The Unholy Trinity

Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival. Dalai Lama

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all – the apathy of human beings. Helen Keller

People are not aware that there exist a category of people, people we sometimes call ‘almost human’, who look like us, who work with us, who are found in every race, every culture, speaking every language, but who are lacking conscience – and if there is anything that really separates humans from animals, I would suggest it is that: conscience. Henry See[1]

“We must step beyond this world of everyday, illusory thinking for our own good and for the good of our loved ones.” Andrzej Lobaczewski[2]

Psychologists refer to the behavioral spectrum as a Socio-Empath-Apath Triad, where socio can be applied interchangeable with psychopathy. The empath is everything the psychopath is not, so in a Psychopathic Civilization that places high value on psychopathic traits, measured by power, prestige, money and above all selfishness and callous lack of concern for others, where does the empath fit? As the speed and scale of civilization has ramped up and fueled the proliferation of psychopathic traits, so much so that they are now deeply embedded in our value set, is there a role for empathy, that ancient tribal trait that secured our passage through the Stone Age?

Before exploring empathy and apathy, a few reminders of how psychopathy has coloured our glasses with a mucky fog that guides us down many a false path is called for, lest we forget why we are here.

Since the dawn of the Agricultural Revolution, the psychopath has found fertile grounds on which to hunt. The predator is uniquely designed with the skills required to grasp authority and achieve his end prize of domination. Where tribal society was highly interdependent, civilization enables the psychopath to thrive in a world of strangers, most of whom became apathetic to this dark and destructive force.

As different as modern systems are to those formed early in the establishment of civilization, strong parallels can be drawn. The conditions required for psychopaths to thrive are common in both. Large populations of unrelated individuals enable psychopaths to execute tactics of manipulation and coercion with precision and impunity, striking and then hiding again in the weeds. Unrestrained by the social compact that tied small tribal groups together, his powers were unleashed in a pendulum swing we have yet to recover from.

The story of the Empath Strikes Back is one of root cause, arguing that the proliferation of psychopathic traits has served to hold humanity hostage from the point of our transition to a settled life. In order to recover from the resulting dysfunction, disruption and destruction, we must first understand our subject, the Goliath in our tale of good versus evil. Robert Hare educates us on the personality of the psychopath and Andrzej Lobaczewski on how psychopaths unite to control political and economic systems in what he calls the pathocracy. Heide Goettner-Abendroth’s research on matriarchal societies further enlightens us on the gender dimension and the decidedly masculine face of imposed hierarchy.

The psychological triad enables us to define personality attributes and to draw lines between them. The exercise if fuzzy and lines are blurred, particularly for apaths who fall between the poles of psychopathy and empathy. Drilling down into these behavioral categories is fruitful both on a macro-social level but also as we look at ourselves. It is incumbent upon each of us and in particular on those who claim to give a shit about the world, to question. What do we believe and what are we prepared to do to make the world a better place? Introspection is part of the awakening process.

We revere the successful and want to be special people just like them. The money and means, the fame, glamour and recognition, the influential friends, it’s all wrapped up in a compelling package for handy tabloid and vicarious social media consumption. What are they wearing, where are they going and with whom?

Our obsession with celebrity is a telling sign of a rising tide of bullshit that pervades our consciousness, dumbing down our ability to sensibly reason and act. Artists are history’s storytellers – we look back to them to appreciate the mindset of the time. It is no small irony that much of today’s art and in particular music, is vapid and devoid of timeless meaning. Most pop music offers us nothing but a cutsie moment of respite in glam bubbledom – the noise will dissipate and evaporate into the background of the rear view mirror. What is most striking and potentially memorable is the utter narcissism, a thin shell with hollowed innards, disposable and forgettable.

