A little girl dies and her face is plastered on the front pages of newspapers, proclaiming a terrible tragedy, perpetrated by cruel monsters, complete with graphs on how DNA testing is done or how to keep your child safe (as if we didn't need to know these things until now).
My first reaction when I saw these things was that of...what? I'm not sure. But it was along the lines of: I couldn't care less. Yes, I'm rather apathetic when it comes to these things. Perhaps I should be chit-chatting away about this constantly, considering that this has become a table-topic (quite literally) and people cry at this little girl dying, though they are not even her fifth cousin four times removed.
Alas, such inconsistent behavior is all too common. Quite recently I stumbled into a KFC outlet busy preparing half a thousand pieces of chicken for someone's party or something. The irony is quite evident here:
When one little girl dies, a nation cries. When 16,000 children die everyday from starvation, we happily gobble down 500 pieces of original recipe chicken.
Or as someone noted, oh so truly: "One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."
That's humanity for you.
My first reaction when I saw these things was that of...what? I'm not sure. But it was along the lines of: I couldn't care less. Yes, I'm rather apathetic when it comes to these things. Perhaps I should be chit-chatting away about this constantly, considering that this has become a table-topic (quite literally) and people cry at this little girl dying, though they are not even her fifth cousin four times removed.
Alas, such inconsistent behavior is all too common. Quite recently I stumbled into a KFC outlet busy preparing half a thousand pieces of chicken for someone's party or something. The irony is quite evident here:
When one little girl dies, a nation cries. When 16,000 children die everyday from starvation, we happily gobble down 500 pieces of original recipe chicken.
Or as someone noted, oh so truly: "One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."
That's humanity for you.
3 comments:
That was Stalin, I think.
Yes, it was attributed to him. I went with "someone" because it isn't certain as to whether he really said that.
i think you raised a good point about the inconsistency of people's reactions... challenges us to think...
and p/s - i don't think that is called cynicism... or at least it's healthy cynicism :)
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