2010/02/08 New York
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Choices

Empathy

In general, I’m not a fan of moral outrage. It’s often self-congratulatory and highly ineffective, to name just two obvious flaws.
Nicholas Kristof is very good at asking questions that are supposed to provoke outrage, I guess. (Despite my dislike of this kind of outrage the previous sentence is meant as a compliment.)
In today’s Times he wrote once again about Congo: “But so far the brutal war here in eastern Congo has not only lasted longer than the Holocaust but also appears to have claimed more lives. A peer- reviewed study put the Congo war’s death toll at 5.4 million as of April 2007 and rising at 45,000 a month. That would leave the total today, after a dozen years, at 6.9 million.”

It’s interesting to research why we are so utterly uninterested in Congo as opposed to let’s say Haiti.

I guess even when it comes to empathy you have to make choices.

This is good to remember when you meet your next beggar.

You can tell him: “I’m so sorry, I would love to help, but I’m out of empathy for today.”


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9 comments Last_comment
Haiti vs Congo
Well, you've read Manufacturing Consent. Worthy and unworthy victims. Most of the answer is in there, I would argue. Worthy in this case is also driven by the need to feel that our help makes a difference -- or to put it differently, that the victims deserve our help For Haiti this is relatively straightforward. We have little taste for civil wars, however. It takes more effort to reach moral judgement, it is just not an efficient form of empathy. And yes, I feel I have to produce empathy, which implies it obeys certain economic principles. I regularly wonder what a psycho-analyst would have to say about that.
said Michel V 08/02/2010 09:29 (Updated 09:30) • x
Michel
Yes, there are worthy and unworthy victims, but that doesn't answer the question completely.

The victim of a natural disaster is probably by definition a worthier victim than the victim of a civil war somewhere in Africa.
Perhaps we could say that if you are a victim of an earthquake or a tsunami you are a "lucky victim".
said Arnon Grunberg 08/02/2010 16:02 (Updated 16:02) • x
i guess i´m not in a position to recommend you somenthing to read althou there is a book about Africa which might go along with your retorics, ´The shadow of the sun´ by Ryszard Kapuscinski. Your friend , Karol might know it.
said Iz . 08/02/2010 16:50 • x
In this war ‘fueled by profits from mineral exports’, there is no distinguished bad guy (or disaster) versus good guy.
said Bernard f 08/02/2010 17:41 • x
If a situation like the Congo goes on and on for years people tend to lose interest. Also a feeling of impotence comes over you. Help was sent over and over again but the killings didn't stop. What can we do more?

I wonder what happend if the Nazis would have stopped the landings in Europe in 1943 and 1944. If Germany didn't show interest to conquer the rest of the world, would Europe have been liberated then? Or would we have found ourselves in a Congo like situation?
said Richard van Tol 08/02/2010 19:44 • x
Bernard
Are you saying that we perceive the natural disaster as the bad guy?

Then who is the good guy?

We because we give money?
said Arnon Grunberg 09/02/2010 01:28 • x
lucky victims
I like this word combination.
said Sasja Mirskikh 09/02/2010 02:37 • x
@Arnon
Yes. I am afraid ‘we’ are always ‘with the good guys’.
said Bernard f 09/02/2010 19:43 • x
Regarding Congo. The title of this documentary basically summarized what you just said: http://www.ifproductions.nl/fightingthesilence/
The story behind how it came about is interesting too.
said aliefka 10/02/2010 08:37 • x
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