As the deadly extent of the disaster became truly apparent over the past ten days, I’ve noticed the sheer futility of most of the information and news (in the West). In the especially information-saturated society we now live in, every last bit of news and trivia on the disaster has been squeezed out, some pretentious and some of it insensitive to the point of utter crassness. But even the ’serious’ news is as useless - do we really need to keep on seeing endless videos of the waves crashing in or the intricately detailed satellite photography? The permanent desire on the likes of Boing Boing and MeFi to keep on linking amd blogging stuff, no matter how irrelevant, makes me feel distinctly uneasy. For those of us lucky enough not to have had any friends or family involved in the tragedy, isn’t the fact that over a hundred thousand died and millions have had their lives ruined enough demonstration of the true horror of it all? Most of the additional information is purely supplementary, to the point of uselessness.
I suspect we are futile here too. If we dislike our government’s foreign policy, trade rules, lax safety laws, or other causes of man-made disasters, we are fortunate enough, in a democracy, to campaign and protest and try to effect change (whether we are successful is another matter, but at least there is a chance). But no-one can protest against a Richter 9 earthquake; there is no way we can convince a tsunami not to strike.
Perhaps I am just projecting my own futility here. There isn’t much need for computer geeks or sociology students out there right now. If I went out there to help I’d be so useless as to get in the way, and besides, a long-term commitment of years is what they need (an excellent MoFi thread on the subject) rather than a few weeks of volunteering. I can’t even donate blood at the moment, thanks to a low iron count.
The only thing I’m good for, and I suspect the same goes for most of you, is the fact I’ve been able to donate money to the charities who are helping the survivors. If you haven’t yet donated money to help, then please, please do so here. Should you need any further incentive, then Armand’s family and friends are climbing Malaysia’s biggest mountain to raise funds.
I’m fully aware that the first three paragraphs of this post are a perfect demonstration of this utter uselessness. So I won’t be writing any more on the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, as there is not much more I can say, and I’d be wallowing in my own self-importance if I thought it would be of any great (or even little) consequence. I’ll just shut up, with a simple promise to help (and continue to help) those who are helping the victims.
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January 4th, 2005 at 22:23:35
I don’t see why you label the perfectly valid scientific comment about “globsters” as insensitive. There is much to be learned from disasters in all kinds of ways and you should never forget that. Nobody is suggesting for one second that anyone stop helping people and concentrate on other things, but you can help and observe.
January 5th, 2005 at 00:00:44
As Loren Coleman, the cryptozoologist quoted in the globsters story, said (via BB): “Everyone wants to talk about the tsunamis, and so yesterday a reporter contacted me to ask about what impact all this would have on cryptozoology. Questions about cryptozoology in the midst of a global disaster? I frankly was shocked. But then I saw this as an opportunity to emphasize humanitarian efforts, first and foremost, and stressed zoological awareness would be an objective far down the priority list.”
On a more general note, the information-hungry response to the tsunami doesn’t seem to me to be a particularly ‘useless’ response. Not useful in a strictly utilitarian sense, I’ll admit, but to contrast it (as a notably secular response) with religious, literary, whatever other form of response… I think the compulsion to find out and understand as much as possible about a tragedy of this nature and scale, be it a way of contextualising the horror or of avoiding it, is a perfectly laudable response.