On Being Human

[H2O Man]

Last edited Tue Feb 6, 2024, 03:42 PM - Edit history (1)

In times of humanitarian crises, good people who are not affected want to lend support. This has included the two best known types of humanitarian crises; natural disasters, and the man-made disasters commonly known as war. There is a third type, lesser known but surprising common, known as "complex emergencies." This is when there is significant or total breahdowns of the institutions in a society.

Why am I writing about this tonight, no one may ask? For while there are a few man-made disasters (aka wars ) going on. They are half-way around the earth. No Americans are "officially" participating in them. There's no realistic threat that they will spread, is there? So why am I even thinking about this stuff? And what does it have to do with Taylor Swift?

This weekend, I saw where a person on an internet forum said, among other things, that Taylor Swift was a demon, coordinating with the Democratic Party to send people to hell. At my cousin's request, I added my thoughts. My first contribution was one of my favorite Mark Twain quotes: "Heaven for the climate, hell for the company."

The person took great offense to this, and to me as a person. Besides assuring me that I will burn in an eternal hell for worshipping Ms. Swift, he attributed a large quantity of beliefs and behaviors to me. I noted that this was interesting, because the only thing he could actually know about me is that I know at least one Mark Twain quote. I said that I know very little about Ms. Swift, and that it was him that appeared obsessed with her.

He angrily denied that he had any obsession with her. I said that the fact he had posted 18 pictures of her and links to three of her music videos suggested that he might not be consciously aware of this obsession. I suggested he might benefit from reading Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark." This was met by him attacking science, and expressing his faith in the defendant to deliver believers to their promised land.

I can no more talk for Ms. Swift than I can sing for her. But I consider both her contributions to charity and her encouraging citizens to register to vote are good things. Likewise, I consider those who hate her are other than good. And thus we find an illustration of a complex emergency that the United States is confronting.

The Robert Strauss Center has a chart to help identify various types of complex emergencies that can be helpful for the international response to humanitarian crises. It includes factors such as political, environmental, economic, and demographic instability, in terms of being acute, chronic, urban, and protracted. Thus, for example, if there are people moving north from Central America due to the combination of violence and prolonged drought, the country they seek to enter will have a crises. When these migrants have cultures different from the larger population, it increases the stress incurred.

Likewise, if a country seeks to expand its territory by way of a military intervention in a neighboring people's land, there will be a humanitarian crisis. This includes, but is not limited to, the Russian war of aggression in the Ukraine.

When a country -- let's say the United States -- experiences a number of the factors of complex emergencies, a couple things will happen. There will be increasing divides on how the country will respond to external humanitarian crises, and there will be an increase of hostility not only for "others," but even for a young lady like Taylor Swift for encouraging others to register to vote -- as if that is "un-American."