Thursday, July 30, 2009
High Country News
I have a profile at High Country News, a great news magazine that covers the western United States. The front page link is here. If that doesn't work, try this direct link here.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Inaction: Or, I’d Help the World if it Didn’t Have so Many Problems
When I walk to my neighborhood’s shopping area midday, weaving between the hipster couples with their rare purebreds and the gutter-punks with their pit bulls, passing the busker playing for change next to the rack of coats on sale for $300, I steel myself, and breath deep, and try not to get angry. This has nothing to do with wading through the gulf between poverty and affluence, or bemoaning the onslaught of gentrification, which would be hypocritical since I, in all my middle-classness, moved here less than a year ago. I enjoy that movie stars and internationally reclusive comedians eat and shop here while a disheveled man surrounded by street kids and smoldering bunches of sage sits on the sidewalk burning a pattern into a staff with a magnifying glass.
No, the reason is that the horrible, horrible, beautiful smiling Green Peace woman is going to talk to me. “Hey, you look like you want to save the planet,” she’ll lie because I look like I want to burn down a house. “It’s a beautiful day to save the world.” “A polar bear can use your help.” It doesn’t matter what she says, it infuriates me.
My intolerance for street petitioners and fundraisers and voter registration crews goes back to college. Legions of these people squatted outside the University of Oregon’s student union building. Getting to class meant running a gauntlet of pie-eyed kids who quit school because, man, the world needed them. After being suckered into a couple conversations every student honed their ability to ignore. When I realized environmental groups continuously canvassed my new neighborhood, and outside my favorite bookstore no less, I thought about moving. The guy who said, “You know, you can help the planet today” as I walked up then said, “Jesus, yeah, or not,” as I passed and the guy who grabbed my hand, shook it, and wouldn’t let go ensured I reverted to my old, hateful state. I remained resolutely unreflective – these people were, end of story, guilt-tripping jerks.
Pretty girls have a way of changing your mind.
After walking past her for the second time in a week, and being undeniably angry, my sane self slapped my crazy self and told him to shut up. First of all, Sane argued, any other time a pretty, thin, well-dressed Indian, maybe Sri Lankan, woman with impossibly huge and deep brown sub-continental eyes talked to me it would count as a daily highlight. Second, she was sweet, with no snide darts thrown at my back, so if I’m angered that I now feel guilty about not saving the world maybe it’s because I’m not doing anything to save the world. And that, Crazy admitted, was where the anger came from. It’s similar to liberals who get huffy when accused of not being patriotic and their sole defense is a Dissent is Patriotic bumper sticker. My contribution to global salvation is a public radio donation.
Why is that? Why don’t I, an avowed bleeding heart, donate a few dollars to a charity or volunteer at soup kitchens? Beyond being selfish and stingy, there is a chunk of research that says we humans have a problem dealing with massive tragedies. Paul Slovic, a University of Oregon psychology professor, argues in a forthcoming essay that the gut sensations of horror and empathy toward the loss of life, which make us do something about it, fade as the numbers rise. He writes, “It can thus explain why we don’t feel any different upon learning that the death toll in Darfur is closer to 400,000 than to 200,000.” He didn’t title the essay “The More Who Die, the Less We Care” for nothing. (Sadly, the essay discusses several studies that show if the number rises from one to just two, people lose a lot of empathy.)
Several years ago, Slovic and a few colleagues conducted a study on people’s willingness to donate to a charity called Save the Children. In one test, the researchers made their pitch by showing people a picture of a seven-year-old African girl named Rokia – a good gut-wrenching, heart-strings-pulling approach. The second group was presented with the statistic of millions of Africans who they could save from hunger – statistics and evidence to help a rational decision. The donations from each person were twice as much for Rokia as for the millions. When the researchers combined the two approaches – here’s Rokia, she’s one of millions of Africans you can help – the results were only slightly better than the second pitch.
Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist and undisputed empathizer of the world, argues this is why humanitarian and environmental organizations never gain traction. (His column, here, inspired this public soul searching.) When your average person is asked, “Hey, do you want to save the world?” his conscience immediately imagines Darfur, dying polar bears, New Orleans, the tweaker a block back, foreclosures, and orphanages. His sense of empathy curls up in a sobbing, snot-nosed ball before he can say, “No,” a little too aggressively.
