Because there's quite a lot of things happening all the time, even now, that at least the people involved would consider terrible atrocities. Have you even read about what the Burmese have been doing to the Rohingya? How about the new Chinese "Re-Education Camps" for Muslims there? Or what ISIS-associated factions are doing in Syria?
The corollary would be to ask, if the common citizen must keep abreast of all events anyway, then why have representatives at all? Why not a direct democracy?
Ostensibly the purpose of a representative democracy is that the elected official would become an expert on the subjects for which he dictates policy. If he isn't doing that, then no matter if the populace is educated or not, policy will suffer.
Theoretically you may be able to do more, if you are able to vote in US elections, but in practice those seem to be won by the candidate most voters would prefer a beer with, or who looks best on television, etc.
Some Genocides get far more attention than others. Perhaps it's also our duty to proactively research all genocidal activity & research the political causes.
Much of your post I at least kind of agree with, but that's the real sticking point. Democracy means that the people have the policies that they want, whether or not it agrees with what you or I think would be a good thing. If you don't agree with them, you can try to convince them otherwise, but you don't get to say that it isn't a "real Democracy" if they don't go your way.
It's all well and good to say that any genocide of anybody anywhere is bad, and we always oppose it, but what's to be done? Grandstanding about it in international bodies may feel good, but is often ineffective. Economic sanctions sometimes work, but are often costly and can push nations into the arms of our rivals. Military action works, in a sense, but is massively expensive in money and lives and often makes the situation worse in a different way.
It's a dark thought, but I sometimes think the Nazi's real mistake was to do a genocide and a massive war of aggression at the same time. The world has collectively said "meh" at quite a few genocides, as long as the country involved wasn't actively trying to conquer everything they could touch at the same time. It also led to the seemingly absurd situation in the main post here - when a country you're actively at war with is doing these things, there's not much you can do to stop them besides win the conventional war as quickly as possible, which you're already trying to do. It makes you wonder if publicizing it at the time is worth the effort. Maybe it would get a few neutral countries to swing further your way, but who's still neutral at that point?
Not to be machiavellian, but it is a practical as well as moral issue.
Are you sure that "sympathize" is the correct word? I agree that it happens a great deal, but is this behavior something you regard as moral? Because the way people fail to engage with atrocities around the world meets most of the ordinary definitions of immoral. Their apathy is what enables evil.
What's more interesting to me than the ability to look away is that we've developed a sense of urgency to change that. Not just for ourselves, but for other humans and animals around us. In general, as a species, we've moved significantly in the right direction towards reducing the atrocity.
This seems to be an evergreen phenomenon. The world today is more open and connected than it was in 1944, but with that openness has come an much greater capacity to live in a walled garden of our own making.
Of course, people throw up their hands in helplessness. Or, for some, there is helpless guilt. But it needn't be so. It was Adelle Davis who once wrote: "It is part of my creed — of my religion if you like — that when you have the ability to help your fellow man, that ability ceases to be merely an ability and becomes a responsibility."
> During World War II, Pilecki volunteered for a Polish resistance operation that involved being imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp in order to gather intelligence and later escape. While in the camp, he organized a resistance movement and informed the Western Allies of Nazi Germany's Auschwitz atrocities as early as 1941. He escaped from the camp in 1943 after nearly 2½ years of imprisonment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki
By 1944 the evidence was massive, yet Arthur Koestler still needed to write this piece.
This guy was a true hero.
Absolutely. Nor did he stop. Having left Auschwitz he volunteered to fight in the Warsaw uprising. He hid his rank so fought as a private but later took command of a unit. At war's end he tried to rebuild his network to seek evidence of Soviet atrocities in Poland. That eventually resulted in his capture, show trial and execution.
There are very few of his mould.
Apparently survival inside the camp for this long was only possible if you knew how to climb the hierarchy, and Pilecki did it well. For example - on the day he (and a few of his friends) fled they were assigned to a job in a bakery. A job in a bakery is one of the best jobs you could possibly get there, as you can steal enough food to not die of starvation.
Consider the most recent Syrian "nerve gas attacks". Politicians said they were "sure", launched airstrikes, pulled the remaining diplomats from the region. Then the only actually trustworthy body, OPCW, released the report in which it said, I quote: "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected" (don't believe me? Google the exact quote). If sarin were actually used, those degradation products would be at detectable levels for many years.
Chlorine residue _was_ found, but the position of the bodies on the scene is inconsistent with chlorine poisoning, suggesting that the bodies might have been moved to suggest they died of a nerve agent (i.e. fell to the ground where they stood, rather than ran to the windows gasping for air). The delivery mechanism is also unclear, there are undamaged chlorine cylinders found at the scene, suggesting that it wasn't launched from a distance.
So we've been blatantly lied to by politicians and the press yet again in order to manufacture consent. This was mostly ignored by the public. This is not the first time this has been done, either. See e.g. Iraq "WMDs", and the current darling of the liberal establishment, Robert Mueller, deliberately lying to Congress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTDO-kuOGTQ. I say "deliberately" because no "evidence" could have been presented to him, because none existed.
I've been a victim of of a situation, that would not have happened if I had not been where I was and had been in a different country. I know it was an atrocity and in 100 years I could easily see people not believing it had happened & even today I've seen doubts.
Individuals are prone to question every possible situation with vastly different personal ideas. It's how great things come about. Disbelieving is also a result for some individuals and maybe it's dangerous but it's part of the equation. My assumption is energy should be focused towards making the systems around the globe more similar with trying to keep culture intact. Although the world may be safer for everyone without culture and just one nationality.
