I strongly feel that the right approach to atrocity is to treat all of them the same way. 9/11: Incapacitating emotional pain. Bombs in London: Incapacitating emotional pain. Invasion of Iraq: Incapacitating emotional pain. Darfur: Incapacitating emotional pain. Either that or callous apathy and business as usual in every case. But all the same, because human suffering is all the same.
If that means that the entire Western population cowers in bed unable to face the World, well, that in itself would solve a lot of problems. We wouldn't be invading other countries, for instance. More realistically, if we feel such debilitating pain every time there is a comparable atrocity anywhere we would swiftly put these issues at the top of our collective priorities and solve them. We could solve them quite easily if there was any priority put to doing so.
What I have an issue with is feeling terrible gut-wrenching pain when your own countrypeople suffer relatively minor attacks but at the same time merely registering mild sympathy to foreigners suffering extended casualties. I think no politician is ever going to put priority on fixing world problems while their constituency has this double standard.
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I strongly feel that the right approach to atrocity is to treat all of them the same way. 9/11: Incapacitating emotional pain. Bombs in London: Incapacitating emotional pain. Invasion of Iraq: Incapacitating emotional pain. Darfur: Incapacitating emotional pain. Either that or callous apathy and business as usual in every case. But all the same, because human suffering is all the same.
If that means that the entire Western population cowers in bed unable to face the World, well, that in itself would solve a lot of problems. We wouldn't be invading other countries, for instance. More realistically, if we feel such debilitating pain every time there is a comparable atrocity anywhere we would swiftly put these issues at the top of our collective priorities and solve them. We could solve them quite easily if there was any priority put to doing so.
What I have an issue with is feeling terrible gut-wrenching pain when your own countrypeople suffer relatively minor attacks but at the same time merely registering mild sympathy to foreigners suffering extended casualties. I think no politician is ever going to put priority on fixing world problems while their constituency has this double standard.