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Jeremy Rifkin, President of the Foundation on Economic Trends

The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis
Lecture and book presentation
organized by wiiw in cooperation with Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue, the Embassy of the United States of America and Campus Verlag
9 February 2010, 7 p.m.
Venue: Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue, Armbrustergasse 15, 1190 Vienna

Due to limited seating capacity please register until Thursday,
4 February 2010: e-mail: einladung.kreiskyforum@kreisky.org,
fax: +43 1 3188260/10, phone: +43 1 3188260/20
(We ask you to register as soon as possible, since we have to close the registration list as soon as the ceiling limit of 250 persons is reached.)

Welcome addresses by
Eva Nowotny, former Austrian Ambassador to the USA
H.E. William C. Eacho III, Ambassador of the United States of America
Introductory remarks by
Robert Misik, journalist and curator of the lecture series Genial dagegen

Jeremy Rifkin is president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and the author of numerous bestselling books on the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment. His books have been translated into more than thirty languages and are used in thousands of universities, corporations and government agencies around the world. He has been an advisor to the European Union for the past decade (he is advising the government of Spain during its presidency of the European Union, 1 January to 30 June 2010, and also served as an advisor to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister José Sócrates of Portugal, and Prime Minister Janez Janša of Slovenia, during their respective European Council Presidencies). He currently advises the European Commission, the European Parliament, and several EU heads of state. In his latest book Empathic Civilization Jeremy Rifkin presents a sweeping new interpretation of the history of civilization. He looks at the evolution of empathy and the profound ways it has shaped the human story - and will likely determine our fate as a species. As the forces of globalization accelerate and become ever more complex, the older faith-based and rational forms of consciousness are likely to become stressed, and even dangerous, as they attempt to navigate a world increasingly beyond their reach and control. The emergence of this empathetic consciousness has implications for the future that will likely be as profound and far-reaching as when Enlightenment philosophers upended faith-based consciousness with the canon of reason. Rifkin argues that human empathy is beginning to extend to all of life in the biosphere, giving rise - for the first time in history - to the prospect of truly global consciousness. The irony is that just as we are beginning to glimpse the possibility of global empathic consciousness, we find ourselves close to our own extinction. Can we reach global empathy in time to avoid the collapse of civilization and save the earth?

Jeremy Rifkin: Die empathische Zivilisation: Wege zu einem globalen Bewusstsein, Campus Verlag 2010; The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis, John Wiley & Sons; 2010.


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