Caring:
Humans care about what is in their own self-interest. For instance, we care more deeply about our families than
others because we share genes with them and evolution is all about our genes’ survival, not our own. We care
about many things that in subtle ways act in our genes’ self-interest, whether we realize it or not. It’s not that we
are conniving, but instead that our emotions and urges have been programmed by millions of years of evolution.
Self-interest seems to me to be a perfectly logical and evolutionarily efficient thing to care about. But we humans
are capable of caring about more than that. We are capable of, on one level or another, becoming emotionally
moved by things that truly don’t affect us as individuals in any real way. At face value, this kind of caring hardly
seems logical in this all-encompassing survival game that we’re involved in, but looking deeper there is an
explanation to be found.
Humans have these things called ‘mirror neurons’ in our brains. They allow us to mimic the actions of others. We
see someone perform an act and we can almost act it out in our head. You see someone use a hammer or shoot
a basketball and you all of a sudden have a pretty good idea of how to perform that act. You probably won’t be
able to do it perfectly at first, unless you’re a ‘natural’, but you’re now in the right ballpark, and with proper
practice you can develop the skill. Imagine how much of an evolutionary advantage our ancestors would have
had with this copycat ability. Those without it would have had to figure things out by scratch, which would have
taken far more time and effort. In today’s world, engineers don’t have to invent new things from scratch; they use
the inventions of old as tools to help develop new technologies. I’m just speculating here, but I think these ‘mirror
neurons’ may have been what put us over the top and allowed us to become much more advanced than any other
species of animal on Earth. Either way, it must have been a pretty useful tool to have had in our bag of tricks, no
matter what phase of development we happened to be in over the years.
Just like we can almost perform an act in our heads that we witness another perform, we can almost feel an
emotional state that we witness another feel. The human ability to care is based on empathy, which only occurs
when we are able to relate to someone or some experience. The reason we can mimic physical actions is
because we can relate to the movements of our arms and legs. We are in touch with their actions and
capabilities, and thus can relate to another’s actions. It’s the same with emotions- if we can sufficiently relate to
another’s emotional state then we are able, to a certain degree, to experience their emotion. If you are unable to
relate to a situation or emotional state on some level, I don’t believe you can really care about it in an emotional
sense. We’re not capable of it because it was simply never programmed into our genes.
I have to admit, I wasn’t really emotionally moved by the events of September 11, 2001. Indeed, I don’t believe it
was possible for me to become emotional, for reasons both inherent and self-created, because I couldn’t
empathize with any of those who were really suffering. I’ve never been in a situation remotely like being in a
building under attack, so I couldn’t dream of empathizing with those inside. I have no way of comprehending the
emotional extremes they must have been experiencing without the use of some crude and long-ranged emotional
extrapolation. I also knew no one in the towers, or even New York for that matter, so without anyone that I cared
about in danger, I had no self-interest in the situation. I will say that I think we all have suffered pain or worried
about another at some point, which is something that we can on some level empathize with, so citizens becoming
informed about the situation through the news or any other sources no doubt increased the level of caring
throughout the country and the world in regards to this event. This is an important point that I will return to
shortly. At that time of my life though, I was preoccupied with getting stoned and watching Elimidate, so it didn’t
really rock my world. I dislike the event itself, as it was plainly wrong and innocent people were killed, but my
caring is on a mental level of recognizing right and wrong, as opposed to a purely emotional one. I don’t think I
am alone here either. Most people would not admit that they didn’t really care, even to themselves, simply
because it is so blatantly socially unacceptable to not care about this event, but in the gym I was in as the news
came over the radio, nary a dumbbell fell to the ground, nor did anyone go running out of the room scared or
crying. To me this indicates that the majority of the hundred or so people in that gym cared more about their pecs
and abs at that moment in time than the attack, and I doubt it was just a freakishly insensitive room of individuals.
Another experience I had recently dealing with the nature of human caring was on a trip to the Auschwitz
concentration camp in Poland. For me it was like a visit to an extremely important museum. I treated the visit with
a somber respect, maintaining silence and behaving in what I felt to be an appropriate manner, and I tried to learn
what I could from my experience there. To show respect in such a historically significant location, I felt it
necessary to stay true to my own emotions. I thought it would be insulting if I were to go in there and make a big
fuss if I didn’t really feel it, simply because I thought it the proper or standard thing to do. There were people
there sixty years ago who went through things that I could never begin to comprehend, and to act as if I could
empathize with their suffering did not seem to me to show them their due respect. I expected to see many people
exhibiting an overly emotional reaction, but during my visit I became increasingly intrigued by my fellow visitors,
many of whom were Jewish. I thought I would encounter much crying, but I didn’t see a tear shed on the day. I
saw adults laughing and joking around at times. I saw little Jewish boys running around playing while their parents
engaged in friendly chit chat. These people were obviously not laughing about what had occurred on that site,
but nonetheless, their behavior seemed inappropriate for the location. It was a different kind of disrespect than I
had expected, but in a way, it was a more honest form.
