einer nachhaltigen Gesellschaft (Munich: Oekom, 2013), p. 15.
20 Ibid., p. 49.
21 Ibid., p. 74.
22 Möhringer, in the play, observes for example that ‘Bei den Wilden herrschte eine gnadenlose erotische Selektion’.
23 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 8.
24 Rifkin, The Empathic Civilization, p. 90.
25 Ibid., pp. 7–8.
26 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 8.
27 Rifkin, The Empathic Civilization, p. 548.
28 ‘In the distributed capitalist economy, where collaboration trumps competition, access rights become as important as property rights and quality of life figures as prominently as the desire for personal financial success, empathic sensibility has room to breathe and thrive. It is no longer so constrained by hierarchies, boundaries of exclusion, and a concept of human nature that places acquisitiveness, self-interest, and utility at the center of the human experience’ (Rifkin, The Empathic Civilization, p. 553).
29 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 8.
30 Rifkin, The Empathic Civilization, pp. 14–15.
31 Ibid., pp. 24–25.
32 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 7.
33 Ibid., p. 8. Since its beginnings as an area of research, applied psychology, originally called ‘psychotechnique’, has been concerned with putting ‘the right man in the right place’. See C. Piorkowski, Die psychologische Methode der wirtschaftlichen Berufseignung (Leipzig: Barth, 1919), pp. 7–8, p. 56.
34 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 8.
35 Rifkin, The Empathic Civilization, p. 405.
36 Mercure, ‘Le Nouveau Modèle’, pp. 14–15. Mercure clearly notes that work relationships dominated by intersubjective dynamics become increasingly complex and delicate and touch dangerously on the sources of the individual’s personal sense of self (p. 16). See also C. Thuderoz, ‘L’opposition au Travail: Éléments d’ un Modèle d’Analyse’, in Travail et Subjectivité: Perspectives Critiques, ed. D. Mercure and M. P. Bourdages-Sylvain (Paris-Québec: Hermann et PUL, 2017), pp. 299–315.
37 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 8.
38 R. Hank, ‘Ein Ferrari macht nicht lange glücklich’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 23 December 2008 <http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/wirtschaftswissen/gluecksforschung-ein-ferrari-macht-nicht-lange-gluecklich-1742418-p2.html>.
39 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 7.
40 The line is almost a verbatim quotation from a review of Paech’s work in which he is quoted as follows: ‘Wer sich elegant eines ausufernden Konsum- und Mobilitätsballastes entledigt, ist davor geschützt, im Hamsterrad der käuflichen Selbstverwirklichung orientierungslos zu werden’; see Sonja Ernst, ‘Abschied vom Wachstumscredo’ [Review of Niko Paech’s Befreiung vom Überfluss: Auf dem Weg in die Postwachstumsökonomie]. Deutschlandfunk.de, 6 August 2012 <http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/abschied-vom-wachstumscredo.1310.de.html?dram:article_id=217510>. Niko Paech is the author of Befreiung vom Überfluss: Auf dem Weg in die Postwachstumsökonomie (Munich: Oekom, 2012), cited in the interview.
41 See Bertold Brecht, ‘Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe’, in Bertolt Brecht: Werke, vol. 3 (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1988), p. 230.
42 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 7. The line recalls a sentence from Berthold Brecht’s play Saint Joan of the Stockyards: ‘ Sorgt doch, dass Ihr die Welt verlassend / Nicht nur gut ward, sondern verlasst / Eine gute Welt ’.
43 In Kricheldorf’s work, clashes between the sexes often take on a violent aspect. See e.g. Testosteron: Eine schwarze Parabel (Berlin: Kiepenheuer Bühnenvertrieb, 2012), Alltag und Ekstase (Berlin: Kiepenheuer Bühnenvertrieb, 2014), Villa Dolorosa: Drei missratene Geburtsage [Three Disastrous Birthdays] (Berlin: Kiepenheuer Bühnenvertrieb, 2014), and In der Fremde (Berlin: Kiepenheuer Bühnenvertrieb, 2015).
