American Dream Project on Moral Imagination
This week American Idol gave back. Nearly 30 million American’s watched stories of poverty and disease and heard a plea for help. Yes, there were the stories of unbelievable suffering in Africa, but did you see the incredible poverty and pain related through stories of crime ridden “trailer ghettos” filled with Hurricane Katrina victims, illiterate mothers and obese children in Kentucky, and a single mom working three jobs in Los Angeles only to have her 8-year old weep from the stress of getting the bills paid?
What I’ve learned from talking to thousands of Americans is that what goes through viewers? minds when seeing these stories varies from compassion to blame. It seems most of us think this way: if something bad is happening to a family member, a friend, or us it is a crisis. If it is happening to some one like us, it’s a problem. If it’s happening to someone we view as unlike us, it’s his or her fault. Deal with it.
After Katrina, I was blogging about the sorry state of leadership when lots of angry people replied that most of the victims were lazy, no damn-good whiners who should know how to take care of themselves. This was not the view of a few. Is this what our culture has become?
In our personal quest for more and the competitive energy of our economy, have we lost our moral imagination? We don’t have to.
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Dear Will, I’ve been reading your blogs over the past few weeks. This time, your stance on moral imagination really moved me! Our society as a whole has become very selfish and immature, as mentioned. People need to return to the values that really matter, to practicing the golden rule with gusto, to learn to love our fellow humans deeply with compassion, ending the negativity.
Paraphrasing: “family member=crisis, like us=problem. unlike us=their fault” It’s the effect of the (humorously named) “Monkeysphere”. Someone pointed out that our brains are likely physically wired to only *really* care about 150 people. Those people are inside our monkeysphere. Everyone else isn’t really a person and outside our concern. Google the term, but be warned the page uses adult humor to get it’s point across.