Celebrity’s twin sister is consumerism – feed the machine, keep on buying, disposing and buying more again. An ex-con come wise sage who spent 10 years in solitary confinement and 7 without even a book to read, had this to say: “We invented a consumer society which is continually seeking growth. When there’s no growth, it’s tragic. We invented a mountain of superfluous needs. You have to keep buying, throwing away. It’s our lives we are squandering. When I buy something, or when you buy it, we’re not paying with money. We’re paying with the time from our lives we had to spend to earn that money. The difference is that you can’t buy life. Life just goes by. And its terrible to waste your life losing your freedom.”[3]

Where psychopathy is a singular, simple pursuit for domination, empathy is a plurality of all that makes human beings unique. Our ability to care for others, including those we have never met, and to appreciate their pains and aspirations, is a truly remarkable adaptation. We are conscious, sentient beings capable of much good. Despite the bad deeds we all commit at times, we feel guilt for our actions, with the notable exception of the psychopath of course.

Empathy is the ability to understand and identify with the feelings and emotional states of others. It is the backbone of the human experience. Its biological origins are shared by our mammalian cousins who like us, apply empathy in caring for offspring, living in interknit groups and socializing effectively within them. In its human manifestation, “it paves the way for the development of moral reasoning and motivates prosocial altruistic behavior.”[4] To understand empathy is to gaze deep into the human being where intimacy, social bonding and morality reside.

As with all aspects of our biological architecture, there are strong evolutionary forces that have formed the foundation of who we are. In the case of empathy, “when mammals developed parenting behavior the stage was set for increased exposure and responsiveness to emotional signals of others including signals of pain, separation and distress. The expression of pain also provides a crucial signal, which can motivate soothing and caring behaviors in others.”[5] Empathy emerged long before the higher cognitive capacities that differentiate primates, and humans in particular, from other mammalian species. “Basic affective circuits emerged much earlier in brain evolution than higher cognitive capacities. Social species care for offspring sufficiently long so that they too can reproduce.”[6]

The evolution of empathy is a truly miraculous development in the human story. “The relations between emotion, empathic concern, and prosocial behavior operate on a series of nested evolutionary processes, which are intertwined with social, motivational contingencies, and also subject to contextual control. This physiological arousal, in turn, may initiate helping or soothing behaviors motivated by a plurality of motives, including reducing one’s own discomfort, feeling good about oneself, or feelings of sympathy for, or compassion for the other with the ultimate goal to lessen his or her distress.”[7]

Returning to the matriarchal civilization thesis, “the long history of mammalian evolution has shaped maternal brains to be sensitive to signs of suffering in one’s own offspring. In many primates, as well as many mammals, this sensitivity has extended beyond the mother-child relationship, so that all normally developed individuals dislike seeing others suffering. Pain serves evolved protective and survival functions not only by warning the suffering individual, but also by impelling expressive behaviors that attract the attention of others.”[8] Of little surprise, research has determined that the “deep limbic system of females is larger. The advantages associated with this are that women are better able to express their feelings and are more in sync with their feelings than men. Another upside is that due to the deeper limbic system women are able to bond better with others.”[9] In short, “women are usually more empathic and comprehensive in thinking.”[10]

Empathy is a unique ability to “see others as similar to ourselves on a variety of dimensions and consequently assume that they act as we act, know what we know, and feel what we feel.[11] This can be dangerous when we account for the disparate human behavioral types – it is no surprise that in frequency, empaths walk into troubled waters where psychopaths capitalize on their instinct to help and nurture others in times of need. “Imagining how that person is affected by his or her situation without confusion between the feelings experienced by the self versus feelings experienced by the other person”[12] is a trait that is profoundly human, and should be celebrated as the highest value of human character, for without it we are simply self-serving animals who degrade the experiences of our fellow sojourners as we reap the rewards that are there for the taking if we so choose.

An important finding is revealed in research performed by Batson, Early and Salvarini who tested a group of university students by applying a case where a fellow student had just lost her parents. The study demonstrated that responses to her trauma differed based on the test’s instructions. “Participants imagining themselves to be in [her] place showed stronger signs of discomfort and personal distress [than] participants focusing on the target’s responses and feelings (imagine other), or [than] participants instructed to take on an objective, detached point of view.”[13] There is a clear difference between rationalizing another’s pain and feeling it by placing ourselves in their shoes. If we are to overcome our empathetic deficit, the secret lies in our ability to be one with another and to project their life, their frailties, needs, fears and passion into our own mind and responses.

