Tsunamis and Human Nature
The Tsunami has become one of those "must give" events. So many people have given, often in such large amounts, that you truly don't want to feel left out. In a way you have a double obligation to give--you owe it not only to survivors in the Indian Ocean, but also (perhaps even more) to the people around you, who are asking you to acknowledge your membership in the community of people who care.
News reports say the Prime Minister of Canada has re-asserted himself as leader, and driven up his "positives" by his response to the tsunami. There have been special telethons in both Canada and the U.S. From early on, impressive amounts of money have been mentioned. Both when he promised $15 million for his country, and when he promised $10,000 of his own money, President Bush seemed a bit out of sync--like Dr. Evil threatening to hold the whole world hostage for a $1 million ransom--not realizing how inflation has changed things.
Bush's defenders point out what a difference the U.S. military presence has made--particularly the aircraft carrier (or more than one?) which can turn salt water into potable water. Only the U.S. has true state-of-the-art aircraft carriers, and it has about dozen. More on that in another post, another time.
You don't have to be too much of a cynic to ask (or imagine the person of no specified gender from Mars asking): is this always our response to our disaster? Have AIDS victims in Africa been bombarded with the aid they need? Do Third World victims of regular or semi-regular catastrophes, like the flooding of the Ganges, get this treatment? Or, on the contrary, are there many donors who haven't taken part in such a fund-raising effort since Live Aid--more than 20 years ago? Glenn Reynolds quoted someone saying it is an iron law in the news business that a story about terrible flooding and deaths goes immediately from page 1 to some buried page as long as you add: "in India."
Allan Bloom, about the time of Live Aid (organized from scratch by barely-famous rocker Bob Geldof--did you know he is making money from all the Survivor series?) quoted Saul Bellow as saying: public virtue is a ghost town in which anyone can become sheriff. Part of the meaning is that our concern is hit and miss, unpredictable, sporadic, and not likely to help most of the victims, most of the time.
Yet we do somehow care, and occasionally, at least, we give generously. In this we are surely different from our ancestors--we give not only to neighbours, or people like us, but to the whole world. Of course, we are richer than our ancestors, but there are other differences. Tocqueville says that in old aristocratic societies you would have some kind of deep commitment--usually obligations, linked perhaps with love, perhaps with hate or indifference--to relatively few people (but certainly to more than a "nuclear" family). Today we may have such ties to the nuclear family--but even it is highly mobile and in a way expendable if it does not serve individuals who are free to pursue their own goals. Friendships are one's own choice, and surely at least as transitory as family. Yet we would say there is a counterweight to selfishness--we have some kind of concern for humanity in general, for "everyone," and this makes us different from, arguably better than, old-fashioned people.
This kind of language even underlies the U.S. operation in Iraq. Bush defenders are indignant at suggestions that they are old-fashioned imperialists, or even that there are important similarities. When they invade, they are already planning to leave. They don't plan to plunder, but to help build the economy. They don't plan to impose an unwanted regime, but to nourish democracy and give voice to the whole people. The argument often heard is that democracy, at least usually, is good for everyone, so spreading it can only be good. Liberal democracies don't make war on each other, and don't usually seek war with anyone. They seek to trade and keep the peace--and this in a way involves protecting individual rights, and probably democracy, in some kind of balance.
Natural disasters and wars both often make us wonder: how and why does this happen? And what can be done for innocent victims? Is the human nature that leads to war just as much a part of nature, and just as unavoidable, as tsunami? Our attempts to care for other people for reasons that are not narrowly selfish (we may be trying to bring more educated and enlightened trading partners into existence) is also an attempt to say "no." Enlightened selfishness, insofar as it is truly enlightened, is surely edifying and ennobling, even if the selfishness on its own is rather pedestrian. But in both cases--wars and natural disasters--many human beings, every day, seek help that does not come.
More in another post.
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