FACT: From early in the Spring fires have caused thousands of people to flee their homes and businesses in California. Hundreds of homes and businesses have been lost to these fires that have proven to be very difficult to manage and extinguish.
Fire in Greece
FACT: This summer fires have caused thousands of people to flee their homes and businesses in Greece. Hundreds of homes and businesses have been lost to these fires that have proven to be very difficult to manage and extinguish.
These two facts sound very similar don’t they, and in most ways they are. But for some reason I cannot explain, one seems less important than the other. Is it due to distance? Is it due to complacency? Each one is a major tragedy, and people in both places have suffered great loss.
FACT: The telephone rings and it’s your mother telling you Uncle Bill died in a traffic accident due to drunk driving last night.
FACT: On your way to work you hear a news story that an elderly single man was killed in an accident last night due to drunk driving. His brother, and several nieces and nephews survive him.
The first one is a personal tragedy. Everyone has known for years about Uncle Bill’s problem with alcohol and no one could or would do anything about it. Even still everyone in the family liked Uncle Bill and he will be missed.
The second fact is about someone you don’t know, and your first reaction is that the guy got what he deserved for driving drunk. Well, gosh, he could have killed someone else and not just himself.
But what’s the difference here? It’s the exact same story, but one is personal, and one is seen from a distance.
This got my attention when I noticed two stories on television news about fires in California, and fires just north of Athens. It sounded to me like both stories could have been interchanged and would have been a report about the same event. And the video showing the fires, homes in flames, people fleeing were nearly identical. The only difference was the way the firemen were dressed—the uniforms and hats were different styles.
But I felt really bad for the people of California who have suffered through so many fires and so much devastation this year. But I had very little response to the people in Greece facing a nearly identical event. And I am sure I’m not the only one who felt that way watching those two reports.
Is this an us versus them mentality—when it happens to us it’s more real, more tragic, but when it happens to them, who cares?
I doubt this is something new. It probably has been going on for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years. Don’t you image a mother in Germany was just as worried for the safety of her son in World War II, as every American mother was?
I did a lot of research about this and even talked to a psychologist on the phone about it, but there doesn’t seem to be any explanation other than one is personal and the other is not. New York City psychologist, John Ryder, says, “it’s all about familiarity…personal on an individual level and on a national level, as well.”
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Ric, interesting point…
Why do we care about some things, all perhaps equally important to someone. I listened to reports from men and women from Sarajevo in Bosnia, home to a grand Olympics in 1984 then ravaged by war.
The men and women learned to live, shop, work, eat, play as we do here. Difference, they we doing this in the middle of bombs, rockets and bullets as one side decide to murder all of another religious faith.
Everyone said the same thing, “we have to live, you get used to it, step over the bodies and adjust”
I thought, how? Don’t you panic everyday, run, hide, scream and yell, strike back. Apparently we can decide what is important and live a normal life in the midst of crisis.
Choices seem to matter. Where our treasure is, our heart is there also. Peace or fear.
CU on the Radio Bro ;-!