Before the advent of the telegraph, radio, telephone, television, and the internet, our time and attention was bound to our immediate communities. The only connections we had to faraway lands were from words spoken by travelers, letters written by distant loved ones, or local newspapers. We had very little exposure to the world outside of our own and when we did have exposure to it, we were virtually powerless to do anything. Those who left their homelands for extended periods of time may not have heard from their friends and family for years, and when they returned it was to the same names but different people. People lived on what their land provided them and exotic goods were truly exotic. Cultures were vastly different and people of other lands remained mysteries. When nations were at war, faraway people may have heard about it and may have even felt the effect of it, but they weren't able to have a significant impact on it.
With the progress of technology, we now have access to 24/7 live feeds in major cities across the globe, have access to a constant stream of news from both traditional and social media news outlets, enjoy produce shipped from halfway across the world in a day or two, and interact and chat with people from faraway cultures on forums like Reddit. On the flipside, we are exposed to more suffering due to a bombardment of stories about poverty, corruption, genocide, and war from all across the world. In general, our exposure to world events has increased by many multiples compared to when we didn't have these globalizing technologies. The problem is that we've fallen into the trap of believing that increased exposure has proportionally increased our influence. I argue that while our exposure to world events has increased significantly over the past century, our influence on these events has increased very little in comparison, ultimately trapping us in an illusion that leaves us feeling powerless, guilty, and depressed. I hope to bring this illusion to light, dispel it, and offer a solution to the middle class that is centered around helping our own communities without becoming a victim to guilt.
Below are (admittedly) crude illustrations to what I coin as the "CIE (control, influence, exposure) relationship" and how they looked before and how they look after advancements in communication technologies.
Control: You are wholly involved and have a significant impact on the outcome of an event.
Influence: You are involved in the event but have little impact on the outcome.
Exposure: You are neither involved nor have an impact on the outcome of the event.
Above is the CIE relationship before advancements in communication technologies. Notice how control and influence are significant portions of exposure. Seldom did our ancestors hear about events they weren't partially involved in/relevant to.
Above is the CIE relationship before advancements in communication technologies compared to after. Notice how our control barely increases and our influence slightly increases, but our exposure is substantially greater. We hear and see things from strangers in places half way across the world translated from languages we've never spoken.
Technology Allows Only Glimpses Into Other Worlds (Our Exposure is Limited)
Technology allows the everyday person to record and upload their experiences for the whole world to see. The problem is this: what pierces through the sea of content is often the most visceral and sensational because emotion is what drives us to comment or share a post. What lands on our social media feed or what traditional news outlets decide to show are the most gruesome or most heartwarming or most vile or most saddening or most fearful events from around the world (it's no coincidence that most of those words carry negative emotions).
Now to Gen Z and Millennials, this is nothing revolutionary. We've been constantly reminded throughout our lives that what we see on the internet is a façade. But it's easy to forget this when we watch innocent children getting bombed or see victims of genocide be stripped of their humanity. We can't help but have an emotional reaction to events like these, choose a narrative that benefits our egos (more on this in the next section), and share it to everyone we know. We suddenly know the full story. Of course we do. What else do we need to know other than these atrocities must be stopped?
Let me paint a less violent picture. It's easy to find travel vlogs about people exploring different countries and cultures for short periods of time. They taste the food, talk to the locals, traverse the nature, dance to their music, and so on. After their week ends, they go back to where they call home and they may choose to share all the things they've learnt to their audience. The vlogger may truly believe that they've come to understand the new culture and people, and their audience could vicariously come to the same conclusion. But this is short-sighted and undermines the sheer complexity of culture. Just because the vlogger has seen it and experienced the superficial aspects of it, do they now know the culture in its entirety? Not even close.
Understanding culture requires you to be a part of it, which takes years of involvement and interaction. It's the small gestures, the nuances in behavior, the topics unspoken, the time spent doing what that culture values the most, the sacrifices you have to make, the why behind everything. In order to truly understand a culture, you can't just visit it, you need to live it. Just like a culture, major world events have a level of complexity that should not be taken lightly, especially if you are an outsider whose knowledge is only secondary.
Experiences that are accessed through technology are limited because technology is limited. As long as technology is limited, it cannot be reality. No matter how many travel vlogs you watch, you will never really be there. No matter how many Barcelona matches you've watched, you will never really be there. No matter how many wars you watch unfold, you will never really be there.
The danger with technology is that it feels so real. We still fall victim to the illusion that we are there. That we know the complexities of the issues. That we feel the same things as the people who really are there. That we have control over or influence on these events. We don't, and it would be naïve and egotistical to believe so.
We Don't Have the Truth, Only Stories-- A Lot of Them (Our Exposure is Tainted)
When we aren't really there, experiencing whatever it is, we can only build opinions and thoughts based off of what we are provided by other people. Everyone has an agenda when telling a story, and that's all we have-- stories. Every individual in an experience, whether it be a culture or a concert or a war, will have their own unique story. Some stories may be boring, others gripping, some may offer us validation, others may challenge us, but in the end, no one story is the complete truth. Some may be more comprehensive and more true than one riddled with lies, but one narrative will never encompass the full complexity of an event.
