How do you put a value on something tangible, say a pound of
wild strawberries? Well, if it takes me a day to gather a pound of
strawberries, and it takes you a day to catch a wild turkey, then my pound of strawberries
is worth as much as your turkey. And if we agree that either one of these
goodies is worth an IOU note we call a dollar, that's what all items of the two
kinds are worth. We may go further and reason that since we have valued a day's
work as worth a dollar, we created a method by which to price every tangible
item. We do it by determining how long it takes to produce the item.
That's a great idea. But how do you put a value on something
that's intangible? Perhaps something that's sentimental to you. Say, a love
letter that your great grandfather wrote to your great grandmother, and that
ended in the hands of a stranger? How much would you pay to have that letter?
Well, if we assume that the letter has the same sentimental value to other
members of the family, your bid for it will be determined by the depth of your
pocket as compared to that of the other bidders. When all is said and done, the
chances are that the wealthier among you will end up owning the letter. And his
bid will be the picture's “fair value”.
We're getting somewhere. Now think how much it pained you
the last time you heard that you lost an acquaintance, a friend or a loved one
who departed unexpectedly. You must admit that a good part of the pain you felt
was generated by the realization that you'll be deprived of the person's
companionship. Call it a case of legitimate selfishness. But what about the
children of the departed? Won't you feel for their loss? Of course, you will.
You'll feel for their loss a great deal more than you will for yours. Why is
that? Because there is something unique to the human species called empathy. To
be accurate, it must be said that you might find traces of empathy in other
species as well, but no way do they experience it as intensely as we do.
Empathy makes you react the way you do when you hear of
people that died in an accident or died by a criminal act or died in a war
situation. You hope death came to them quickly, and that they were spared a
long agony. You also feel for those they left behind, especially the young who
will be deprived of the love and care that's so necessary for the development
of a child.
Now you're thinking, why is it that despite our empathy, we
still have wars? Worse, not only do we have wars; we go out of our way to justify
them, even decades after they have occurred. The truth is, we quarrel, engage
in skirmishes and launch wars against each other because we are also a
competitive species. When nature is bountiful and there is enough to satisfy
everyone, we stay calm. But when shortages occur, we become restless and
compete for what's there. We begin by having small quarrels and they grow to
become savage wars.
Okay! But why do we keep justifying the horrors that were
committed during a war centuries after the fact? Well, we do that because we
believe that the war has not ended. We like to think that the final score has
not been settled, and that the war will flare up again to do just that. And
while we're waiting for the hot war to explode, we engage in a cold war of sort.
There is the Cold War that's familiar to those who know the
history of the late Twentieth Century. But there is also the cold war that goes
on between those who want to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive for ever
and those who will do anything to put it behind them … even if they feel they
must deny it.
But the human character is such that when you start
something, the tendency is for the thing to develop a life of its own and grow
in unexpected directions. That's what happened when people that had little to
do with the denial of the Holocaust came up with ways to trivialize the
Holocaust. Needless to say that the Jews complained about this trend as can be
found in the archives of the 60s, 70s and 80s. This happened to the Holocaust
that the Nazis inflicted on the Jews. What we now see rear its ugly head, is a
version of that same trend, except that it pertains to the Holocaust that the
Jews are inflicting on the Palestinians.
An example of such ugliness came under the title: “Numbers
Versus Narratives in Israel-Palestine,” written by Neri Zilber and published on
June 1, 2018 on the website of The Washington Institute. The attempt to
trivialize the suffering of the Palestinians is so stark and naked, it does not
require further comment from me.