Published September 21, 1999
The wave of violence that has gripped this country for the past several months has raised questions about the value humanity places on the individual human life. For example, the United States has always prided itself on being a nation where the rights to �life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness� are greatly respected. It is, therefore, very troubling when crimes of senseless violence become so commonplace that they cease to shock and trouble us.
Personally, I am ashamed to admit that I was initially more affected by a poor grade I received on a quiz last Thursday than I was by the news that eight people had been killed in a shooting in Fort Worth, Texas. I could make the excuse that I�d never met any of the people involved and that they were merely names to me, but even I recognize that such an excuse is empty and unsatisfying.
The point is that my slight academic setback was far more upsetting to me than the deaths of other human beings. I was depressed for most of the day about the quiz, but I didn�t give another thought to the victims and their families. I was so consumed by my own the little problems that I allowed myself to dismiss the sufferings of other people as �none of my concern.�
I doubt that I am alone in my indifference. As a nation, it seems that we have experienced tragedy after tragedy since the April 20 shooting at Columbine High School, each slightly different but all strangely the same. Even the July 4 murder of Won-Joon Yoon by another student of our University is starting to recede from our memories now that our lives have resumed their normalcy.
For the many of us who didn�t know him, Won-Joon Yoon is only closer to us in proximity than the other victims of such tragedy. We have no real memory of him. We view his death differently primarily because we realize that what happened to him could easily have happened to any of us.
The deaths of people we do not know are such easy things to ignore. We never have to see them or think about them unless the media forces us to do so. And when we are made to acknowledge that they have happened, it seems like there is nothing that can be done to change what has passed.
After a while, all the shootings start to blend together until all anyone can remember is that some people died, and even that information is soon little more than an emotionless fact. We ignore the violence because we think we are safe, and because it is much easier to ignore it than it is to think about it.
The fact that the suffering of others is so easy to forget should disturb all of us. It should make us wonder if we truly do value human life as much as we believe. It is easy to write off one or two shootings as the product of insanity. After a while, however, it seems more like a sign of the times than it does anything else.
The continual murders show that for many people, human life is held in extremely low regard. If people valued their own lives, they would not throw them away so cavalierly. If they valued the lives of others, they would not seek to take them from this world. The fact that they do suggests that we are all slowly forgetting how important each and every human life is.
It is very easy to elevate our own �right to the pursuit of happiness� above that of another�s �right to life,� to ignore the deaths of others because we are caught up in living. We are, after all, always aware of our own desires, but only occasionally conscious of the needs of other people. I would suggest that the only reason we have a �right to the pursuit of happiness� is because we first have a �right to life� that is essentially infinite.
No amount of money is worth a single human life, no matter how miserable that life might seem to any of us. Whenever human beings die, whether they are a Turkish peasant, a Littleton resident or a Kennedy, their loss should sadden and disturb all of us. When they die, a priceless value has been lost to the world that can never be regained. If we allow ourselves to forget this fact by becoming desensitized to tragedy, we are condoning the actions of those who cause such tragedies. If we care about human life so little, so that it is only worth slightly more to us than it is to those who would take their own lives and the lives of others, then I wonder if our lives have any value after all.
When Diversity Becomes Intolerant
The Value of Human Life
Updated Tuesday, 21-Sep-1999 00:03:27 EST
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Original Letter to the Editor