What often happens is we bypass the complexity of an issue by clinging on to either the most agreed upon story (the story resulting from the overlaps in most stories), the simplest story, or the story that fits our worldview. I use "clinging" because the alternative is dropping into the abyss of the unknown. To drop is to submit that we know close to nothing about such complex issues. When we drop further, we begin to realize we know even closer to nothing about ourselves, others, and the universe.
"Knowledge of speech, but not of silence; Knowledge of words, but ignorance of the Word All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance, All our ignorance brings us nearer to death, But nearness to death no nearer to God. Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" - T.S. Elliot, 1934
Another reason why we cling onto stories is because looking at things from as many angles as possible is too tiring and time consuming. We'd have to dedicate our lives to understanding a culture or an event or even one influential person. We'd have to read from a variety of sources and do our own investigations through multiple lens just to get at the most comprehensive story we can build. Not surprisingly, very few are passionate enough about certain issues to dedicate their lives to it, but there are people who are, and we call them historians. The issue is we often don't hear from historians unless we specifically seek them out because the stories they deliver are too dense to understand in a short video or a few slides on an Instagram post. They don't have one-liner conclusions about the bad guy or the good guy. A good historian will try their best to form the most multifaceted stories based on the truth and not on what they would've liked to happen. Most importantly, historians recognize the humanity in every event, and that is often too complex to put into words.
It is important to notice the stories we subscribe to because they illuminate our biases and short-sightedness. In turn, this allows us to better ourselves and hence better others. For example, in the conversation of global poverty, it may be obvious that to give to the poor is better than not to give. But something as innocent and kind as giving to charity may not have as many advantageous outcomes as one might believe.
Your money may be funding corrupt agencies. Even if those agencies are operating in good faith, they may not be the most efficient and could even be wasteful. There are also arguments to made like William Easterly's in The White Man's Burden, claiming that foreign aid projects (developed countries "helping" developing country) are largely imperialist in nature and do more harm than good by interrupting their markets. On the other hand, Peter Singer in The Life You Can Save argues that global poverty hasn't been eradicated because the privileged haven't donated enough money. His ethical imperative states that we should donate as much as we can until the point that we start to risk our own basic human needs (food, housing, education, etc). This also means that we have to forgo non-essential products and services such as going to the movies or having a fancy dinner. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo in Poor Economics eloquently showcase how our donations are often ignorantly used for poorly integrated solutions, while calling for a more scientific and context-based approach with randomized control trials. And so the discussion of what to do about a problem with a seemingly simple solution continues to rage on.
Civil wars and border conflicts are also often misconstrued to have a good and bad side (the invader and the invaded), when really a lot of these conflicts can be explained by prolonged destabilization from previous colonial powers who are now too far removed to take responsibility (of course, poor governance and corruption without previous involvement from colonial powers is also possible). The consequences of the Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916 or the Berlin Conference in 1885 still effect the Middle Eastern and African countries to this very day. Because of these colonialist impositions, ethnic groups have been separated by arbitrary borders, natural resources split between opposing populations, and corrupt rulers who pleased their European masters have been insistent on keeping their power. The long standing violence in South/North Sudan, the leeching of resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the incessant fighting for Israel/Palestine, the Kurds' forced inclusion in Iraq, and many more political issues can be traced back to the greed or failure of colonialist powers.
Big issues are big issues because they don't have easy solutions. Difficult solutions require thought from multiple vantage points and often call for compromise. Sometimes we get lucky and can work towards mutually beneficial solutions. So let's not adopt opinions or take sides so quickly, even when it seems obvious to do so. Let's be skeptical of common belief and challenge common narratives, but also be receptive to why they are so widely held. This way, we can better understand the world we live in and better position ourselves to relieve both our suffering and the suffering of others.
Identity, Information Fatigue, and Powerlessness (Our Influence is Not Large Enough)
Information Fatigue
noun
Apathy, indifference, or mental exhaustion arising from exposure to too much information, especially (in later use) stress induced by the attempt to assimilate excessive amounts of information from the media, the internet, or at work.
We often share what causes a strong emotional reaction in us. We usually react the strongest to issues that relate to our identity, i.e. what we tell ourselves about ourselves. A Muslim will care more about issues affecting Muslims, a feminist will care more about issues affecting women, and an orphan will care more about issues affecting orphans. The danger in this is twofold:
We lose sight of the issues that we don't identify with but are best positioned to help.
We become more sensitive to the issues that we identify with but are often less capable of helping.
