I learned recently that 3-5 million people starved to death in India in 1943. Who knew? No one today seems to remember a one of them. At least, one never hears about this tragedy in this country. Is there a god who cares more about me, or you, than he cared about any one of those Indians, and is protecting us? Not sure why there would be. That reminds me that there is no net -- no bottom to how bad things can get. It makes me realize I (and probably WE - we modern westerners) have a deep-seated, implicit feeling of being somehow Chosen or Protected from harm. I recognize intellectually that this feeling is foolish -- I worry about cataclysm as much as the next guy -- but it seems to be a characteristic of growing up wealthy and secure. Or maybe not, maybe it is just characteristic of a certain breed of person. I bet some people feel our universal vulnerability in their bones. Perhaps some holocaust survivors, for example, fully digested the horror-potential of life (the holocaust being a good example of the bottom falling out, if only one of many in the 20th century) in a way many others have not. Perhaps people from poor nations or poor neighborhoods may be immune to the illusion as well. Or war veterans who've seen terrible things.
Perhaps such people are more clearsighted about things. Perhaps more ruthless. Perhaps more frightened and full of hate and eager to start wars. Perhaps an existential illusion of fundamental safety is key to successful liberal society in some way.
Or maybe it's not such an illusion, but just a rational assessment that such sweeping cataclysms are not likely to strike in contemporary America.
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