44 In describing her esthetic, Kricheldorf says that ‘Die Sprache wird zum Hauptdarsteller’ — damit kann ich mich eindeutig identifizieren. Aber mich interessiert Sprache als Sprechakt, in Verbindung mit einer Figur in einer Situation, und weniger als ‘Sprachfläche’. Man könnte sagen, dass mich nicht die Sprache interessiert, sondern das Sprechen. Das Wegsprechen oder Herbeireden, das Verdrängen durch Sprechen, das Entlarven durch Sprechen, das sich im Sprechen Verheddern, das Subtext- Aussprechen und eben der Dominanzversuch durch Sprechen’. See A. Birkner, ‘Gespräch mit Rebekka Kricheldorf: “Keine besonders weibliche Handschrift”’, in Spielräume des Anderen: Geschlecht und Alterität im postdramatischen Theater, ed. A. Birkner, N. Geier and U. Helduser (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2014), pp. 233–40, here p. 235.
45 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 9.
46 Ibid., p. 5.
47 Ibid., p. 6.
48 S. Winter, ‘Eine gewisse geistige Androgynität: Ein Gespräch mit Rebekka Kricheldorf’, in Radikal weiblich? Theaterautorinnen heute, ed. C. Künzel (Berlin: Theater der Zeit), pp. 108–26, here p. 121.
49 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 5.
50 Ibid., p. 7.
51 Ibid.
52 ‘Ich versuche in meinen Stücken immer, in der Form einen gewissen Grad an Künstlichkeit aufrecht zu erhalten … . Ich möchte meine Figuren trotz aller Verwandtschaft mit echten Menschen immer als Kunstfiguren verstanden wissen. Wenn sie sprechen, dann sprechen sie in einer Kunstsprache, die die natürliche Sprache zwar berücksichtigt, aber nicht imitiert. Ich halte auch nicht viel von dem Begriff “Authentizität”, da ich die so genannte Wirklichkeit nicht als natürlich empfinde: Unser angeblich unverfälschtes, pures Verhalten ist ein von komplexen Kriterien der Kultur, der Normen oder Auflehnungsversuchen geformtes Produkt’ (Winter, ‘Eine gewisse geistige Androgynität’, p. 119).
53 Fraschke, ‘Interview mit Erich Sidler’.
54 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, ed. by Salgaro, pp. 78–79.
55 Voglmayr, Leitfaden.
56 Ibid., p. 10.
57 Ibid., p. 11.
58 Ibid., pp. 16–20.
59 Ibid., p. 31.
60 The plot of Homo Empathicus also makes use of a number of repetitions, including the Raja’s acrobatic stunts (seven times), the group dance performance (three times), and the selling of foodstuffs at Charlie’s stand.
61 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 5.
62 Ibid., pp. 4, 6–7. ‘Nichts so gut ist, dass es nicht noch besser werden könnte’ (Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, pp. 5, 8) is repeated three times, as is the phrase Adam uses to justify his behaviour: ‘Ich schlug sie, denn das war die einzige Methode, mit meinem Schmerz umzugehen, die ich je gelernt hatte’ (Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 9).
63 Here I refer to the traditional ending of Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales: ‘Und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann leben sie noch heute’, which might be translated as ‘and if they have not died, then they are still alive today’. The narration of Kim’s fairy tale in Scene 9 begins, of course, with ‘Es war einmal ein Mensch’ (Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 5).
64 Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale (Texas: University of Texas Press, 1968).
65 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 4.
66 Ibid., p. 6.
67 Michael Ende, Momo oder Die seltsame Geschichte von den Zeit-Dieben und von dem Kind, das den Menschen die gestohlene Zeit zurückbrachte (Stuttgart: Thienemann, 2005). First published 1973.
68 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 9.
69 Ibid., p. 9.
70 Adam and Eve’s outmoded language is perhaps the most direct reference to Orwell. Newspeak is the language introduced by Big Brother in 1984 to take the place of Oldspeak, a language that permitted ambiguity and semantic richness. Newspeak, conversely, is a heavily scaled-back language that, from its very inception, cancels out every means of alternative thought (see the Appendix in the 1981 Signet edition of 1984, pp. 246–56).
