Save the charismatic megafauna!

What's true in one area is often true in another

Posted by JMG (Guest Contributor) at 3:30 PM on 10 May 2007

Read more about: environmental movement | green living | messaging

Nicholas Kristof has a great piece in today's NYT (behind the damn paywall) about why it's so hard to galvanize attention onto mass suffering.

It could be quickly converted into a piece explaining why pictures of cute polar bears -- especially cute baby polar bears -- work so much better at getting people to pay attention to environmental problems than anything that actually shows their real scope.

Hmmm, I'm going to have to stop talking about the problems inherent in jet travel as a mass problem ... now I'm thinking pictures of orphaned baby polar bears with small jets visible in the top of the photos, with a caption like:

"Why didn't someone tell us that flying to see our Mom would help drown theirs?"

Excerpts from the Kristof piece after the jump.

Finally, we're beginning to understand what it would take to galvanize President Bush, other leaders and the American public to respond to the genocide in Sudan: a suffering puppy with big eyes and floppy ears.

That's the implication of a series of studies by psychologists trying to understand why people -- good, conscientious people -- aren't moved by genocide or famines. Time and again, we've seen that the human conscience just isn't pricked by mass suffering, while an individual child (or puppy) in distress causes our hearts to flutter.

...

Not surprisingly, people were less likely to give to anonymous millions than to Rokia. But they were also less willing to give in the third scenario, in which Rokia's suffering was presented as part of a broader pattern.

Evidence is overwhelming that humans respond to the suffering of individuals rather than groups. Think of the toddler Jessica McClure falling down a well in 1987, or the Lindbergh baby kidnapping in 1932 (which Mencken described as the "the biggest story since the Resurrection").

Even the right animal evokes a similar sympathy. A dog stranded on a ship aroused so much pity that $48,000 in private money was spent trying to rescue it -- and that was before the Coast Guard stepped in. And after I began visiting Darfur in 2004, I was flummoxed by the public's passion to save a red-tailed hawk, Pale Male, that had been evicted from his nest on Fifth Avenue in New York City. A single homeless hawk aroused more indignation than two million homeless Sudanese.

...

One experiment underscored the limits of rationality. People prepared to donate to the needy were first asked either to talk about babies (to prime the emotions) or to perform math calculations (to prime their rational side). Those who did math donated less.

...

If President Bush and the global public alike are unmoved by the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of fellow humans, maybe our last, best hope is that we can be galvanized by a puppy in distress.

For story: Save the charismatic megafauna!
6 Comments | Post a Comment

how to get publicity

Really an interesting point. The famously cynical Billy Wilder directed his first movie about an idea kind of along those lines. (It was called "Ace in the Hole."). A cynical reporter from back east is stuck in a small Western town. When he hears about a miner trapped underground, he sets out to get back to the bigtime by inflating the story, only to have it turn out turn on him. Time for a present-day version?

by Kit Stolz at 12:10 AM on 11 May 2007

Stalin knew

Thinking about Kristof's piece reminded me of a quote about how people respond to this sor to thing that I've seen attributed to Stalin:

"A single death is a tragedy, 10,000 deaths is a statistic."

Sounds like the screenwriter who put together "Ace in the Hole" understood it too.

The 5% Project

by JMG at 10:40 AM on 11 May 2007

the impatience of activists

Nicholas Kristof's work as a journalist and activist, starting with his coverage of the Tien An Men massacre nearly 20 years ago, and now including visits to Darfur and Pakistan (where he is interested in the rights of women in Muslim countries), has been remarkably heroic and prophetic.

But I regret the tone of the column from which JMG quotes.

And in general I regret the morally superior attitude of activists who feel that the value of their activism depends on their assembling an army at their backs, and then feel bitter resentment when people fail to fall into ranks.

These activists -- including many in the Gristmill community, needless to say -- are very sophisticated, thoughtful, admirable people. So, surely they are wise enough to see beyond the evil, depressing trap, that the only way to evaluate their activism is by measuring the strength of the movement that they have fomented?

In the case of Darfur, I think Kristof has in fact already inspired a very powerful, generous and focused movement. It is mightily unfair of him to revert, as it were, to that unfortunate 60s sentiment, "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem," when in fact it is the Bush administration that has bollixed up our ability to work freely and effectively beyond our borders.

And meanwhile, affection for animals and concern for their welfare ought always to be encouraged. I think highly of Kristof, but I have lost a good deal of respect for him, now that he has mocked the friends of Knut and Pale Male.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 11:08 AM on 11 May 2007

pictures of polar bears and jets

Did you know? This exists... it is at www.climatecamp.org.uk and the caption is "You Fly... They Die" and it also says "Flying Costs the Earth." I printed it out because I had written something about how I feel a direct link between my daily actions and the dying polar bears. I grieve daily for both the charismatic megafauna and the non-charismatic microfauna and flora.... and even the lost and delusional dominant species...

An ounce of practice is worth twenty thousand tons of big talk. -Vivekananda

by karenc at 11:47 AM on 11 May 2007

"lost and delusional"

Very well put, Karen.

Being a remarkably uncharismatic member of the North American megafauna, with, I suspect, some promise as a source of sausages and a pastrami loaf, even a holiday haunch, I follow you, that we should do our best to look beyond charisma, when we pay attention to the suffering of animals.

My present concern is fishes, both bony (e.g. sardines) and cartilaginous (e.g. sharks) (who are quite distinct taxa, actually, at least as distinct as mammals and birds). In the current animal-loving fashion, "charisma" seems to extend as far as turtles: sea turtles, and Galapagos tortoises. Maybe occasionally a bit further, to include treefrogs, who are indeed very cute.

Unclear if other reptiles and amphibians get any love, by association.

Unclear also, why "fish" and "seafood" are considered no more ethically significant than grass on a lawn needing mowing.

Nay indeed: We have recently read here that the poor of the world need protein and omega-3 oils!, n'est-ce pas?, so let us slaughter all the fish and feed them to them. : (

Really, we can do better than that.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:52 PM on 11 May 2007

These proclivities have probably evolved

as the result of a hundred thousand years of group on group conflict. It is part of our nature (encoded in our genes) and we may as well try to channel it for good rather than deny it exits. That will involve advertising which usually spills over into deception (dancing lumps of coal), and of course at what point does advertising cross the line into propaganda?

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 6:53 AM on 12 May 2007

ADVERTISING POLICY

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