Images of Crisis

Images of crisis are so incorporated into our lives I have never stopped and thought about them.  Every day we turn on the tv and see videos of war or we see images of destruction left by natural disasters.  Death is thrown in our faces every day and desensitizes us to the point that pictures of rows of dead children doesn’t spark any interest or concern. In the pictures on these first couple pages children are holding signs asking for donations for the tsunami and the Haiti victims.  They are smiling and one of the posters has hearts and smiley faces on it. It almost makes the events that killed thousands of people something light hearted.  It actually seems normal to me for the kids to be doing that.  Since we live out of harm’s  way and we haven’t been hit by any serious disaster I feel like we have a ridiculous apathy for pain and suffering in other cultures around the world.  I agree with James Nachtwey when he basically says the images that inform people are supposed to inspire compassion and cause a unity to make a change, but I feel like when we see these images its nothing new. There’s always a disaster, there’s always war, and a lot of times there’s nothing we can do to change anything so we just don’t care.  I’m sure if we lived there in that culture and there was an actual impact on us besides seeing another picture of dead people, we would care a lot more.  The value of a human life to us is nothing if it is nowhere near us or shares our same culture. And it is because of this bombardment of images of death we feel that way.  That sounds really messed up but from what I have seen, there is some truth to it.  I am not saying that is the way I feel but I think subconsciously there would be a solid number of people who would agree.