On "Small" Tragedies

[lhynard]

Yet another way in which it turns out that I think like C.S. Lewis did: In his autobiography of his early life, he mentioned how he was never much moved by tales of wars and battles, because the struggles of the many did not affect him. It was the struggles of small groups or individuals that affected him

Comments

[shadewright]

If the average person cared about each and every "small" tragedy the world (or even city) over, they would be paralyzed by all that grief; they might not be able to enjoy their own life because they would be overwhelmed by borrowed sorrows.

So we ignore them as much as we can, in order to survive. I'm not saying that I'm sure this is right, but those who do not ignore(police, emergency workers) inevitably grow either hard or burned out, so maybe it's not wrong.?

[lhynard]

good point about the emergency workers

I've talked with some about that sort of thing before. They are on a constant roller-coaster of dispair and exhiliration when disaster happens and when they save a life, respectively.

(Hey, e-mail me. The last couple e-mails I sent to you never received a response, and I want to know what's up with you.)

[shadewright]

I have to confess that I'm worse than you are; I am harsh, even though I would change myself if I could. My first thoughts are usually something like:

Well what do you expect when you build huge cities right on the ocean and then destroy the barrier reefs/everglades that are natures shock absorbers? From a planet-time perspective (hundreds of thousands of years), tsunamis and hurricanes happen EVERY DAY. Who made the absurd decision that, since we hadn't had one in twenty or fifty years, they must not happen any more? (Hello, FLA.)

You know I'm NOT a rabid environmentalist. We're just talking serious, hard-core short-sightedness here. --And I guess I'm not being harsh, after all, because the people who dredged out the reefs and etc are partly to blame for the deaths of all those innocent people.

So--yeah. Anyway. Right. Um, I'll e-mail you; sorry about that.

[lhynard]

can't say I disagree with you

All three of this weeks entries are kind of related by what you said here.

[pepperfunk]

I think it was Stalin who said "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."