The "Big Picture" and other rationaliztions.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

I just ran across another plea to look at "The Big Picture" on another thread. Got me to thinking about it and other rationalizations that are used to excuse a lack of humanity.

"Sacrifice few to save many." A popular theory in the military, and politics. Thus we get such niceties as "Welfare Reform". A grand idea, and very "practical", unless you happen to be an undereducated woman with 3 kids that has to abandon her kids to take a minimum-wage job.

"One man's death is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic." Stalin's famous quote has more truth than poetry to it. As long as we can dismiss the suffering of millions as just numbers, we can overlook the deaths of individual people. Millions die around the world of HIV/AIDS, malaria, malnutrition, tuberculosis, overwork, etc. As long as we can say "millions" we can forget about the individual child in Liberia who is dying an agonizing death from AIDS, or the woman in Guatamala working 16 hours a day to feed her family, or the man coughing his lungs up in Peru.

Looking at the "Big Picture" allows the politicians, the media, and most of us, to ignore the "least among us", in favor of being "practical", "realistic", or "willing to compromise". It allows the drug companies to make billions manufacturing drugs, then protecting their rights to them, when common humanity should decree that they should be distributed to those that need them at minimal cost.

For me, I prefer focusing on the "small" picture. The "Big Picture" that shrugs off the photo, posted here, of the young Iraqi girl being carried by an old man, because her legs had been shattered by an explosive, is somehow more important than the "Big Picture" of a "regional conflict", "oil interests", "support our troops", "electability", and "collateral damage".

Oddly enough, I'm an optimist. I believe that most people, when they see the sufferings of individuals, want to help. It's just the politicians, the media, the CEO's, who want us to focus on the "Big Picture", "The bottom line", etc, instead of seeing the consequences.

End of rant.

[VioletLake]

1. We just have a different way of looking at the big picture.

Big pictures provide context for the smaller pictures within.