We have an overdose of catastrophes. I wonder how much we really need of the global media. Just few days ago, I was sitting in Tirol finally enjoying some peace when I turned on CNN and saw a volcano eruption in Philippines. And I thought “How horrible, but sorry, I just don’t want to know”. I can’t process all of that. The world has always been full of wars and natural catastrophes but people were only aware of the ones that struck them. Now we have to digest every singe ounce of pain happening on any single spot of this planet. Whenever you turn your TV on or open newspapers, some disaster will jump on you. It is too much. We just cannot absorb that amount of tragedies. As Nietzsche, said “if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
The possible results are: either we get immune, or we get swollen by the abyss. None is good.
Tags: Commentary, Media
I think the bigger issue is that those thins we cannot prevent and hardly can fix (yes I know, if everyone gives 1 buck…) distract you from the things we should change directly in front of us. Of course we can all pay and make Haiti come back on its feet quicker. But it won’t prevent the next earthquake.
The people who cannot sleep because of the situation in Haiti should rather not sleep because of the CO2 they blast out while their TV is on standby at night. Fixing those things would save more people in the long run than 10 bucks sent to Tahiti.
I had a big discussion about Haiti with my mum. About the fact that no matter how much aid we send, we still cannot help. The country was missing basic infrastructure. So the question is, as you say, not if we should help, but when and how. Had we helped Haiti earlier, the catastrophe of those dimensions could have been avoided.
So yes, let’s start changing things we can influence – and let’s start changing the attitude towards the whole planet.
People do not give money for this stuff because it helps, but because it makes them feel better. If you want to help, get in an airplane and start digging dead people out of the rubble, and building new houses for the alive ones. Or pay some of them a flight and let them stay at your home for 3 months.