Specifically with social media, we begin to see all the issues where we are powerless to help, and we lose sight of the issues where we have the power to help. Just as we think we have really experienced something when we've just watched a video of it or read an article about it, we begin to believe that we can do something about communities we are not directly connected with. Now this is not to say that giving charity or sending resources to disadvantaged communities is absolutely worthless, but this is to say that we are most capable of helping the communities we are already in because we have the deepest understanding of them and because we have greater influence on them.
Identity also contributes to an ethical problem. If our scope is now the entire world, should we be prioritizing people who label themselves the same way as us? Or should we be prioritizing the people who need help the most? How do we define "needing more help"? You end up asking yourself a question with an answer that might be difficult to defend: which humans are more deserving of help? Is it the human that is most similar to you? Furthermore, because we each carry multiple identities, we have to choose between which identity we want to help the most. It all becomes very messy very quickly.
This mess is also exhausting to deal with on a personal level because we often have to defend our identities and perform how those identities are expected to play out. We then find ourselves playing social games, with virtue signaling being one of them. Sometimes we have to care about a certain issue because we carry the same identity (self-imposed or not) as those involved, and it would feel disingenuous not to care. We quickly realize that the most we can do about foreign issues is raise awareness and talk about helping. This can lead to the problem of the "bystander fallacy", where the likelihood of an individual actively helps decreases as the number of passive bystanders increases.
In addition, guilt can quickly sink its fangs into those who strongly identify with something, true for both those who want to help and those who choose not to. For those who want to help, it is easy to feel that you are not doing enough or even that you feel like an imposter for not suffering the same way the rest of those you identify with (a Palestinian emigrant might feel something much like survivor's guilt for their fellow Palestinian's fighting for their land). For those who choose not to help a certain cause, they may feel the guilt of not helping despite identifying with a group (am I a bad Muslim for not choosing to help the Muslims Uyghers in China?).
Further adding to our sense of powerlessness and general anxiety is the fact that we often hear about the largest, most dire issues. If global warming and the real risk of food shortages isn't enough, we have hyperinflation and expanding wealth gaps, ongoing operations of genocide and apartheid, a general increase in political tribalism and hostility, the highest levels of depression and anxiety recorded (in part due to our increased exposure), and quickly-depleting sources of fresh water. In the grand scheme of things, it becomes crystal clear how little we can influence, let alone control, these happenings. Deciding not to work towards these large issues may bring a sense of guilt.
This guilt, this feeling of powerlessness, and then numbness, can quickly turn into feelings of worthlessness.
"There is no point in trying, I can't do anything."
"The world is evil and so am I."
"Existence is suffering."
We tell ourselves these things until they become true. Self-fulfilling prophecies.
The alternative is this: turn to where we have the most control and influence, and do what we can to help there.
Help Without Labels (Focus on the Intersection of the CIE Relationship)
I don't have the end all be all solution. But I think there is a way we can revive our capacity to give, to help, and to care about humanity without the burden of guilt nor the overbearing feeling of powerlessness while also increasing our sense of community and kinship.
I believe that we should be looking to help in the places where we have the most control and influence. We should be helping the communities that we live in, to care about the people who we interact with on a daily basis. First and foremost, we should alleviate the suffering and better the lives of our families, friends, and the land we live on because we understand them on a personal level (not because we like them more). Then, we should look to care for the people and communities around us in ways that we know best. If you are good with cooking low cost meals, host a food drive. If you are good with personal finance, offer to teach people how to save money and invest. If you are good with fixing things around the house, teach others how they can do the same. If you are good with working with refugees and people seeking asylum, look for your nearest shelter and help. This doesn't necessarily mean you have to spearhead new initiatives in your neighborhood or workplace, there may already be local institutions near you that you can volunteer with (blood donations, summer camps for less privileged kids, homeless shelters, etc.). It doesn't matter who you end up helping, as long as you are helping. I can't tell you what to do or what is best in your case, only you can. Scouting out ways to help others who are already involved in your everyday life can be a great first step if you don't know where to start.
This way, we can watch how our small but consistent actions build up to become real forces of positive change in this world. We can begin to tell ourselves that "There is a point in trying, because I can better at least one person's life in some way." We can begin to challenge the pessimistic nihilism that is so easy to fall prey to, "The world may be evil, but I am trying to change that." We may even rejoice in the fact that "Existence contains more than just suffering." These small changes in mindset can have large rippling effects, especially when others in our communities follow suit.
Some may argue that helping only our own communities will only exacerbate tribalism. Furthermore, the poor cannot help the poor, and the rich will only get richer. Those in poverty will continue to loop in a "poverty trap" without external aid. Those who are homeless cannot provide homes for other homeless people. These are valid concerns, but I believe that helping in ways we know will provide value is better than helping in ways that might. We all have our skill sets that can be put to use today, so it might be better to help anyone now than it is to direct our efforts in inevitably failing to find the "perfect" person in need.
We've let technology obscure what really matters to our well-being, and the well-being of the people around us. Let's not get distracted by the sensationalist media nor by how we identify ourselves, let's just do what we can to help alleviate suffering, and do it well.
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