Empathic concern is believed to produce altruistic motivation.[14] The empath’s orientation is social, cooperative and emotional. Altruism is defined as the opposite of selfishness, marked by acts of helping others at no benefit to oneself and sometimes at a cost, without expectation of anything in return. There is compelling scientific evidence that altruism is at least in part biologically hard wired – genes that control for particular neurotransmitters have been isolated and people who possess these traits are more likely to exhibit altruistic behavior.[15]

The empath is usually the first to detect that something is not right and express what she senses. This skill proved invaluable in closely knit tribal groupings – a sixth sense performed as an early warning system of impending danger. As a result of their heightened emotional awareness, empaths are targeted by psychopaths, because the empath threatens the grounds on which the psychopath thrives – she is the psychopath’s foe and as a result is a source of attraction.[16] The life of the empath is not for the faint-hearted.

Importantly, it has been demonstrated that individuals who can regulate their emotions are more likely to experience empathy, and also to interact in morally more desirable ways with others. In contrast, people who experience their emotions intensely, especially negative emotions, are more prone to personal distress, an aversive emotional reaction, such as anxiety or discomfort based on the recognition of another’s emotional state or condition.[17]

Empathy is a painful torch to bear. A strong desire to seek out the truth and find justice draws the empath into traps aplenty – truth hunters are easy marks. Honesty, the great moral imperative, is all too often out the window, overwhelmed by alternative versions of a story-spun reality. Looking out for the underdog and standing up for them when bullied or marginalized might feel good and be right but it rarely gets anyone ahead. Feeling others’ emotions and taking pains to listen and nurture applies well in the therapy profession but in a social context, it is time consuming and tremendously energy draining – in a hyperactive and supercharged world, if we aren’t busying ourselves juggling the demands of work and making money, socializing and being seen in the right circles, we can fall behind. The empath is a free spirit, hungry for new adventure and the glories of nature, a daydreamer with an expressive creative mind – try working one of those high-powered corporate jobs when you are like that.

The energy the empath absorbs can be overwhelming, making it difficult to be in public places. Empaths get sick more easily and develop in frequency such ailments as anxiety, mood and digestive disorders. While not limited to women, it is a telling sign that they suffer “twice the rate of depression and anxiety disorders compared to men. Knowing that women respond to stress by increasing activity in brain regions involved with emotion, and that these changes last longer than in men, may help us begin to explain the gender differences in the incidence of mood disorders.”[18] Psychopaths don’t suffer depression where empaths commonly do. Feeling too much in a media charged world filled with images of despair and being a magnet for those in need of a shoulder to cry on is a difficult place to be, and that’s before accounting for one’s own challenges and state of mind. The social disassociation that has become normalized in modern civilization, marked by phenomena such as the fragmentation of the nuclear family and the great distances that can separate friends and loved ones in our busy mega-cities are great burdens for the empath.

There is little doubt in the value of empathy and altruism – the social benefits are absolutely clear. “A predisposition to conscience, ethics can prevail if and when it is also able to implement the deepest level of altruism: making the object of its empathy the higher ideal of enhancing freedom and altruism in the abstract sense, for the sake of others, including our descendants. In short, our self-interest ought to be vested in collectively ensuring that all others are happy and well-disposed too; and in ensuring that children we bring into the world have the option of being constitutionally happy and benevolent toward one another. This means that if psychopathy threatens the well-being of the group future – which it is doing – then it can be only be dealt with by widespread refusal to allow the self to be dominated by it on an individual, personal basis. Preserving freedom for the self in the practical sense, ultimately preserves freedom for others.”[19] The challenge is in the transformation of social values that promote empathy and altruism over the self-serving, narcissistic values that prevail.

An Empathic Civilization would go a long way toward repairing the pain endured by the empath but until then, ancient history offers another secret. Research is still in its infancy and no scientific theory has yet to be established, but meditation appears both to heal and of importance to the Empathic Civilization thesis, it can also enable the very parts of the mind required to activate the limbic system. The two important areas of the brain that feature prominently in meditation are the frontal lobes and the limbic system.[20] In one study, “participants who meditated for about 30 minutes a day for eight weeks had measurable changes in gray-matter density in parts of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress.” Furthermore, “expert practitioners show more, not less, emotional reactivity to sounds of people in distress: faster heart beat, and stronger response in the insula (linked to interoception and empathy).”[21] These are encouraging findings and suggest that we’d be doing ourselves and indeed, society and civilization at large a great favour if we meditated.