71 O. Hanse, A L’école du Rhythme (Saint-Etienne: Presses de l’Université de Saint-Etienne, 2010).
72 Referring to Adam and Eve, Dr. Osho enigmatically scolds Sam when he tells him: ‘Natürlich können und müssen wir auch in seinem Fall von einem Menschen sprechen, auch wenn es tatsächlich auf den ersten Blick recht wenig Menschliches an ihm zu entdecken gibt, Sam’ (Kricheldorf 2015: 9). In his 1999 study of the utopian and dystopian novel, Voyages aux Pays de Nulle Part: Histoire Littéraire de la Pensée Utopique, Raymond Trousson includes the character of the ‘legislator’ as one of the typical features of such writing. This ‘nearly divine’ individual serves as a watchdog of order who is worshipped and respected by the utopian community. In preaching the doctrine of collective well-being, such figures view all individuality with suspicion (R. Trousson, Voyages aux Pays de Nulle Part: Histoire Littéraire de la Pensée Utopique (Brussels: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1999, pp. 17–18); see also K. Kumar, Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times (Oxford: Basil, 1987), pp. 288–347.
73 ‘Ihr seid schon längst ausgestorben. Ihr seid nicht mehr. Lasst los. Bald werdet ihr anderen, kleineren Lebewesen als Nahrungsgrundlage dienen’ (Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 11).
74 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 11.
75 Ibid.
76 Ibid.
77 Ibid.
78 Even in Shakespeare’s line itself, the difference between theatrical reality and fiction is nullified.
79 Rifkin, The Empathic Civilization, p. 15. See also Wagner, Der Homo Empathicus, pp. 96–99, who correctly distinguishes between the affective and cognitive dimensions of empathy.
80 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 8.
81 Ibid.
82 Ibid., p. 6.
83 Ibid., p. 7.
84 Ibid., p. 6.
85 Rifkin, The Empathic Civilization, pp. 208–09.
86 Simon Baron-Cohen, The Essential Difference: Male and Female Brains and the Truth about Autism (New York: Lane, 2004).
87 Rifkin, The Empathic Civilization, pp. 271–72.
88 These studies include M. Cometa, Perché le Storie Ci Aiutano a Vivere: La Letteratura Necessaria (Milan: Cortina, 2017), pp. 248–65; S. Keen, Empathy and the Novel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); L. Zunshine, Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2006); and A. Coplan, ‘Understanding Empathy: Its Features and Effects’, in Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, ed. A. Coplan and P. Goldie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 4–19.
89 Kricheldorf, Homo Empathicus, p. 11.
90 Ibid.
91 Rifkin, The Empathic Civilization, p. 82.
92 Ibid., p. 83.
93 A. Pinotti, Empatia. Storia di un’Idea da Platone al Postumano (Bari: Laterza, 2011).
94 See Vittorio Gallese, ‘Arte, Corpo, Cervello: Per un’Estetica Sperimentale’, Micromega (2014), 49–67; Wojciehowski and Gallese, ‘How Stories Make Us Feel: Toward an Embodied Narratology’, California Italian Studies, 2:1 (2011), 3–37); and Gallese and Guerra, Lo Schermo Empatico: Cinema e Neuroscienze (Milan: Cortina, 2015).
95 See Vittorio Gallese, ‘Il Corpo Teatrale: Mimetismo, Neuroni Specchio, Simulazione Incarnata’, Culture teatrali, 16 (2008), 13–38.
96 In ‘The Inner Sense of Action: Agency and Motor Representations’, Gallese explained that his theory demonstrated the impossibility of distinguishing between action and observation. In the same essay, he explained that observation of objects stimulates the same CNS motor and neural systems that would be involved in interacting physically with the object. Observing an object, then, means simulating a potential action (Vittorio Gallese, ‘The Inner Sense of Action: Agency and Motor Representations’, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 7:10 (2000), 23–40, here pp. 28, 31). Regarding the renewed application of these concepts to the reader of literature, see M. Salgaro, ‘Estetica della Ricezione, Psicologia Cognitiva e Neuroscienze’, in Verso Una Neuroestetica della Letteratura, ed. id. (Rome: Aracne, 2009), pp. 137–67.