When I was about seventeen, my mother and younger brother had a serious car accident. They drove off the
interstate and flipped over a couple times. My brother had some seatbelt bruises but was otherwise fine. My
mother had incurred more serious injuries, none of which were life-threatening. I was a cashier at the time, and I
can remember my father waiting in line to break me the news, as it wasn’t, in reality, urgent. When the news hit
me I literally lost the ability to speak. I went to my boss to tell her that I needed to leave, but I simply couldn’t form
words. I think she kind of got the point and finally I just walked out. The thought of the two most important people
in my world coming that close to death physically affected me. In my mind I knew they were ok, but that didn’t
make much difference to my body’s response. I was emotionally overwhelmed. That was true caring. It didn’t
occur because I could relate to their experience, but was more selfish in its nature. My caring was based on the
potential devastation to my world that had been narrowly averted. I love these people and would do anything for
them, but our emotions are our own, our pain is our own, and that is what truly affects us.
There are many recent examples that help illustrate the flaw in the view of the all-caring human. Hurricane
Katrina is an event that caused similar death numbers to 9/11 and considerably more suffering to those who
managed to survive the disaster. The aftermath of that event is still going on, but since it is far more socially
acceptable to not show enthusiastic caring for it, the public has to a great extent turned a blind eye. 9/11 had
probably the most significant media coverage of any tragedy in the history of the world. Though it resulted in only
a small fraction of the suffering of many other tragedies, it affected the public more as a result of the dramatic
coverage. The media coverage for Hurricane Katrina was much less significant, which made it so the public was
less emotionally moved by it than they may have otherwise been. I think another big part of the nation’s apathy
towards Katrina has been the fact that many of us can’t relate to poor black people, thus can’t empathize with
them as significantly. This inability to relate is caused by a subtle form of racism of which we all are guilty, and it
makes it much easier to not care about other people’s suffering. This can be seen in many different instances of
suffering around the world.
The recent earthquake in Pakistan killed 40,000 people, but I think most people, if they’re truly being honest with
themselves, probably realize that they really don’t care a great deal about those people. Part of it is racism and
part of it is a lack of being informed. The tsunami in South East Asia killed over 100,000 people, and I think there
was a decent amount of public outcry, but not nearly to the extent of 9/11, which was less than a thirtieth as
deadly. And then there’s what I see to be the greatest tragedy of our time occurring in Africa on a daily basis,
where about 10,000 people die every single day. That’s a 9/11 for breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday. This
occurs in large part because they don’t get the humanitarian relief that has been continuously promised to them
by industrial nations, where the US has been far and away the worst offender. But people don’t care about that,
because we really can’t relate to poor black Africans. It doesn’t matter that their situation has been shaped by a
deadly legacy of colonialism and that the continent is still continuously exploited by industrialized nations. People
can’t help but think, ‘Why don’t those Africans get it together? They must just be a lesser people.’ This subtle
racism, along with a lack of exposure, allows people to be unmoved by these instances of suffering. To me, these
tragedies are much more significant than 9/11, but I too am not emotionally moved by them.
Everyone says that they care about these things, but that’s simply because it is socially unacceptable not to care.
Some may even try to avoid facing this reality within themselves, because what kind of person would they be if
they didn’t care about such suffering? They may go so far as attempting to buy this fabrication through donations
or bumper stickers as a way of presenting evidence to themselves and others that yes indeed, they are a caring
person. (As far as I’m concerned, those people can buy their caring credit because they are in fact doing
something to help. I do feel their motives are psychologically suspect though.) If you simply observe the action
taken by people in the wake of these and other events, it just doesn’t vibe with the view of the all-caring human.
And if humans really do care, then our apathy and inaction speaks volumes about our collective character.
For me, on a certain level I do care about tragedies around the world, but my caring is not of an emotional
nature. A sense of fairness and right and wrong promotes a desire within me to create a world in which less
suffering occurs, and gives me a feeling of displeasure with how the world reacts to various incidents of suffering.
A big part of why engaging with foreign cultures and foreign lands is so important is that it allows you to better
relate and empathize with those people. You begin to realize that at the core, we humans are all pretty much the
same; we have just been dealt a wide variety of situations in which we must live. Exposure reduces the ingrained
racism that acts on all of us. It also increases the level to which you are informed about other people’s situations,
which will lead to greater empathy, and thus, a truer emotional caring. I feel that this exposure and understanding
is what is truly lacking behind the rhetoric of caring. Most people do know right from wrong, good from bad, and
what it is to be fair, and truly want to care, but without the development of empathy it simply cannot be done. It is
my belief that if we can find a way to significantly close the gap between rhetoric and reality with regards to caring,
many of the terrible evils and much of the suffering that occurs in the world can be alleviated. Without it though,
many will continue to suffer behind a cloud of meaningless words.