...as argued for by Jeremy Rifkin, which claims that we we need to adjust our minds to the demands of our time.
Tracing our history from familial, tribal to religious to national communities, Rifkin proposes that we now come full-circle, rediscover the human ties and feelings of compassion soft-wired into our system and extend them on a global level.
What Rifkin calls for is the re-cultivation of the "homo empathicus" in us, using "compassionate distribution" rather than egotistically-motivated gain. He believes too , like Will Durant, that the main reason most news is bad is just because that's what makes it newsworthy; i.e. the vast majority of human actions are and always have been "good" and collaborative and this is the base we must build upon now.
"Perhaps the cause of our contemporary pessimism is our tendency to view history as a turbulent stream of conflicts - between individuals in economic life, between groups in politics, between creeds in religion, between states in war. This is the more dramatic side of history; it captures the eye of the historian and the interest of the reader. But if we turn from that Mississippi of strife, hot with hate and dark with blood, to look upon the banks of the stream, we find quieter but more inspiring scenes: women rearing children, men building homes, peasants drawing food from the soil, artisans making the conveniences of life, statesmen sometimes organising peace instead of war, teachers forming savages into citizens, musicians taming our hearts with harmony and rhythm, scientists patiently accumulating knowledge, philosophers groping for truth, saints suggesting the wisdom of love. History has been too often a picture of the bloody stream. The history of civilisation is a record of what happened on the banks" - Will Durant, 1885-1981