EPTI’ve cowardly fled from this question since I couldn’t bring myself to answer with any degree of confidence. If you think about it, though, this question shapes how US international policy works. Our leaders have to decide a course of action that will best serve the country and those decisions often come down to 'how many lives will be lost to accomplish ____ goal?' Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and Libya seemed to prioritize the preservation of American life. Normandy and Korea showed that some causes are worth dying for.
But this question extends beyond the exchanging of humans lives and into the realm of money. Unfortunately we live in a world where a budget is limiting and money has to be divided between important projects. So we can rephrase our question to: How many dollars is an American life worth?
The answer probably differs depending on the person in question. The Secret Service is a multi-million dollar operation that works to protect only a handful of people. The military wouldn't think twice before sacrificing a Predator drone to bail out one of their infantryman. Even people on the street are protected to a large extent by social welfare. I guess the answer would be that an American life is worth "a lot of money". The government may not follow up on ensuring happiness but they sure do a good job on making sure our hearts keep beating.
So that leads us to the next question: How many dollars is a non-American life worth? Only a very limited portion of the national budget is devoted to foreign humanitarian aid. If someone were a bit more motivated, they could measure out the number of lives needing saving and divide that into the total humanitarian budget and come up with a dollar value. But that isn't the point of the blog so we'll move on to the next question.
How much American utility is a non-American life worth? By choosing to build a bridge in Kentucky, we are choosing not to send that much money to someone starving in some other country. By ensuring that the mail arrives on time, we are choosing not to provide medication to very curable diseases. By ensuring that Social Security works, we are choosing not to help other nations.
The tone of my writing may come off as condemning but I really don't know if this train of thought is right or wrong. I'm definitely not saying we should abolish all domestic policy in favor of a purely humanitarian government. But let us consider the following scenario:
- A child is stuck under a bridge and the only way to reach and save her is to demolish said bridge.
- A child is sick and dying in a foreign country and you have a limited budget, part of which is currently allocated towards building a bridge. You have the option of not building the bridge and instead providing lifesaving aid for the child.
Surely anybody can point out why these scenarios are different. Yet the two possible outcomes are identical for each scenario: one leads to life, the other to death. How can the changing of a few details make such a difference regarding whether life-saving action is taken? Does your decision differ if that child is American or Armenian? Does it differ if that child is a blood relative? Does it differ if you are the person stuck under the bridge?- A child is sick and dying in a foreign country and you have a limited budget, part of which is currently allocated towards building a bridge. You have the option of not building the bridge and instead providing lifesaving aid for the child.
Does it differ if you are the sick and dying?
Maybe it’s best that we don’t take such an idealist approach to this problem. There will always be people suffering, there will always be people more fortunate. It isn’t fair to call for the normalization of everybody’s well-being. It’s an impossible goal anyways and pursuing it just fills you with despair. Maybe inaction is excusable.
But maybe too many people are like me. Maybe too many people are fleeing from a problem that is too tough to answer, that highlights our subtle cruelty to the world. Maybe we're committing heart-wrenching atrocities while turning the other way.
I don't know.