97 Gallese, ‘Il Corpo Teatrale’ p. 38.
98 See Simon Baron-Cohen, The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty (New York: Basic Books, 2012), Paul Bloom, ‘Against Empathy’, Boston Review, 10 September 2014; H. T. Shumon, Homo Empathicus: Versuch einer Evolutionären Anthropologie der Empathie (Bonn: Habelt, 2013), and Cameron, Inzlicht, and Cunningham, ‘Empathy Is Actually a Choice’, New York Times (online), 10 July 2015.
99 Martha Nussbaum, Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), p. xvi; S. Iyengar, To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence. National Endowment for the Arts, Research Report 47 (Washington, DC: Office of Research and Analysis, 2007), p. 67.
100 See M. Djikic, K. Oatley, and M. Moldoveanu, ‘Reading Other Minds: Effects of Literature on Empathy’, Scientific Study of Literature, 3:1 (2013), 28–47, and R. Mar, K. Oatley and J. B. Peterson, ‘Exploring the Link Between Reading Fiction and Empathy: Ruling Out Individual Differences and Examining Outcomes’, Communications: The European Journal of Communication, 34 (2009), 407–28.
101 D. C. Kidd and E. Castano, ‘Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind’, Science, 342 (2013), 377–80; D. C. Kidd, M. Ongis, and E. Castano, ‘On Literary Fiction and Its Effects on Theory of Mind’, in P. Sopčák, M. Salgaro, and J. B. Herrmann, eds., Transdisciplinary Approaches to Literature and Empathy, Scientific Study of Literature, 6:1 (2016), 42–58; M. C. Pino and M. Mazza, ‘The Use of “Literary Fiction” to Promote Mentalizing Ability’, PLoS One, 11:8 (2016), e0160254 <https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0160254>.
102 M. E Panero, D. S. Weisberg, J. Black, et al., ‘Does Reading a Single Passage of Literary Fiction Really Improve Theory of Mind? An Attempt at Replication’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111:5 (2016), e55; D. C. Kidd and E. Castano, ‘Panero et al.: Failure to Replicate Methods Caused the Failure to Replicate Results’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 112:3 (2016), e1–e4; Pino and Mazza, ‘The Use of “Literary Fiction”’.
103 D. R. Johnson, ‘Transportation into a Story Increases Empathy, Prosocial Behavior, and Perceptual Bias Toward Fearful Expressions’, Personality and Individual Differences, 52 (2012), 150–55; P. M. Bal and M. Veltkamp, ‘How Does Fiction Reading Influence Empathy? An Experimental Investigation on the Role of Emotional Transportation’, PLoS One, 8:1 (2013).
104 For a synopsis of the psychosocial and empirical literature on this topic, see A. Koopman and F. Hakemulder, ‘Effects of Literature on Empathy and Self-Reflection: A Theoretical-Empirical Framework’, Journal of Literary Theory, 9:1 (2015), 79–112.
105 Richard Posner criticizes Nussbaum’s claim that literature makes readers more sensitive to questions of social justice and to the needs of others. In Posner’s view, demagogues and manipulators also have a keen understanding of those around them. Richard Posner, ‘Against Ethical Criticism’, Philosophy and Literature, 21:1 (1997), 1–27, here p. 10.
106 Bloom, ‘Against Empathy’; see also J. J. Prinz, ‘Is Empathy Necessary for Morality’, in Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, ed. A. Coplan and P. Goldie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 211–29.
107 N. Bubandt and R. Willerslev, ‘The Dark Side of Empathy: Mimesis, Deception, and the Magic of Alterity’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 57:1 (2015), 5–34; F. Breithaupt, ‘Empathy for Empathy’s sake: Aesthetic and Everyday Aesthetic Sadism’, in Empathy and its Limits, ed. A. Assmann and I. Detmers (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 151–65.
108 M. Fusillo, ‘Sull’Empatia Negativa: Macbeth Secondo Verdi’, in Shakespeare: Un Romantico Italiano, ed. R. Bertazzoli and C. Gibellini (Florence: Cesati, 2017), pp. 183–95.