In the tug of war between these two ends of the behavioral spectrum, the empath is getting crushed. Willing to punch below the belt, the psychopath knows that he can destroy an empath who naturally guards her higher sense of ethics and morality in pursuit of fairness and justice. Where the truth is so often subjectively presented in a world of ‘he said she said’, the psychopath runs circles around the empath in a tiresome, bloody game of cat and mouse.

Before we conclude that everything about empathy is good, it too has a dangerous flip-side. Research has found an “ignored aspect of empathy, namely that this ability can also be used in a malevolent way – as when knowledge about the emotional or cognitive state of competitors is used to harm them.”[22] Empathy is a power, albeit one that is socially suppressed. Frustration is high for the empath and as demonstrated in this study, can lead to aggressive responses. This is seen as more a function of the widespread social ills that result from dysfunctional systems than a primary behavioral attribute. It is however worth noting as a warning – clearly impulse control is important for all of us, regardless of our biological constitution or level of limbic function.

The empath is the opposite of the psychopath. Her limbic system is hyper active – his in completely inactive. She seeks to nurture and feels other’s pain as if it were her own – he amuses in the pain of others and capitalizes on frailties he sees as his prey’s vulterability. She is the key to rebalancing humanity to a more balanced, sustainable, fair and just state but he controls the pathway. The empath isn’t always woman and the psychopath isn’t always man but there is a compelling gender bias that we can’t overlook.

The third member of the triad is the apath, resting in the middle ground of these behavioral poles. Perhaps more than empaths or psychopaths, apathy is a function of the systems that dominate life in modern civilization. The instinct that compels the empath and psychopath to opposite behaviors is not as acute in the apath. From the perspective of their ability to successfully function in society, “most people end up in the middle, which may be the optimal position. It’s good to have some empathy, so at the very least you avoid offending or inadvertently hurting someone.”[23] It is also useful to apply a healthy dose of psychopathy in order to extract from a hyper-competitive economic system sufficient means to achieve the wealth and creature comforts that are on offer. In many regards, the apath can be painted as a morally flexible character on humanity’s grand stage, watching from the crowd as a stand-in extra rather than a lead actor in the tug of war.

As flexible and socially adapted as the apath may be, the personality type presents a significant obstacle. If we are to succeed in transforming the systems that dominate our dysfunctional modern civilization, we need apaths to step up as a voice of reason and democratic action. The trouble is, the apath by nature is a follower who avoids taking risks and is thus only able to modify behavior after changes have been affected. “Apaths are often fearful people. They are the ones most likely to go with the flow. They might also fail to perceive the threat: a danger is of no importance if you deny its existence.” An apath’s response to a psychopath’s call to arms can then result from a state of learned helplessness. Apaths behave defenselessly because they want to avoid unpleasant or harmful circumstances, including the psychopath turning on them. Apathy is an avoidance strategy.”[24]

Apathy is defined as a lack of feeling, emotion, interest and concern, a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation or passion. Apaths may be described as individuals feeling they do not possess the level of skill required to confront a challenge. It is a normal way for humans to cope with stress – the bystander effect grows to an apathetic level as people lose interest in caring for others who are not in their circle, even going so far as to join in the torment of others. The social implications of apathy are significant.

David Meslin argues that apathy is the result of social systems that obstruct engagement and involvement. He describes various obstacles that prevent people from knowing how or why they might get involved in something. Meslin focuses on design choices that unintentionally or intentionally exclude people, including capitalistic media systems and government. He argues that in order to overcome social apathy, poorly designed social systems must be corrected. Author Leo Buscaglia on apathy – “I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate – it’s apathy. It’s not giving a damn.” Helen Keller called apathy the “worst of them all” when it comes to the world’s various faces of evil. French social commentator and political thinker Charles de Montesquieu on apathy: “The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in the democracy.”[25]

