Tragedies and Statistics

"A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."
- Joseph Stalin

I was discussing this quote with my friends Shane and Brittney the other day. I forget how we got on the subject, but we all seemed to find a lot of truth in those words. Every day on the news there are in-depth stories on the victims of murder and rape. Mass groups of people feel pain for these people. It is because they know their story. Their lives become a part of the American public's.

However, when people hear of a bombing that killed 50 people or a genocide that's killing thousands, they do not seem to care as much. Certainly, they think and say something along the lines of, "Something must be done," but they do not feel as much concern for the victims because the tragedy has not been brought to a human level. It is hard for one, while watching a clip of a car in flames or bombs going off, to think about the lives of each person affected by the tragedy, to connect with them. And, in order to solve a lot of the world's problems, I think that is necessary: a little more empathy and caring.

While I'm on the subject of empathy, I might as well talk about how it should apply to our daily lives as well. I feel like people do not take enough time to stop and analyze why people act the way that they do. They do not try to understand. When someone is yelling at you, yes, half of the time you probably deserve it, but the other half might be due to other stresses in their life. If we just stopped to think about the reasons behind the negative actions of others, we could fix the problem instead of just judging them.

I don't know where exactly this blog is going,
it's merely some thoughts I've been having lately.
Just think about it. Form your own conclusions.