The Value of a Human Life

These past few weeks have seen a very interesting revelation of the value of a human life in our modern consciousness through media and our self-interests in the developed western world. On the one side we had President Bush vetoing the Stem Cell funding bill on the basis of protecting a 150 cells that could one day form an American life and at the other end of extremes we had 650 die in a Tsunami in Indonesia, 500 in typhoons in China. While most of the news media outlets covered the Lebanon war (640 Lebanese dead versus 50 Israelis) and Bush’s veto, the daily death tolls of hundreds of Iraqis (over 2000 have been killed in the past month alone in sectarian violence), Indonesians, Indian, Sudanese and Chinese human beings. And this does not take into consideration the millions of people around the world that go to bed hungry and homeless and may not see the light of the next day.

I remember reading a UNDP report in 2003 that calculated the cost of managing a human being in different countries of the world from birth until death – health, education, housing etc. The numbers were staggering. A single American was equivalent to 1.5 British citizens, 77 Senegalese and well over 100 Bangladeshis. An American or British or Israeli life is considered more valuable and gets more media attention than 200 Indians dying in a terrorist attack in Mumbai or the poor Tsunami Victims of Indonesia. I guess the value of a human life is completely dependent on the wealth of their nation and the good fortune of their gene pool.

All perennial philosophies seek to find the common thread in our myths around the world and yes, DNA and universal philosophies say we are all the same at the core. But the reality today is that we are not equal at all.
 
What myth is being created here when a mere 5 – 10% of the world’s population consumes the majority of it resources, dominates its media minutes, and sees it self as more valuable than an equivalent human life across two thirds of the rest of the world. I guess we could compare it the myths of Olympian Gods playing games with mere mortals from high on Olympus and coming down from time to time to intervene in human affairs.
 
These are fascinating times we live in and while we obsess over what makes the middle east such a a breeding ground for conflict, we must really consider what role we play in perpetuating a world of divisions, disparity and the demeaning and devaluing of human lives. It will be interesting to see how perspectives change as China and India emerge as economic super powers towards the middle of this century and what value human life will have then based on their values and ideas of the human mythic experience.