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Reconstructing Inclusion S3E3: When Empathy Becomes Optional: A Conversation with Maaria Mozaffar
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Welcome to Season Three of Reconstructing Inclusion!
When Empathy Becomes Optional: A Conversation with Maaria Mozaffar
When did empathy become something we can turn on and off? When did we start deciding which children deserve protection and which ones don't? These are the uncomfortable questions Maaria Mozaffar forces us to confront.
🔥 Standout Quotes:
"If you are watching that and you think it's just about legalities, should've known better, then I wanna know where your humanity is." [00:16:00]
"I don't believe humans have the right to consider other humans less human... I will keep an eye on every interaction and not pass the buck." [00:34:00]
"Watch your baby be crushed under buildings. We'll see if you're gonna look for someone to blame or you're gonna put on your backpack and say, let's lift this up." [00:35:00]
About Our Guest:
Maaria Mozaffar is an attorney, mediator, legislative drafter, and author of More Than Pretty: How to Live a Life of Substance in an Artificial World.
For over 15 years, she's been writing human-first policies that center dignity and interconnectedness. In this conversation, she argues that we've turned off our empathy and made it optional instead of essential—and that we have the power to turn it back on.
Resources Mentioned:
The Fox and the Hound (animated film): A story about friendship, identity, and choosing humanity over what we’re conditioned to believe.
More Than Pretty: How to Live a Life of Substance in an Artificial World by Maaria Mozaffar: A book about moving away from distractions and creating a life of substance and impact.
In This Episode:
- The three camps: happiness, helplessness, and hiding (and why none are serving us)
- How ethnocentrism is driving immigration policy
- Why we've made empathy optional and how to make it essential again
- Why global education is essential for breaking through propaganda
- How we've chosen to see some people as less deserving of dignity
- The power of one voice and one micro decision
- What it means to stop being an NPC in your own life
Let's Connect:
https://reconstructinginclusion.substack.com/
➡️ Subscribe to Reconstructing Inclusion for more unfiltered conversations about the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reconstructinginclusion.substack.com/subscribe
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