September 11, 2001

But one reaction is almost universal: people are mourning the tragic deaths. The New York Times is running stories about some of the victims, to remind us that these were people, not statistics. Mayor Giuliani said that "6,000 people did not die. One person died 6,000 times." I've talked to a number of people who could not stop crying over the victims, although they did not know any of them personally. They lay awake every night for days or weeks, unable to sleep, thinking about the individuals who were stuck in the stairwells, or who jumped out of the building. They thought about the families, about women who had to explain to their children why Daddy wasn't coming home.

And I know this is a terrible thing to say, but I find the whole thing a bit...hypocritical.

Please don't misunderstand me—I am not trying to minimize the tragedy. I know a lot of innocent people died, and I think President Bush is doing a great job of meeting the threat head-on. And I also know that if I had lost a personal friend or family member, I would think of the attack as the worst event in history. But I didn't. And I guess what bothers me is that there are so many senseless deaths every day, and I don't hear anyone mourning those. So I did a bit of Web browsing. From what I can tell, on a typical day in the world, about 148,000 people die. Of those,

• 19,000 are infants
• 1600 are mothers who die in childbirth
• 24,000 people die from hunger
• 8,000 people die from AIDS, including 3500 women and 1300 children
• 2700 people die from Malaria

So why are so many people, who have never particularly worried about the 24,000 per day, staying up nights worrying about the 5,000? Why are they donating blood, when they have never done so before, despite the constant need? Why are they donating their money, or driving to New York to help, when last year they wrote a check to the United Way at Christmas and then forgot about it for a year? Why am I not doing more?

One possible reason is that the problem of hunger is too big to get our arms around. Jesus said the poor will be with us always, and 2,000 years of history have borne him out. You can't really face something that big and awful, especially when there doesn't seem to be anything you can do about it. But if that is the reason, it's a cop-out. A lot of organizations do a great job of helping poor people get jobs, build businesses, educate their children, and pull themselves out of poverty. These organizations are limited only by their resources—the more we contribute our time, money, and ideas, the more good they can do. So, once again, why aren't we doing more?

An uglier possibility is that what we think is altruism is actually just fear. It's very sad that people are dying of AIDS and malaria and hunger. But, in some way that is hard to define, those people are different from me. The people in the World Trade Center were a lot more like me. That makes it a lot easier to sympathize with those people.

Sound crazy? Then ask yourself this—why is it that when there is an accident overseas, we hear things like "200 people died including 12 Americans." Why should I care how many were Americans? Is an American death worse than a Tanzanian death? If Kenny Felder were French, would a French death be worse? Since I live in Chapel Hill, do Chapel Hill deaths count more than Durham deaths? The World Trade Center deaths were close to home. That means they could happen to me. And my fear for myself makes me care a lot more about them.

My sister suggested a different interpretation. She says that people are reacting to the World Trade Center just because it is in the media. Because we are getting stories about all the individual people, their plight seems very tangible. If that really is the explanation, then maybe there is hope. Maybe we need the media to publicize more of the stories of the hungry and the sick. This one was a father of three who raised flowers; he died today. There was the woman to whom all the neighbors turned for health care advice; she died today. Here was a five-year-old girl who loved to sing; she died today. Maybe we can all realize that every day, one person starves to death, 24,000 times. And maybe we can start to mobilize our national will toward a new kind of war. Maybe we can take a vow as both individuals and as a nation to help one real man get a job, to educate one real child, to break the cycle of poverty for one real family—millions of times.

I have nothing to add except bless you for saying it.

Interesting essay. I know for me I have a love for my country and fellow countrymen which does make it more meaningful for me in terms of how I react to it based on an event that is not naturally occurring most of which you pointed out in your essay, i.e. an attack on my country. But are all human deaths equally tragic? Yes they are and particularly needless ones are even more so. You are correct though that distance seems to ameliorate the tragedy and numbers are more than numbers though the press may not see it that way always.

I really enjoyed reading this one (again).

I'm not sure which of you is more correct, you or your sister, but I think they tie into each other. I also think part of the reason so many people felt fear was because of the media. But, when that typhoon hit the south pacific 4 years later, there was also an overwhelming response of aid, and that gave me hope, because I agree with you: Why are American deaths on American soil more tragic than deaths in other lands. I've always felt its a little silly the pride we all take in something that is completely an accident of birth. Not that I don't think American values of freedom and independence aren't great, but the people alive today aren't the ones that created them. Instead we've watched our generations eat away at them with greed and selfishness until the sticky sickly mess of bureaucracy, lawyers, lobbyists, and media has taken us down to something that would terrify the rebels that dared to think differently about the world, and tried and tame a new one.

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