Stalin said, "One man's death is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic." That is all too true, and I've never understood why, except that in the story of a single human being we can comprehend the sorrow and loss, while when the numbers rise they become just figures on a page or a screen.
These musings are prompted by the story of a bride who died in her husband's arms during the first dance at their wedding.
(One of the things that made me respect George C. Marshall, chief of staff of the US Army during WWII, was that when he sent the strength figures to FDR, he made sure the casualties were typed in a different color because, as he said, otherwise they became numbers.)
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2 comments:
Yes, we identify with individuals, not with masses, perhaps whether the news is pleasant or unpleasant. When it's unpleasant I think it has to do with compassion and empathy for an individual, but a feeling of helplessness and frustration in the face of overwhelming information about which one can do nothing.
On a deeper, and likely unconscious level, it might have to do with what Richard Dawkins calls The Selfish Gene, the instinct for survival so as to procreate one's being, one's essence, in some way.
When we feel conscious sorrow at the news of an indivisual's death, I suspect it's also felt psychologically though not consciously; as if the knowledge that one other died, confirms that so will we.
Most fear death. Perhaps we project that individual death onto ourselves.
Well said.
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