Global shock has greeted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and shock has encouraged sympathetic engagement through compulsive news consumption and swelling donations, government assistance, volunteer aid and more.
That much is normal. Big natural disasters and war often start this way. Then, inevitably, they reach a state of grim stasis where today’s news is horrible, but little different from yesterday or the day before. Sympathy fatigue follows. Eventually, another disaster distracts us.
The Ukraine debacle is orders of magnitude above most other disasters in its potential to spark continental or global catastrophe. But our engagement is as much about human nature as about an event’s intrinsic merit.
Worse, necessity or greed may drive cracks in a united world’s response. Companies that have fled Russia for fear of reputational harm may – for profit – sneak in to provide back-channel connections for Vladimir Putin’s isolated economy. Governments, too. Like sympathy, greed motivates.
Will we tire of this disaster – or of its collateral impact on us personally? Will distraction or greed interfere? When? ’Tis worth a moment’s thought now as we still doom-scroll the news.
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Yes, Jeff, I’m afraid that’s so.
Seeing those vast fields of sunflowers, I’m left wondering: where are the birds and squirrels who love to feast on the seeds? And such beauty before the devastation of war . . .