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gezzam
SFN Regular
Australia
751 Posts |
 Posted - 01/15/2005 : 09:50:39
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It has been about three weeks since the Tsunami in S.E. Asia. It is now time to reflect on the disaster. There has been a massive outpouring of aid from the West. Fantastic ……..but…….
Being sceptical (and a party pooper), I find the outpouring of grief somewhat mystifying. Why does the eagerness to donate massive amounts of money to the hard done by suddenly seem the right thing to do?
Call me Uncle Scrooge, but haven't there been recent cases of the demise of hundreds of thousands of people that have passed un-noticed. Thousands of children die every week of hunger, thousands of people die of AIDS in Africa but there are no concerts, no cricket matches.
Iraq….well we won't go there.
Why has this particular event hit us so hard?
Is it because that a disaster from abroad has affected so many tourists from Western countries! For once it is not just brown people and soldiers dieing, it is actually people that you may know or people that live down the road.
Why don't we really give a fuck about the thousands of other deaths around the world?
My theory is that even though our respective conservative governments have been voted back in, there is a massive amount of guilt spilling over from individuals that voted for personal (monetary and the like) or ideological reasons.
Am I right or just cynical?
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Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.
Al Franken |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 01/15/2005 : 10:11:27 [Permalink]
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I don't know, gezzam, but I don't think that the huge attention to the tsunami paid by the West has to do with the fact that some American and European tourists were there. You ask why the same isn't done to stop AIDS, but of course AIDS is a huge problem in the US (and Europe), too. So I don't think that we can be so cynical as to say that we Westerners only donate to events that cause huge damage when some of Our Own are hit. (Another case in point: how much aid was raised various hurricane victims in Florida and elsewhere?)
My guess is that part of the reason for all this attention is the one-time-ness of the tsunami versus the more subtle death destruction caused by, say, AIDS or famine. Yes, lots of people in Africa and Asia die because of AIDS or starvation, but it's over time and space such that it's easy to either dismiss or feel hopeless about. But the tsunami was there, on film, and its destruction simply cannot be dismissed.
Or something. |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 01/15/2005 : 13:12:51 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Cuneiformist
My guess is that part of the reason for all this attention is the one-time-ness of the tsunami versus the more subtle death destruction caused by, say, AIDS or famine. Yes, lots of people in Africa and Asia die because of AIDS or starvation, but it's over time and space such that it's easy to either dismiss or feel hopeless about. But the tsunami was there, on film, and its destruction simply cannot be dismissed.
Yeah, this is the reason. The fact that all those lives were snuffed out instantaneously in one great natural disaster. That is what people are responding to. It has nothing to do with tourists, although I'm sure quite a bit of the holy rollers' response does have to do with people ripe for conversion.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 01/15/2005 : 13:23:15 [Permalink]
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There is a fair amount of research into why folks react in levels inconsistent to threat level and numbers lost.
I know a little about reactions inconsistent to risk that have to do with how risk is perceived.
For the sake of this post I am defining risk perception in terms of how we respond, and how far we go to avoid the hazard. And in speaking of the collective 'we' I don't mean every single individual.
If the hazard is common or known, it elicits less perception of risk. We fear not the auto hazard as much as we fear the air travel hazard. We drive the car everyday and the jets not so often.
If the hazard kills a large number at once vs many over time the perception of risk is greater. Way more folks are killed by the auto than the jet crashes.
If we perceive we have control the risk perception is lower. I drive vs the pilot.
If the hazard is seen as exotic it is worse. Dying from AIDS is more fearful than the flu.
If the death is seen as particularly awful it is perceived as greater risk. An AIDS death is particularly awful compared to pneumonia.
If the hazard is more certainly lethal than a different hazard, the lethal hazard is perceived as more risky despite the less lethal hazard killing more people in total. HIV is probably close to 100% fatal compared to Hepatitis B which may kill 5-15% yet Hep B kills a much larger number of people.
If we don't think the hazard applies to us it is less feared even when that assumption is incorrect. In other words if the victims look like us, it's more frightening. "I won't have a heart attack, I'm not old like that guy who did."
These are just a few of the factors that have been identified as having an impact on perceived risk vs actual risk. I'm sure there are similar factors involved in the tsunami response vs other world tragedies. |
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular
USA
1191 Posts |
Posted - 01/15/2005 : 13:39:08 [Permalink]
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| I think that the psychology behind the donations is in part similar to that behind risk perception, as beskeptigal pointed out. People have a more emotional reaction to infrequent events where there are large numbers of actual or potential victims who had little or no control over their fate. Media coverage may also factor in. A plane crash killing 100 is in the news worldwide, but those killed in car crashes 1 or 2 at a time are only local news, even though over time the death tolls from autos is far greater than that from aviation. |
The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley
The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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| Edited by - R.Wreck on 01/15/2005 13:40:19 |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 01/15/2005 : 19:41:47 [Permalink]
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The group Doctors without Borders, about a week after the tsunami, said "thanks, we've got enough now." They put out a press release which basically said that they had enough money to send all the doctors they could to the disaster areas. And then they begged people to make "open" donations, instead of ones targeted to aid for that specific earthquake and tsunami, so they could send doctors to other places.
Makes sense to me. With every donation I make to any group, I try to make sure it's a "general" donation and not earmarked for something specific. While it's nice to have the choice to donate to, say, the National Psoriasis Foundation just for clinical research funding, the NPF doesn't survive that way. They can't pay their staff, or publish their bulletin, with money set aside for funding medical trials.
In other words, I think if you're going to donate to a charity, you should be charitable enough to trust the group to use your money wisely. And with that in mind, there's no need to wait for a disaster to donate to a good cause.
Though I do have a feeling that people just don't think about charitable giving until either a disaster rolls around, someone comes knocking on their door or Christmastime. The fact that the tsunami nabbed two out of those three "reminders" don't hoit. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 01/15/2005 : 20:14:05 [Permalink]
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quote:
Why has this particular event hit us so hard?
I dunno.
It probably has something to do with our perception of events.
If the African AIDS epidemic got 24/7 news coverage for three weeks, with casualty reports updated hourly and live video of the massive number of people dying by inches as they struggle against the disease... maybe it would have the same impact.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2005 : 07:14:19 [Permalink]
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A tsunami, as most natural events, is immediate and unpredictable (to an extent). It's not periodic, like Florida's hurricanes. Lots of people died in a way that was beyond their will.
Sure, of course the AIDS victims, most of time, have no choice. But there's also the media's view that's something you can do to yourself. A car crash's something that's someone's fault, or seen as someone's fault. It's Their Fault. Same with wars, etc. A tsunami is something tragic that no one was expecting, something that we've no control upon. So people (like me) sympathize with something that's beyond their control - it could've been right here. It could've been my family, my friends, my city. |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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| Edited by - Siberia on 01/16/2005 07:16:28 |
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