Through their avoidance strategies, apaths can stand directly in the way of positive transformation. “Empaths use their ability to emphasize and to boost theirs and others’ well being and safety. Problems arise for empaths, however, when there are apaths in the vicinity. Empaths can be brought down, distressed and forced into the position of the lone fighter by the inaction of more apathetic types.”[26]

The apath often colludes with the psychopath or is at least indifferent to the harm caused by them. The apath is someone who is willing to turn a blind eye. “Usually, be it active or passive involvement, the apath’s conscience appears to fall asleep. It is this scenario that causes people blindly to follow leaders motivated only by self-interest.” Yale University professor Stanley Milgram’s experiments to test the human propensity to obey orders led him to write an article, The Perils of Obedience, in which he stated that “ordinary people, simply doing their jobs and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process.”

The causes of apathy are many. I believe that the sheer force of the systems in which we live drive most of us to apathy. Where the empath can become depressed in her helplessness to affect change, the apath is more adept at coping. Not only does apathy dominate the world of adults, but our children learn it through flawed and uninspiring educational systems that promote the wrong values and lay the foundations for this dilemma. The underlying problem is seen where students are motivated not by the pursuit of knowledge but by externalities, such as acceptance into university. Further research supports this view – even at the most esteemed Ivy League universities, free thinking and pursuit of a path defined by each person’s unique interests and abilities is losing out to the pursuit of end goals based entirely on externalities, namely socio-economic achievement.

For consciousness to elevate above the limiting systemic controls we endure, the majority cohort of apaths need to find inspiration to join in or at least support action. The bystander who watches as emergencies surround her isn’t the cause of injury but her inaction is a form of complicity. We need to take responsibilities for our own actions. Inaction is choice.

Inspiration comes from leaders who promote systems that are supportive in cultivating our talents and dreams. If we are able to establish awareness of the problem and move to a shared consciousness that there is hope for a better way, we can progress to solving and correcting the imbalances and inequities that leave the majority of humanity standing on the sidelines to watch helplessly. There is cause for skepticism in our leadership – driven by narrow interests and limited in worldview, they are influenced far more by the vested interests that participate actively in lobbying and campaign finance than by any form of altruistic vision. The need for visionary leaders can’t be understated.

Nearing death, people’s five most common regrets inform of us of how great the empathic deficit has become. It is a terrible irony that our day-to-day behavior differs so much from our feelings as we reflect back on lives we can no longer change. The following 5 most common regrets shared by people on their deathbed offer profound insights into human nature.[27] I wish I (i) had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me; (ii) hadn’t worked so hard; (iii) had the courage to express my feelings; (iv) had stayed in touch with my friends; and (v) had let myself be happier. Noticeably absent are the factors that motivate selfish behavior and distance society from our empathic nature. Rather than come to these inspired conclusions at the end of our days, it is incumbent upon us and in particular of the large cohort of apaths, to strive for an empathic life in the here and now.

Selfishness erodes broad and inclusive social wellbeing. The markers are everywhere –environmental destruction and a widening wealth and income gap (2016 is the first year that the top 1% of the world’s population owns more than the remaining 99%) are but two. As we move farther along the curve in a world that applies a monetary measuring stick to our value as human beings, we find ourselves speeding ever closer to the Rubicon.

If the pendulum is to shift in favour of balance, amongst human beings and within our fragile biosphere, empathy must prevail. Leaders of strong moral character need to be found, promoted and celebrated and the apathetic need to find inspiration and motivation to support them and amplify the voice of reason. Awareness is the first step. Indeed, apathy is the easiest option but it is costly. While a small number of empathetic leaders can sow the seeds of change, for a movement to grow, the apathetic majority must back and empower them. We must understand what sort of leaders we need and accept that today’s leaders, likely a strong majority of them, are not motivated to deliver the altruistic outcomes we require.

An Empathic Civilization represents a significant departure from the conditions in which we have lived and operated since the dawn of human civilization. Humanity must learn to embrace all that is good in our social and empathic nature. Transformation can exist only where a rebalancing of the values we promote in society has occurred. An Empathic Civilization is a full-circle return to our tribal, nomadic origin, and a return to gender balance. What we have lost in civilization we can regain with knowledge and consciousness.

