Virginia Trioli sneers from her leftard moral high-ground that we care less about those dying in Baghdad than we do about 'rich white people in America'. She's probably right, which begs the question why should we worry about any of them?
In the ancient world, the misfortunes of other people were of no great interest. The Greeks believed that only they were fully human; everyone else was a barbarian. The Old Testament Hebrews were not interested in the calamities afflicting the Canaanites and the Philistines, let alone the Babylonians and the Assyrians. Even today villagers in remote valleys in Papua New Guinea are said to regard residents of the neighbouring valley as less than human. The natural philosophy of man is beggar thy neighbour, not bind up his wounds.
Compassion became the natural response to a stranger’s distress only with the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Christian belief that each and every human being is a child of God gave compassion a metaphysical foundation. It was no longer a question of convenience or self-interest, but a response to a universal brotherhood under a divine Father.
So the very fact that Trioli and Green think that the disproportionate coverage given to the tragedy in Boston is unfair is a tribute to the residual Christianity in their outlook. The natural impulse of the Christian is to pray for “brethren” in distress, wherever they are. And this spiritual solidarity eventually gives rise to formidable networks of charity, many people working silently, anonymously, to help victims of tragedy and to restore peace to shattered nations. Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet.
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