Immigration: Empathy's Flickering Flames?

The Coming: Before Global Immigration

“Our ancestors … never had to deal with all of humanity as a factor in their daily lives,” write Burke and Ornstein (1995), “because for most of history they only knew a small number of individuals going about their particular activities in a very small world” (p. 280). Burke and Ornstein also remind us that our primeval ancestors had no need to consider the entire planet because it was “too big to have any meaningful impact” (p. 280).

Today, however, individuals in remote areas of the savannah are influenced by events in mega-cities around the globe. “Meanings, messages, and people” are circulating worldwide at unprecedented levels. Human beings are leaving indigenous places and spaces, searching ...