Ancient scientists and astronomers were hopelessly wrong when they tried to explain the patterns of the planets because they started with the incorrect assumption that the planets, stars, sun, and moon revolved around the earth. Once scientists corrected this, the planetary orbits made perfect sense. Mr. Kristof similarly falls short because he analyzes this problem within the framework of modern society. We need to go back in time many, many millennia.
Mr. Kristof highlights a very interesting phenomenon. Why are we willing to help one person, but not many? Don't the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? Unfortunately, he completely neglects to consider where our sense of morality, compassion and empathy comes from. Perhaps he, like most of the world believes that our sense of morality comes from the text of an ancient book written by people who themselves did not realize that the earth revolves around the sun. This is just conjecture on my part, as I do not know of Mr. Kristof's beliefs.
We evolved our moral sense within the social framework of a band of 150 - 200 people. Our goal was to survive and reproduce. The best way to do this was to help the group survive, and to ingratiate ourselves to the others within the group. This was our extended family, and most to the people within it were probably relatives of some degree. The group was our support system and it was all we needed to be concerned with. Live happily and productively within this societal structure. Make others happy, and help them. This leads to better chances for survival, mating, and passing on your genes. Really folks, that what it all boils down to.
Imagine you are living within this group about 30,000 years ago. You are walking through the woods one day and you see a child in distress. What do you do? If you have compassion for the child, you would help however you could. You would then gain favor with the parents and family of that child as a result. Perhaps the next time the father killed a boar, you would be included in the resulting feast to the exclusion of somebody who could have, but did not help. Compassion for individuals wins friends and compatriots. These friends help to secure your place in your group, insuring better chances for survival and reproduction. Your offspring would have a high likelihood of inheriting your compassionate traits, thereby increasing the overall level of compassion within the human race.
Understand that these acts of kindness are not done under these circumstances just to gain favor. Did our ancestors eat food because they understood its nutritive value? No. They ate because they were hungry. The nutritive value was just a nice benefit. How about sex? Were they consciously trying to create children? No. They became sexually aroused and followed their instincts. Did the person who helped the child do so just to gain favor? No. He did so out of an emotional instinct. The family favor was just a benefit, just as were the nutrition from food and the children from sex.
So, what about compassion for victims of genocide or mass famine? Think about it for a second. Back in the day, if you had any first hand knowledge of mass famine or genocide, you would have been one of the victims. There is not much chance to pass on any compassion to your offspring when you are dead. These emotions didn't develop because they wouldn't have been helpful to personal survival. Helping one person reaps rewards. How about helping large groups of people? Well, it just didn't happen. How would you have approached a mass tragedy? We didn't have technology or ability to deal with such things, so appropriate emotional responses never really developed.
I've spoken to this point before and I'll do it again. We no longer live in bands of 150 - 200 people, but our emotions are still stuck in that dynamic. We need to use logical thinking to overcome these emotional deficits. We can only do this once we understand why we have these deficits in the first place.
Mr. Kristof speaks of poor salesmanship on the part of humanitarians. Perhaps he's right, but until humanitarians understand that we will always respond emotionally to the face of a single suffering child, and rarely to the explanations of mass tragedies, the poor salesmanship will continue. Stop throwing big numbers at us and start showing us the single faces of the afflicted, along with their names and a description of their home life and family. That will speak to the emotions our ancestors passed along and it will open our wallets much more effectively.
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