Jump In; Let's Save the World

I have one of the hardest struggles with the idea that you simply can't save everyone.

There's a passage in World War Z that outlines the account of a man in South Africa who proposed and then enacted a play to save the country from the approaching zombie apocalypse. In order to stave off and attract away the advancing horde from the more heavily-populated southern regions of the country, he publicly declared that those living in the more remote northern regions gather in particular camps that were to be reinforced by the national military and supplied with food from the southern cities. What the northern people did not realize, however, was that the cities themselves led toward the seas, and they themselves were being used as nothing more than bait and food to keep the zombies away from the cities.

No help came. No food came. The people who had gathered in the camps under the hope of fortress and safety were dismayed to find themselves abandoned and left for dead.

In hindsight, the plan did work -- the majority of South Africa was saved. Logic also stated that those caught in the northern camps would not have had the time to reach the southern cities -- and if they had tried, they would have drawn the zombie horde directly toward the rest of the country's population. Pragmatism pointed out that any military assistance would have been completely useless -- nothing prepared them for fighting off zombies and the soldiers sent would have died just the same as the people stranded in those camps.

In a bottom-line statistical sense, the plan worked brilliantly. The country was saved. In a personal sense, the man responsible for its development and implementation had gone from renowned and respected political activist known internationally for his stoicism and emotional reserve to a psychiatric patient who spent the rest of his days in an insane asylum, speaking to none.

The question of "sacrificing the few to save the many" has resounded throughout history and become popular material for fiction and fantasy of current drama of the day. But do we truly understand the cost? The above scenario has its problems when applied to this question.

• The people in the camps did not make an informed decision about sacrificing themselves to save the many. It was done out of ignorance and, essentially, against their will.
  
  
• Those in power, meaning those who implemented the plan, were, of course, among those that were saved.

Still, the image of a man going from emotionally-reserved and completely anti-empathetic to psychotic for the implementation of a plan that, on a pragmatic level, worked, really haunted me. In many ways I've always considered myself a consummate pragmatist -- I live in a quantum mechanical world where anything is possible and all of life can be boiled down to a series of percentages and probabilities. Everything is a mixture of states; therefore, life, death, food, hunger, youth, age, everything, are simply pieces that make up one whole. It does no good to bemoan one piece taking majority and the others slipping to the minority. Yet I found myself appalled by the plan as detailed in the account. I felt my heart recoil and my stomach twist when I read the idea of sacrificing innocents, even in the name of saving more.

My pragmatism fails when it comes to an actual relationship or real people.

I once described myself to a friend as a "weight of the world" person. It's just as easy for me to accept blame as it is for me to accept responsibility. This is one of the many reasons I find myself so passionate about my current position; I have the ability to help total strangers reach a goal that they otherwise thought impossible in a way that genuinely engages my sympathies actively and incites both empathy and support from my own soul. I find the prospect of helping another simply beautiful -- the connection of a heart with a heart, the ability to serve as someone's funnel of strength, to inspire a mind that once thought itself useless to great, unimaginable heights.

At the same time, I find myself constantly worn down by those who refuse my help -- those that, for either my own fault or theirs, will not take my assistance. Sometimes these are simply students who won't come to class, won't do the work, won't respect my position as instructor and believe they know better. At some line, I have a responsibility to help them by failing them -- a warning that such behavior is unacceptable and will not succeed in life. That can be really rough. There's always a million different reasons why they couldn't come to class, why their life will be ruined if I don't give them the C, but truly, if I wish to help them, then I have to stick to standards and channel my sympathy into helping them understand that this won't help them succeed.

The other type that I cannot help is more my fault than theirs -- a personality clash, a thought process conflict, or something of the like. It's a failure of communication that cannot be overcome as my thought processes do not translate into a way that they can understand, or perhaps they view me as abrupt, rude, and condescending and thus are put off from trying to succeed due to a "lost in translation" emanating from myself. In that, I completely blame myself. I have yet to learn that not all respond to my styles of leadership and communication, and I take very little solace in the fact that it works in some cases; I cannot help but focus on the cases in which it does not.

My department chair counseled me to be very careful about "over-apologizing"; if a student does not complete an assignment, if they do not remember their calculator, if they don't mark down a due date, that is not my fault and thus I should not give the impression that it is by saying, "I'm sorry," or "I'm afraid that I can't help you." He told me that I cannot blame myself for the students' own failure; it isn't healthy for my own mindset as well as their view of my position and respect. I do have a habit of being easily apologetic for anything and everything; if I have even the slightest hint of doing something wrong or even simply giving someone the wrong impression, I apologize for the slight possibly caused.

Is this healthy? Probably not, for both me as well as the person at the other end. Pragmatically, you're not going to be able to save anyone. Fixating on those that you can't simply destroys you as much as it destroys any potential you had to save others. Numerically, the greater percentage should win out -- save the most that you can. Go with the majority. Do what you must to serve the larger number.

But at what cost to yourself?

There are many times that I see the reflection of that man in my own soul, slowly devolving into complete and utter madness. Even the most strengthened, steeled hearts cannot possibly carry the blood of so many innocents, no matter what they claim. Every person that I cannot help for one reason or another stains my perception of self -- as I see that I failed, that I missed the mark, that I did something to bring that person to destruction. No matter how many I think that I save, I can count so many black memories of those that I did not.

So what to do? Hide in a closet and believe that if you touch no one, you can fail none? Or perhaps jump out and save the world with all good intentions and altruism in mind? I truly do not know.