“Horse whispering!”, cries Rit. “They want all female staff members to take obligatory horse whispering courses! On some remote Greek island! With evenings spent reciting Sapphic poetry! It’s going to cost us a fortune!”. Rit leads your company’s unit for effective regulations on spending (e.r.o.s.). “Horse whispering?”, you ask. “Yes”, replies Rit. “All female staff members?”, you ask. “Yes”, replies Rit. “Why?”, you ask.
Let’s look at the benefits of emocracy[1]. As emotions rule our world, what do we gain[2]? At first glance, quite a lot: Who wouldn’t appreciate a society in which human beings are aware of their emotions, can freely express how they feel, and receive respect from others for their feelings? In this vein, “empathy” – the ability to understand and share the feelings of others – has become a universal spell for our times, from raising kids to caring for the sick, from marriage to management, and from “The Empathic Civilization”[3] to “Empathy and Democracy”[4] and “Digital Empathy”[5]. So the rule of emotions, it seems, carries an inbuilt prerequisite for these emotions to be shared, heard and listened to. Emocracy’s benefits come with a catch[6].
