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Old 01-07-2005, 10:41 PM   #1
Davros
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This a piece from my local paper today - the thread title is the same as the article tiitle. A pity I couldn't copy it electronically - my apologies for any typo's I might make.

It's Shared Humanity, Stupid

Author : Nick Miller - "West Australian" Newspaper Jan 8 2005

Deep thinking comedian Douglas Adams once wrote about the way the average human being tackles a big problem. He said we go through three stages: survival, inquiry and sophistication.

For instance : What can I eat? Why do I eat? Where shall we have lunch? Like all good jokes, it's funny because it's true. Take the Boxing Day tsunamis. It's almost two weeks now since the world changed - again.

The first week was pure survival - and not just for those directly affected by the tragedy. Waves of images hit our shores, accompanied by shocking stories of pain, loss, heartbreak and hope.

TV viewing figures soared as we tried simply to understand : what happened? We absorbed the barrage with big hearts, and responded simply by giving money. Enormous loving amounts of it, followed by plans to raise more.

Emotional survival.

Soon we moved onto stage two: inquiry. Scientific boffins told us that the force of the earthquake wobbled our planet like a top and the tsunamis slowed its spin (as if we needed to know). We asked: What caused the waves? Could they come again? Is there anything that can stop it happening? How can we help in the meantime?

All questions well worth the inquiry.

In the second week though the reactions have been getting pretty sophisticated, moving into stage 3. And this is where we really need to stop and take a step back and be very very careful.

The ball started rolling with Sydney's Anglican dean Phillip Jensen. "(These) disasters are part of His warning that judgement is coming," Mr Jensen reportedly said.

The Chief Executive of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Amjad Mehboob, also reportedly said the tsunamis were God's will. Even more disturbingly in devastated Bandah Aceh the radical Islamists have begun a recruiting drive. "What is the lesson God has sent us with this tragedy?", one cleric asked from his manret loudspeaker. "Why not in America where there is so much vice and prostitution? People tend to forget God when they enjoy, and that is why God sent us this tragedy."

To be fair, many other religious leaders have denied seeing the hand of God at work on Boxing Day. But humanity's most creative and dangerous instinct is the one that makes us see patterns. Something in our minds sees a face in a cloud, or helps us guess a movie whodunnit. It drives us to chase meanings and causes - sometimes where there are none.

Ironically, the more aggressive of atheists have used the tsunamis against God, given the well worn philosophical Problem of Evil a new paint-job by asking "if there was a God, how could he let this happen? This is just as offensive as using a natural disaster as a recruiting drive for religion. In my opinion it is just the wrong question to ask when thousands are suffering and dying.

But the bad taste didn't stop there. World Vision chief Tim Costello, an otherwise sane, sober and admirable fellow stepped over the line on the radio this week when talking about the Australian Government's promise of $1 billion is aid to Indonesia. I don't have the exact quote, but he said the aid grant had once and for all solved the debate about whether Australia is part of Asia. That the nation had finally come to terms with our place in the region. "It's our region, that's where our future is, our kids are going to learn these languages, and are going to trade with them," he said. He may have thought he was making sense. He was in fact piggy-backing a loaded political opnion on a simple act of generousity.

I don't pretent to know Mr Howard's mind, and I don't claim to trust all his motives. He is however a keen reader of th public mind, and when he decided to give all that money to Indonesia it is a fair bet he was doing it because we the public would want him to. That doesn't make us a part of Asia, either geographically, politically or metaphorically. My wife and I gave the neighbours a Christmas present. That doesn't make us part of their household, it just means we like them. Australia's gift (half of which is a loan) to Indonesia will probably bring our countries closer together, but it doesn't say anything about our shared cultures, just our shared humanity.

Various other opinion writers have tried to hijack the tsunamis in service of their personal crusades. In a newspaper opinion piece Richard Butler manages to link the tsunami to reform of the United Nations, an end to a global focus on national security and a better management of the environment. In the later case he seems to be drawing a tenuous, uttery unscientific link between the tsunamis - caused by earthquake - and the other environmental problems such as global warming and deforestation.

Similarly some radical green wierdos in the United States have directly pinned the tsunamis on our mistreatment of the Earth, complaining about "wounds to the planet's heart" as if this immense tragedy was the planet's way of saying "please recycle your plastic".

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyonon made much more sense when he talked about nature at Thursday's Jakarta summit. "Humanity is frail and vulnerable to the forces of our natural environment", he said. And instead of looking for a wider meaning or message, he simply asked for money for an Indian Ocean tsunami warning system.

At the extremes of nuttiness, some bloggers in the US have blamed terrorists, suggesting bizarre conspiracies and hidden nuclear weapons. "I figure by now Man has the ability to effect 'natural' causes", one such twit wrote to an online discussion forum. "Even as far back as the 19th century scientists such as Tesla had formed theoretical models for creating earthquakes. Terrorists were responsible (for the tsunamis)".

