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comment by space_rover
space_rover  ·  3425 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: World War II: Loss of Life Visualized (2015)

This isn't an uncommon sentiment in the context of historical loss of life. The reason for this is that we have no real connection to those who did die. I hate to quote Stalin but when "one man dies its a tragedy, when a million die its a statistic". We can learn about a person, or know them and through that we can empathize more readily with that man's death, but when you look at all of them together its so overwhelming, there is essentially a nameless, faceless crowd that ceased to exist long before we ever lived.

Its easier with distance to look at the events of world war 2 and feel disconnect, with time we are not spurred to an impassioned, emotional response and are more like a third, uninvolved party.

Of course I'm not advocating that loss of millions upon million wasn't tragic, and its def a bit different when coupling all of the resulting chaos. Something to think about.