And what's missing in our progress is not the power of reason or advanced technology -- it is the absence of empathy, of humility, and of a type of intelligence that is not content to express itself merely in symbol manipulation.
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Pontius Pilate turned to Christ and asked, "what is truth?"
And now I turn to you asking, what is "symbol manipulation"?
The only entities on Earth that perform "symbol manipulation" in the purely abstract way you seem to mean are computers.
And computers don't think.
No human being is trapped in a hyper-cubed "symbol manipulation" trap. Contrary to your crie du coeur, I'd argue that there is, in fact, plenty of empathy, but it's not broadly applied.
Racists weep when those they consider to be their own are injured but coldly disregard the plight of untermensch. They selectively empathize. Don't we all?
I'll go further still...
The U.S. is not a land of cold symbol manipulation but of freely flowing sentimentality and unrestrained emoting. The response to Sept 11 was not a dry analysis of cause and effect, threat and response but an avalanche of memorializing, demands for vengeance and manly tears.
Symbols were being manipulated but they were symbols designed to inspire a sub-rational response.
Your concern about a supposed conflict between empathy and a mythical, empathy sapping form of intelligence widely misses the target.
.d.