"How to Save the World"

"What would happen if aid organizations and other philanthropists embraced the dark arts of marketing spin and psychological persuasion used on Madison Avenue? We'd save millions more lives." ~ Nicholas Kristof, Outside Magazine (December 2009), 87

Nicholas Kristof's words elicit a visceral response in most. But before you weigh in on the merits of his remarks let me summarize his brief argument as fairly as I can and then reflect upon our response as Christians.

Kristof, far from being a media exec on Madison Avenue, has spent the bulk of his life on the front lines of disasters as a reporter for the New York Times covering such devastating travesties as the crisis in Darfur, the ravages of AIDS in Swaziland, and crimes against women in Pakistan. He writes as someone with great experiences from the trenches with a credibility in humanitarian circles that is difficult to match. Despite covering these many atrocities, however, Kristof is also quick to acknowledge that the experience of apathy and collective shrugs from people who read his work led him to question his approach: logical arguments about the scale of suffering, withering statistics which promote guilt and expose the opulence of American culture, and consistent descriptions of victimization of countries and peoples through horrific stories. Instead, Kristof turned to the work of social psychologists and came to two simple realizations:
1. "We intervene not because of stories of desperate circumstances but when we can be cheered up with positive stories of success and transformation." He points out that average people find greater pleasure and are therefore more likely to give when we focus our attention on smaller numbers rather than large, full-scale disasters which overwhelm people creating apathy. The higher the number of desperate people, in other words, the less likely people are going to be motivated to do anything about it.
2. The solution, he says, is for storytelling to focus on individuals with personal stories of triumph in the face of disaster, rather than groups. People know that AIDS is devastating and catastrophic, he points out, and depressing stories only leave them with little hope of doing anything. The work of social psychologists reveal that people are much more willing to give when they know that they can change one life than when they might help a large number of people or even a person who represents a suffering group. As we all know, he declares, one death is a tragedy, a million deaths, a statistic. Or, quoting Mother Theresa, "If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will."

The challenge, Kristof acknowledges, is to recognize both the desperate needs and also the very real progress in devastated areas, the prospect of improvement in real people's lives if the help goes forward. We are moved not by statistics, he writes, but by fresh, wet tears, with a bit of hope glistening below. Moreover, he writes, we look for heroes and not victims.

Kristof's argument is quite compelling. Why shouldn't we give hope and utilize the tools of marketing to help people find that helping others is as "every bit as refreshing as, say, drinking a Pepsi?" Of course, the problem for many of us in a media saturated world is that we often equate marketing with false advertising which Kristof is in no way advocating. As a Christian, I am tempted to use Jesus's opening words for his own ministry to explain Kristof's saavy thesis. In the beginning of Mark's Gospel Jesus declares, "repent and believe the Good News." Softened by Kristof's argument and the belief that one should accept the truth from whomever gives it, Jesus words hit me squarely between the eyes. How often I think of "repent" in a moralizing way - a stop doing this now and feel bad about it you filthy, little sinner sort of way - but Jesus' statement, I believe, goes much further. That word repent comes from the Greek word metanoiete. It is based upon two words, meta (beyond) and nous (mind or spirit), and thus, in its simplest form, means something like "go beyond the mind that you have." The Catholic theologian Robert Barron writes, "Jesus is urging his listeners to change their way of knowing, their way of perceiving and grasping reality." What is he asking people to see? "Good news!" The call of Jesus isn't from a life of sin into an eternal life of dreary, eternal guilt. He seeks to heal us by calling us to accept a different reality, a transformation of sight where we jump to action not because of guilt, sadness, disillusionment but because of hope and good news. Now, anyone with a smidgen of knowledge about first century Palestine would know that the facts on the ground were desperate. And yet Jesus declares "good news." Shouldn't we? Isn't Kristof's point of positive stories a parallel that we should readily embrace because of who Jesus is and what he has done? I think so. Moreover, shouldn't we heed Kristof's words about personal stories precisely because the Bible itself is filled with them. Isn't our own spiritual narrative promoted by the Bible a litany of personal tales of disaster and triumph as God works in people lives? Finally, doesn't Jesus tell us that the good shepherd is willing to leave the 99 sheep and look for that one who is lost (Matt. 18:12-13). Kristof is telling us, "write about that one!" Jesus calls us to repent and see the good news. He promises us hope and Kristof reminds us that that's the story we should tell. Can such a story change the world? Yes, it can.