An aspect of the tsunami tragedy in South Asia, and the ongoing tragedy of its aftermath, struck me after seeing some of the media reporting of the disaster. It has me wondering if, despite the scope of human tragedy, it would receive the attention it is getting here in North America if celebrities were not involved, if it didn’t contain the spectacle of scale. Would we care as much?
Countless tragic events occur in the world but most don’t get the media play this one has.
If it’s true we have more interest in this tsunami disaster for these reasons then I think it should also be pointed out that it doesn’t mean we are a hopelessly self-absorbed people. (Though I do despair sometimes over our obsession with celebrity and scale.)
What it means is that even with an event as horrific as this we find it difficult to be anything more than instinctively and briefly shocked by the spectacle of its scope. Most of us require relatable, human touchstones within such an event in order to connect on a visceral level. (I think this is where organizations like World Vision succeed. They have child sponsorship programs and these connect people with a bit more immediacy, putting a face to people living in places and cultures so distant from us.)
Our brain, with its moral sense, may be jogged by seeing and reading about an event like this – on the other side of the world, to a seemingly faceless people living lives we usually have no awareness of – but in order to be emotionally engaged we need something we can identify with. And crass though it may seem, celebrities and white-skinned tourists in bathing suits and shorts provides this. Scope grabs our attention. Distance (geographical and cultural) creates a disconnect.
So while part of me may see reports of celebrities and tourists and have a knee-jerk cynical response to it, I also know tragedies like this one will soon pass from sight without doing anything more than raising an eyebrow if we don’t find ways to connect people to these events and relate to them somehow. Celebrity and spectacle may not be the best, most seemly way of doing this but it is effective, to some extent at least.
And if you’re inclined to make a donation to the relief efforts, please do. Here are a few places you may want to consider:
UPDATE: Some of what I made a poor attempt at articulating above is touched on in David Akin‘s blog entry, Reporting the disaster of our lifetime. My take regarding celebrity and spectacle is not what he discusses; rather, he looks at blogging and journalism. But his example of an article in the NY Times is what I was getting at when I referred to connecting people to an event on a visceral level. (His is an example of an excellent story, one that doesn’t rely on endangered celebrities or shocking us with spectacle but instead deals with the enormity of the event by humanizing it through individuals and their experience.)
As for the issue of blogs and journalism that he speaks to, this isn’t an issue for me. I think a blog can be a vehicle for legitimate reporting, in the right hands. But for me, this isn’t what I look to blogs for. Blogs alert me to what is happening, interesting ideas and so on. I take the blogger’s perspective with a grain of salt (though there are some exceptions). This isn’t because I distrust the blogger. Rather, I prefer to get a variety of perspectives – the traditional media, blogs and so on and then draw my own conclusions.
I know there is a debate of sorts about blogs and journalism. It strikes me as a debate over form rather than content. Both can be excellent; both can be garbage. The vehicle is irrelevant.
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