The challenge is two-fold. Firstly, in the same way that empathy prevailed in small tribal groups and in matriarchal societies, we must overcome our evolutionary disposition to hate. We are one giant family now – the commons can no longer afford for us to see ourselves otherwise. Secondly, the systems we have built, promote and perpetuate enforce the wrong values.

A new ideology is required, one that is based on universal values. “One finds implications of the interaction between ancient evolutionary mechanisms and newer ones, subserving unique aspects of the human mind, in that ideologies, religious ideas can filter out, dampen, or inhibit our empathy for fellow human beings.[28] We have lost our way but we now know enough to overcome the powerful tide of human history.

Can we hold our leaders to account? Can we harness our corporations to deliver the important utilities we are dependent upon while adding value far beyond the interests of executives and shareholders? Can we forego the rampant consumerism we are taught and discover the meaning of enough? If we are to become Homo Empathicus, we must shed the straight jacket that the psychopath has clothed us in.

There is reason for hope. We are not only sentient beings able to take bold intellectual leaps that result in actions small and great, but we are a biological species with an advanced and demonstrated ability to care. This is why “humans care not only for their offspring and in-group members but also for strangers, and can also be motivated to uphold moral principles such as justice and fairness.”[29]

Evolutionary biologists enable us to understand how environmental conditions promote behaviors that serve to advantage members of a species in their ability to survive and procreate. In this regard, one might consider an Empathic Civilization as a necessary precursor to the shift that is required in behavioral traits across the spectrum of humanity. While psychopathy will always exist, environmental conditions that promote the benefits of empathy would limit the trait’s utility. “Environments with low threat or strain are less likely to elicit antisocial behavioral responses than are environments with high threat or strain. A more behaviorally flexible organism is inherently more adaptive than a behaviorally rigid one.”[30] There is no doubt that we live in a high stress environment – it may not seem so for the privileged who enjoy the many benefits afforded, but the vast majority of humanity struggles.

The knowledge that is emerging in the social and natural sciences serve to guide us on this mission and to “inform us how empathy can be promoted to ultimately increase humankind’s ability to act in more prosocial and altruistic ways.”[31]

Returning to our wise sage, Andrzej Lobaczewski, apathy can be seen as a rising tide of “egoism among individuals and social groups” where “moral duty and social networks are felt to be loosening.” The apathetic majority busies itself with “trifling matters [that] dominate human minds to such an extent that there is no room left for thinking about public matters or a feeling of commitment to the future.” The process leads time again to the same outcome of “bloody tragedies, revolutions, wars, and the fall of empires.”[32]

Raising again my primary objective of motivating an awakening, I refine my target to the apathetic majority. I believe that most of us care and also that most of us feel helpless in the face of such overwhelming control systems. We can still enjoy our mobile phones and our favourite celebrities and TV shows, but we can also learn about the important matters that will make our lives better so that we can achieve the glories of environmental sustainability and social justice, an end to war and poverty. Can we achieve all of these noble objectives? Probably not and certainly not overnight. Can we stand up for what is right and take bold steps down a better path? Absolutely, but not without the voice of the majority.

[1] http://www.sott.net/article/148141-The-Trick-of-the-Psychopaths-Trade-Make-Us-Believe-that-Evil-Comes-from-Others

[2] Political Ponerology, Chapter 1

[3] http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/human/

[4] http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1749-6632.2011.06027.x?r3_referer=wol&tracking_action=preview_click&show_checkout=1&purchase_referrer=onlinelibrary.wiley.com&purchase_site_license=LICENSE_DENIED_NO_CUSTOMER

[5] http://ppcms.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/usermounts/lammc5/Decety_BookChapter_WileyPress09.pdf

[6] p 37 http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/Decety_ANYAS2011.pdf

[7] p 41 http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/Decety_ANYAS2011.pdf

[8] p 38 http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/Decety_ANYAS2011.pdf

[9] http://www.steadyhealth.com/articles/female-vs-male-brain-is-there-a-difference

[10] http://www.fitbrains.com/blog/women-men-brains/

[11] p 23 http://ppcms.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/usermounts/lammc5/Decety_BookChapter_WileyPress09.pdf

[12] p 23 http://ppcms.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/usermounts/lammc5/Decety_BookChapter_WileyPress09.pdf