This would be a tidy way to absolve myself into inaction, except now I know I should just pick one group that presents me one person I can help. Now to find a worthy organization among the thousands out there… oh, wait, my will to act just assumed the fetal position.
No, the reason is that the horrible, horrible, beautiful smiling Green Peace woman is going to talk to me. “Hey, you look like you want to save the planet,” she’ll lie because I look like I want to burn down a house. “It’s a beautiful day to save the world.” “A polar bear can use your help.” It doesn’t matter what she says, it infuriates me.
My intolerance for street petitioners and fundraisers and voter registration crews goes back to college. Legions of these people squatted outside the University of Oregon’s student union building. Getting to class meant running a gauntlet of pie-eyed kids who quit school because, man, the world needed them. After being suckered into a couple conversations every student honed their ability to ignore. When I realized environmental groups continuously canvassed my new neighborhood, and outside my favorite bookstore no less, I thought about moving. The guy who said, “You know, you can help the planet today” as I walked up then said, “Jesus, yeah, or not,” as I passed and the guy who grabbed my hand, shook it, and wouldn’t let go ensured I reverted to my old, hateful state. I remained resolutely unreflective – these people were, end of story, guilt-tripping jerks.
Pretty girls have a way of changing your mind.
After walking past her for the second time in a week, and being undeniably angry, my sane self slapped my crazy self and told him to shut up. First of all, Sane argued, any other time a pretty, thin, well-dressed Indian, maybe Sri Lankan, woman with impossibly huge and deep brown sub-continental eyes talked to me it would count as a daily highlight. Second, she was sweet, with no snide darts thrown at my back, so if I’m angered that I now feel guilty about not saving the world maybe it’s because I’m not doing anything to save the world. And that, Crazy admitted, was where the anger came from. It’s similar to liberals who get huffy when accused of not being patriotic and their sole defense is a Dissent is Patriotic bumper sticker. My contribution to global salvation is a public radio donation.
Why is that? Why don’t I, an avowed bleeding heart, donate a few dollars to a charity or volunteer at soup kitchens? Beyond being selfish and stingy, there is a chunk of research that says we humans have a problem dealing with massive tragedies. Paul Slovic, a University of Oregon psychology professor, argues in a forthcoming essay that the gut sensations of horror and empathy toward the loss of life, which make us do something about it, fade as the numbers rise. He writes, “It can thus explain why we don’t feel any different upon learning that the death toll in Darfur is closer to 400,000 than to 200,000.” He didn’t title the essay “The More Who Die, the Less We Care” for nothing. (Sadly, the essay discusses several studies that show if the number rises from one to just two, people lose a lot of empathy.)
Several years ago, Slovic and a few colleagues conducted a study on people’s willingness to donate to a charity called Save the Children. In one test, the researchers made their pitch by showing people a picture of a seven-year-old African girl named Rokia – a good gut-wrenching, heart-strings-pulling approach. The second group was presented with the statistic of millions of Africans who they could save from hunger – statistics and evidence to help a rational decision. The donations from each person were twice as much for Rokia as for the millions. When the researchers combined the two approaches – here’s Rokia, she’s one of millions of Africans you can help – the results were only slightly better than the second pitch.
Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist and undisputed empathizer of the world, argues this is why humanitarian and environmental organizations never gain traction. (His column, here, inspired this public soul searching.) When your average person is asked, “Hey, do you want to save the world?” his conscience immediately imagines Darfur, dying polar bears, New Orleans, the tweaker a block back, foreclosures, and orphanages. His sense of empathy curls up in a sobbing, snot-nosed ball before he can say, “No,” a little too aggressively.
This would be a tidy way to absolve myself into inaction, except now I know I should just pick one group that presents me one person I can help. Now to find a worthy organization among the thousands out there… oh, wait, my will to act just assumed the fetal position.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
World Hum
An essay of mine is up at Worldhum.com. If that link doesn't go to it, click here. World Hum is a great online magazine, and if you like travel writing, you have to check it out.
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