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The humanitarians' tragedy: escapable and inescapable cruelties
Author(s) -
De Waal Alex
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
disasters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.744
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-7717
pISSN - 0361-3666
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7717.2010.01149.x
Subject(s) - cruelty , tragedy (event) , humanity , tragedy of the commons , margin (machine learning) , environmental ethics , psychology , criminology , political science , law , computer science , philosophy , psychiatry , commons , machine learning
Paradoxically, elements of cruelty are intrinsic to the humanitarian enterprise. 1 This paper focuses on some of these. Escapable cruelties arise from technical failings, but the gradual professionalisation of the field and improvements in relief technologies mean that they have been significantly reduced in comparison to earlier eras. Other cruelties arise from clashes among rights, and the tensions inherent in trying to promote humanity amid the horrors of war. These are inescapable and constitute the ‘humanitarians' tragedy’. Among them is the individual cruelty of failing to do good at the margin: a clash between the individual's impulses and ideals and the constraints of operating in constrained circumstances. This is a version of triage. In addition, there is the cruelty of compromising dearly‐held principles when faced with other competing or overriding demands. There is also the cruelty whereby humanitarians feed victims' dreams that there is an alternative reality, which in fact cannot be attained.