Lastly I think we have people disbelieving atrocities because compassion is piss poor compared to what we're capable of. People will focus only on themselves when the systems don't care about societies health (depending on where you live) and results in people being delusional or disbelieving what's in fact reality.
Musée des Beaux Arts W.H.Auden
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully
along; ....
You're right. I agree with you.
But–and I say this with all respect and no judgment–I think the insight here is not to point at one's perceived opponents and say, "Yes! This describes my experience with them perfectly!"; but to ask oneself who are the screamers in ones own life who get one's own glossy-eyed stare.
It is very difficult and often impossible to pop someone else's bubble, so we should all work hard on popping our own.
As for the average climate denier[0], I won't defend them, but I'll say this: They're wrong about the climate, but they're screaming about something.
[0]By which I mean those who are sincere and not well-funded, financially motivated deceivers.
Edit: Formatting.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/21/arthur-koestle...
and convinced his healthy wife to commit suicide with him.
Huh? they won't listen to reason, so I should do what, exactly?
>> Arthur Koestler (Jan. 1944)
I wondered if the author is the Arthur Koestler, but Wikipedia tells me he was born in 1905, so if I read the following sentence correctly (i.e. meaning that the writer is 62 at the time of writing, in 1944), then the piece was written by another author of the same name, because the best-known Arthur Koestler was 39 in 1944:
>> "I know" that, the average statistical age being about 65, I may reasonably expect to live no more than another 2.7 years, (...)
And yet, a cursory search on the internet suggests the well-known Arthur Koestler was, indeed the writer of the piece. What gives?
> and regard these as black-and-white altematives.
Cheers :)
translated from Hannah Arendt in "Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft":
> The movies which the Allies showed in Germany and other countries after the war was over, have proven that the characteristic of insanity and irreality of the photographed events withstands all mere reportage. For the unbiased viewer they are about as convincing as the photographs of mysterious substances in spiritist seances. Common sense reacts to the atrocities of Buchenwald or Auschwitz with the plausible argument: "What crimes have these people committed, that this was done to them?" Or, in Germany and Austria during the food shortages, the overpopulation and the general hatred: "Too bad not more were murdered!" Or everywhere with head shaking, suspicious of a particularly ineffective trick of propaganda.
> Although the propaganda of truth doesn't convince the normal "square" citizen because of its monstrosity, it has a much more dangerous effect on those who from their own fantasies know that they would be capable of doing such a thing, and who are simply happy to believe in the reality of the shown events. Suddenly it turns out that what human fantasy for millenia had declared to be beyond human competence can be produced after all. Hell and limbo, and even an inkling of their eternal duration, can be built, by letting humans die forever, with the most modern methods of destruction and healing. What these types, of whom there are more in any big city than we are willing to believe, realize when they watch these movies or read those articles, is that the power of man is greater than they dared to admit, and that hellish fantasies can be realized without the sky falling down, or the ground opening up.
Seeing how the book was originally written in English I'm sure the original is much better (but sadly I don't have it in English, yet). I hope it's at least somewhat understandable, but I still want to include the German from which I translated for completeness:
> Die Filme, die die Allierten nach Kriegsende in Deutschland und im Ausland liefen ließen, haben nur zu deutlich erwiesen, daß der Irrsinns- und Irrealitätscharakter der photographierten Begebenheiten aller reinen Reportage standhält. Für den unbefangenen Zuschauer kommt ihnen etwas soviel Überzeugungskraft zu wie den Photographien mysteriöser Substanzen in spiritistischen Sitzungen. Der gesunde Menschenverstand reagierte auf die Greuel von Buchenwald oder Auschwitz mit dem plausiblen Argument: "Was müssen die Leute nur angestellt haben, daß dies mit ihnen geschah?" Oder, in Deutschland und Österreich inmitten der Hungersnot, der Überbevölkerung und des allgemeinen Hasses: "Wie schade, dass man nicht mehr Juden vergast hat!" Oder überall mit dem Kopfschütteln des Mißtrauens genen einen besonders unwirksamen Propagandatrick.
> Wenn die Propaganda der Wahrheit ihrer Ungeheuerlichkeit wegen den noch normalen Spießbürger nicht überzeugt, so hat sie eine desto gefährlichere Wirkung auf diejenigen, welche aus ihren eigenen Phantasiemöglichkeiten wissen, daß sie so etwas tun könnten, und aus diesem Grunde nur zu froh sind, an die Realität des Gezeigten zu glauben. Urplötzlich stellt sich heraus, daß, was die menschliche Phantasie seit Jahrtausenden in ein Reich jenseits menschlicher Kompetenz verbannt hat hatte, tatsächlich herstellbar ist. Hölle und Fegefeuer und selbst ein Abglanz ihrer ewigen Dauer können errichtet werden, indem man Menschen mit den modernsten Mitteln der Destruktion und der Heilkunst unendlich lange sterben läßt. Was diesen Typen, von denen es in jeder Großstadt sehr viel mehr gibt, als wir gerne wahrhaben möchten, beim Anblick dieser Filme oder beim Lesen jener Reportagen aufgeht, ist, daß die Macht des Menschen größer ist, als sie sich einzugestehen wagten, und daß man höllische Phantasien realisieren kann, ohne daß der Himmel einstürzt und die Erde sich auftut.
another bit from the article:
> I think one should imitate this example. Two minutes of this kind of exercise per day, with closed eyes, after reading the morning paper, are at present more necessary to us than physical jerks and breathing the Yogi way. It might even be a substitute for going to church. For as long as there are people on the road and victims in the thicket, divided by dream barriers, this will remain a phoney civilisation.
Yes! I can't say anything other than "yes", really. Or "this, so much this".
> Either we all live in a decent world, or nobody does.
-- George Orwell