Positive Empathy

Robert Stagg’s article in issue 659 may have assisted India Knight’s in attempting to bury the concept of empathy alive, but I beg to differ. To my mind, the author has only managed to demonstrate the death of his own empathy.

As a scientific concept, there is sufficient support for a neurobiological account of empathy such that we can define mental disorders such as psychopathy partly in terms of a disordered or nonexistent sense of empathy. Clearly the author’s scepticism over “the concept that we can actually feel the thoughts and feelings of other human beings” is not shared by everyone, if indeed the author allows that such sharing is possible!

The author is entitled to call for less “mawkish sentimentality” and more cold hard facts in news reporting. But this is not the same as sounding the death knell for empathy in the media, much needed in a globalised world. One could argue that the loss of empathy where it is most needed, in the response to international crises such as Darfur and now Burma, is what is most “idiotic and hurtful”. To quote the poet John Donne: “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”.

Thomas Ling
Emmanuel College

A Welcome Revival

I am writing to comment on the University’s recent decision not to accept the proposal made by my then-H.o.D. to reduce Portuguese from a full Tripos language to a single paper. I was unsurprised at the University’s decision.

Portuguese is the fifth world language, spoken on four continents, one of the growing modern languages in universities in the UK, its graduates have an excellent employment track record, and in Cambridge the subject’s performance in teaching and research has had repeated praise heaped on it by the University’s assessment reviews. It would have been curiously inconsistent on the part of an institution that trades on its intelligence to have approved such a proposal.

With kind regards,

Manucha Lisboa
Reader in Portuguese
Department of Spanish and Portuguese and St. John’s College

Widening Access

The Sutton Trust report on admissions to Higher Education highlighted that a lack of resources in state schools, uneven aspirations and misperceptions about Oxbridge are the root causes of the gap between maintained and independent school admissions. Despite these difficulties, the majority of admissions to Oxbridge are from state schools.

Nonetheless, Cambridge University Students’ Union (CUSU), the colleges and the University realise that there is work still to be done. We continue to dedicate significant time and resources into reaching out to students from all backgrounds by visiting schools, producing guides and organising residential visits, such as the very successful February Shadowing Scheme.

This is to address the common, yet patently false, idea that Oxbridge is only accessible to the privileged. I hope that all readers who have been concerned by the media’s coverage of the recent report will get involved with the many Access schemes, and urge them to contact their college Access Officer, and to sign up to the new monthly CUSU Access bulletin.

Yours,

Charlotte Richer
CUSU Access Officer