It's no coincidence that many commentators have found a meaning in the tsunamis that matches perfectly their long pursued causes and beliefs. In reality these tsunamis tell us little about God or Asia or even the environment. But they can tell us a lot about ourselves. At least in part, they tell us that we are often too quick to read messages into some random tragedy. Some people should just shut up and send more money.
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Old 01-07-2005, 10:48 PM   #2
Davros
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The bit about how people find the one message that supports their own beliefs and agendas in these things is the part that I find to be all so true. The article takes to task one (amongst others) that sees the Tsunamis as a way to promote the UN. Here in IW we have similarly seen how the tsunamis have been used in another thread for another interest group to make the exact opposite case.

Too may people looking too narrowly. How fortunate for humanity that this doesn't apply to everyone.

Now like the article suggests, I think I will shut up and go send more money.

Cheers.
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Old 01-07-2005, 10:48 PM   #3
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And even money isn't always the answer.
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Old 01-07-2005, 10:53 PM   #4
Davros
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Quote:
Originally posted by johnny:
And even money isn't always the answer.
True Johnny, and I don't think the article suggests it is. I think amongst other things, the article mainly says that those who would juxtapose their own agendas onto this natural disater would be more helpful if they restriced themselves to just sending money .
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Old 01-08-2005, 01:04 AM   #5
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Interesting article, Davros.
I've been reading a bit (well, five books recently, anyway by Shermer, Gould, and Sagan.) about skepticism and how to question and test ideas. This article touches on a phenomena that is explored in all the books I've read recently and explored in depth in three of the five: The amazing ability of the human mind to see patterns. Doubtless this capacity has proved beneficial over the millenia of human development, such things as recognizing that approaching upwind of a herd yields different results than approaching from downwind, or that the presence of herbivore poop helps crops grow better.
One of the conclusions drawn from this is that the more capable one is at recognizing patterns, the more successful at survival one is likely to be. The pattern recognition ability is however non-selective in terms of whether or not the pattern seen is valid, so a meaningless or happenstance pattern is as likely to be considered with the same seriousness as a meaningful pattern.
Hence we have superstitions, cargo cults and suchlike. Generally speaking, the larger or more impactful an event or situation is, the more we try to correlate it to various other patterns we are familiar with, often seeing connections that 'feel right' but may not exist, or at least not in the way we perceive them to exist.
Another strong trait found in the hairless ape is that we want to find explanations or reasons for things. As a species, we don't like ambiguity and feel more comfortable with a plausible, false explanation that plays to our prejudices than we do with admitting that we simply do not know something. This leads us to give credence to stories, myths, and religions that fit into our comfortable world view and reject those things, no matter how factual, logical, or demonstrable, that contradict us. And once we have committed to an idea or credo, we defend it with great zeal.
In this postmodernist world where truth is often seen as relative and consensual, this leads to people - often intelligent people - believing in, defending,and proselytizing some truly goofy things.
That is why we need to be able to reason out claims and verify facts. And why just asserting that something is so because you want it to be, or because it validates your views, or because you think you have 'the truth' is insufficient and unacceptable in an honest debate.
Well I seem to have gone off on a bit of a tangent there. Anyway, thanks for posting the article, it's informative and timely.
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Old 01-10-2005, 02:38 PM   #6
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You assume that that which gets posted is all that is considered or thought about.

Perhaps Davros, you may think that that which gets posted is but a small part of the whole and does not define the whole of what an individual or even a group may have to think or say about the issue. For example I could pick out the quote from the article that focuses on the nuttiness of "Americans" suggestiong it was terrorism..while ignoring the just as stupid idea that it was a plot by the US and Israel, or some other such nonesense....or maybe the article was about more than just that?

Perhaps the things posted were being posted all while packages of goods and cash were being spent to save peoples lives and that there was more in the world than one thread or two threads making public some little known issues that were being ignored.....maybe the point of the posts made here were to spread some alternative information that may not have been made public to certain segments of the world populations...of course I know some people will discard it out of hand just because "I" was the one who posted it [img]smile.gif[/img] They can put thier heads in the sand if they like...at least I put it out there where they could see it.

Just because one does not like the poster, or the source...does not make it invalid....or untrue.


or perhaps what is posted here is the sum total of all knowledge in the universe and we should all check for our Towels and remember that awsome book labeled with the words.."Don't Panic".


[ 01-10-2005, 02:42 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]
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Old 01-10-2005, 05:21 PM   #7
Davros
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To take advantage of another passage of the Admirable Adams :

"Oh freddled gruntbuggly
Thy micturations are to me
As flurdled gabbleblochits
On a lurgid bee"
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Old 01-10-2005, 05:22 PM   #8
Davros
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LOL - picking yourself out are you Ray, as someone who (like the article suggests) juxtaposes their own agendas on natural disasters? The rest of your reply seems to be the same justification that anyone with an agenda would give (whether it was at one end of the sanity spectrum or the other) - it is the "but I was right" defense. It works equally well (or poorly) when you are right and when you are wrong.
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