Lost lands

[edithaint]

Originally Posted by Altair

Needless to say, and Edithaint, truly with respect, but I find that you display a bit of a lack of understanding here. Helping a ''friend in need'' than a stranger is not the point I was making, and a false dichotomy as well. It's not either/or. You are calling humanitarian action ''nosy'' and ''selfish'' and therefore concluding that it is unnecessary is bizarre. I'm glad there are people out there who think differently, whether it's helping those in poverty, the sick, or protecting those from an invading force. This is what I say when I mention you should dare to put yourself in their shoes. It's easy to statements in favour of non-action and fatalism online, but out there, in the real world it doesn't work like that..

Everything is interconnected, and so is human action. Nothing in our world exists in a vacuum, you may entertain the idea of keeping things ''little'', just you and the ones close to you, and nothing beyond the garden's wall, but every action you take will inevitably have consequences to the larger context, small as they may be. That is true for all of us. You are sort of talking like the fisherman who won't fish any less in a depleted lake because ''nobody else does ((a perception)) so I can continue doing what I do, why bother? It's only about me.'' The fisherman forgets the importance of human agency and that his perceived ''no moral position'' is already a position with impact.

To not take the larger context into consideration is intellectually lazy and irresponsible of us, and it makes any ''discussion'' a bit of an impractical thing because it's the easy way out. Whether we want to or not, we already have an impact on bigger contexts than our own garden and family, irregardless of whether we deem that important or not. We already act in the larger context, although we may choose to look the other way. Looking the other way makes a discussion or conversation about it rather non-engaging, because what you are basically saying ''I don't care at all''. However you do feel the need to talk about it with strangers, which is kind of ironic.


@Shivani; I'll just say one person on the internet isn't the world, and more people gave you their support than went against you. Time perhaps to turn your thinking mind around and look for validation of support instead of validation for non-support.

It is YOU who seems not to take the larger context into consideration. That is why I choose to live as small as possible, because I realize how small I am. And as for me talking to strangers? You did engage me first, albeit indirectly.