Selective empathy
10/7/18 20:17![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fridi posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
talkpolitics
Thank goodness, things have finished with a happy ending for the kids in that cave in Thailand. However, let's talk about a broader related topic, one that we've actually discussed before. I often hear the question, why are these kids so important that million of people are following their story on their phones, TV and the radio? Why is the whole world sympathetic with the families of those boys and the heroic efforts of the rescue teams? Why not the thousands and millions of people suffering from starvation, war and natural disaster around the world?
It's because when you tell the personal story, it touches you inside. All the photos and videos reaching the broad world have given direct and intimate access to the work of the rescue teams, they've created the impression that we're almost part of the whole effort. No sane person would remain indifferent to the messages that those boys sent to their families, telling them how much they love them and how they shouldn't worry. One of the kids wrote his first wish after he is rescued was to have a barbeque. The FIFA chairman has promised the boys to grant them front seats at the World Cup. Etc. All this innocence is touching. And that's normal.
In the meantime though, thousands of young boys and girls are hiding in the ruins of their bombed homes. They're innocent victims too. The young refugees of war being washed out drowned at the Mediterranean shores, the thousands of kids who've taken the dangerous road to the safety of the promised land, they're also not guilty for the fate they're having. The kids who've been turned into heartless killers by cruel gangs in the Third World, they're innocent too.
I've been hearing voices arguing that the huge international attention to the fate of the Thai boys has a good amount of voyeurism in it, because, thanks to modern media and the hordes of reporters from around the world, the public has been made an almost direct participant in the tremendous effort for survival. Yes, the hourly real-time reports from places of disaster do feed some lower base instincts, but that's still not the whole story.
There's more. There's the fact that in a battle for survival of this sort, there can only be winners. The situation doesn't leave any space for cynicism, or political agendas, or conflict of interest. It's purely humanistic. There's no room for double-edged arguments such as "We just can't accommodate everybody". No one would start arguing that the parents of those Thai boys are economic migrants exploiting a welfare system, therefore they're somehow responsible for the disaster threatening their children, and according to some extreme interpretations they even deserve their fate.
Here things are simple. There are a dozen boys stuck in a cave, their only foe being the muddy water in the corridor. It's this clearness and unambiguousness that can unite the whole world. A one-dimensional, no-nuance story of tragedy and hope that doesn't leave any room for questions who deserves to live and who doesn't.
I'd sure like this moment of tense hope, sympathy and concern to unleash something bigger in us humans. Something that transcends mere media hype. And when (hopefully!) it all ends well, I'd like there to remain something more than just the usual good feeling of success. I want there to be the realization that after all, it's always about living breathing people with their story, background, dreams and hopes, people who haven't necessarily chosen their own fate on their own.
(no subject)
Date: 10/7/18 21:41 (UTC)However I think we must factor into this situation the peculiar horror of the circumstances and the extreme difficulty in getting the chaps out. Cave diving is not something I could ever do. I knew one old school-friend who became a rescue cave-diver. The most unlikely superhero I have ever met. But he was (and hopefully still is) a superhero.
This is also the story of extreme bravery on the part of the rescue services and the international Cave-Diving rescue community - because it is international; most nation-states have a minuscule number of folk who combine the skills, nerve, and sheer bravery to do that job - hence the community is international.
[edit] Here is a BBC article on some of the folk involved:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44761821
Most young folk around the world don't get rescued: from war, from poverty, or from disaster. I'm all for doing something positive about all of that, but it costs money, and I have to persuade folk that they should pay more taxes to fund programs that might actually do something.
This rescue mission has cost a shedload, apart from the death of a Thai ex-navy seal. You are correct in that we do not throw resources like this towards the folk fleeing war or poverty. Sometimes we will put our hands in our pockets for natural disasters, but really we can't be bothered - ergo we have abdicated our responsibility for these matters. In which case the state has a moral duty to take a lead and fund relief with taxes. Well, right up until it goes against populist opinion; after all, when you live in a democracy the voters must always be placated and mollified, even when they are evil bastards.
(no subject)
Date: 11/7/18 04:39 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 11/7/18 05:40 (UTC)Pointing out democracies flaws doesn't necessitate advocating a worse system. I've been pretty consistent about my opinion that the flaws of democracy are amplified by deficiencies in the overall and general education system in that democracy.
Giving people a decent educational basis for making political judgements with moral considerations would be rather better, if a trifle more expensive.
(no subject)
Date: 11/7/18 05:41 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 11/7/18 05:43 (UTC)[edit]
I like my elected politicians to be subordinate to something other than the whim of an indifferently educated population. They are always subordinate constitutionally and socially to HM, even if they have the political power rather than Her Maj. This is a good thing.
(no subject)
Date: 11/7/18 06:40 (UTC)God, maybe?
(no subject)
Date: 11/7/18 08:51 (UTC)After Immanuel Kant, we can synthesise morality without the need for an external driver, even one as flawed as the sort of petulant infant who destroys its creation in a flood because they are simply too awful, my dear.
I prefer a more concrete symbol of continuity and culture. The Americans have a Constitution which is above their politicians, and exists as a symbol for the nation.
The nation-states that reference God as influence in their polities tend to be of the Saudi Arabian kind, or even the Irish kind, wherein until very recently female reproductive rights were subject to religious opinion.
Post Kant morality can be easily separated from religion or belief in God. Which is why the Vatican put all of Kant's work on the Index Librorum Prohibitum. After all we can't have that, now, can we?
The Church of England is a remarkably secular sort of religion. Her Majesty is the Queen of a fairly secular society. Her personal religion and official religion are thankfully in agreement, but I'd rather her as a unifying symbol than a bunch of priests telling me who to burn or hang or even retrospectively forgive for kiddy-fiddling.
(no subject)
Date: 11/7/18 15:45 (UTC)Personification of victims, and identification with them too, is a telling part of the narrative - scrawling your name on a cave wall to celebrate your 16th birthday like thousands of others before you have done... and then the horror.
Millions of folk die of infectious disease every year, but let one Western nurse contract Ebola and the press will be all over it.
The OP brings up a very good point though: how do we weigh the narratives we are presented with, aside from truth or falsehood? When we understand those mechanisms properly and can manipulate them well there will be no point to elections whatsoever, if you catch my drift; as the electorate will be able to be programmed rather better than they are now.