My dear daughter,
Our species is capable of great achievements and compassion, but we are still too attached to our tribal roots.
We have done tremendous things such as finding the cure to cancers (several types at different stages), we have discovered antibiotics which save millions, perhaps billions of lives, we have tamed the atom to produce energy and to probe a person’s body without having to resort to surgery, we have been to the moon and sent probes and robots to other worlds and beyond the farthest reaches of the solar system. We are on the verge of being able to alter an embryo’s genome to prevent serious, debilitating diseases even before a person is born.
Yet, there is too much misery, too many needless, stupid and continuing wars; too much suffering.
There are wonderful societies which have practically eradicated poverty, crime and age-old diseases such as polio. But take a random citizen from a developed country, someone who wouldn’t think twice to stand up in front of injustice happening before their eyes, or who would go out of their way to help a neighbor in distress, maybe the victim of a car accident in their street… and they are completely void of empathy for children being killed and raped daily in wars right outside their frontiers. Or they act as if they are void of empathy.
There is also the problem with the multitude of refugees. Some countries desperately need young blood to balance their economy and to keep birth rates higher than death rates… but the tribal instinct appears to get the best of them on several occasions where they could give an example to the world.
Even the problem of war could have a political solution, populations can put political pressure on governments to take action against war… but it’s as if conflicts were happening on another planet, between alien races.
We only seem to care about suffering if it happens right in front of us, and then again not everyone will have a compassionate response every time. We are most likely to react if it happens to someone we consider close or similar to us. Some people can organize themselves against needless suffering out of reason or a greater capacity for compassion, but those appear to be the exception.
How do you bring people closer to the ones living in violent or miserable circumstances? How do you make people understand that aggression against any human being is an aggression against all living people? That at present time any war or conflict has the potential to throw civilization into chaos? That no children anywhere should have to suffer or want for anything? That no rich country will go poor if they share some of their wealth with those deprived of everything?
Love,
Dad
Aspergers Dad 