2 [ countable] informal A Frenchman has aptly remarked that “a single man killed is a misfortune, a million is a statistic.” How to encompass the emotional reality of that aggregate of horrors which so easily becomes “a statistic” or a remote abstraction — “war dead,” “purge,” “pogrom”? Whether or not this story is true, it is illustrative of the Communist conception of government. (Verified on paper). Best War Man. Wars, conflict, it’s all business. The immediate response is discussion of the tragedy because, of course, it is. How’s it going? Joseph Stalin is reputed to have said that the death of one person is a tragedy; the death of one million is a statistic. Porteus later became a Bishop in the Church of England. The way it's stated is basically like an analogy. Life is inherently good. And Mother Teresa once said, "If I … Leonard Lyons? Hunderttausend Tote: das ist eine Statistik!” (Tucholsky, Gesamtausgabe, Band 7, Text 136, page 375). Barry Popik also pointed to the words of Kurt Tucholsky. Several years ago I set out to republish Odd Nansen’s World War II concentration camp diary, From Day to Day. In communication studies, science communication, psycholinguistics and choice theory, anecdotal value refers to the primarily social and political value of an anecdote or anecdotal evidence in promoting understanding of a social, cultural, or economic phenomenon. There are always ‘high profile’ ones that make the front pages, such as that of Molly Russell, and, more recently, Caroline Flack. I didn’t understand the true meaning of the word until I moved to a foreign country and discovered that not everyone has the freedoms we Americans take as a given. Scourges as immense as fascism and war present the novelist with a knotty problem of ways and means. Sorry, I did not have time to do a proper search on the Russian web pages, this is just a little something to work on with…. In conclusion, the saying was attributed to Joseph Stalin by 1947, but the evidentiary support for the linkage was not clear to QI. Death is a natural process. why will Kings forget that they are Men? A French diplomat is represented as saying, “Der Krieg? If millions die, that’s only statistics.”, Also in 1947 Charlie Chaplin played the role of Henri Verdoux in the movie “Monsieur Verdoux”. 27 ... Show me the meaning of the wordShow me the meaning of the word'Cause I've heard so much about itThey say, "Hey, you can't live without it"Welcome to the human raceWith its wars, disease and brutalityYou with your innocence and graceRestore … Beilby Porteus? Jews view in death In Judaism, death is not a tragedy, even it occurs early in life and unfortunate circumstances. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsis, or a "pain [that] awakens pleasure", for the audience. The quote is attributed to Joseph Stalin, who made the remark during a discussion of the Soviet famine in 1947. I can’t find it too terrible! It is a worse crime to end it than a million lives which represents the worst aspects of humanity or less than humanity. On February 2, 2016 the date of the 1932 citation was updated to reflect an earlier 1925 publication date. A person that we never knew or heard of before today, and yet his story resonated deeply with me. If I'm asked what are the three unchangeable phenomena in the written history, I'd list without giving it a second thought * Westerlies; * Anti-Semitism; * Drang nach Osten No, I do not agree. a very sad event or situation, especially one involving death or suffering: The pilot averted a tragedy when he succeeded in preventing the plane from crashing. What is the best paraphrase of this passage? Another says the quote is from the novel “Black obelisk” (I don’t know the English titles, so I am just translating what it said in Russian). Here was the original text together with an English translation: 4, Darauf sagt ein Diplomat vom Quai d’Orsay: „Der Krieg? And so our brain reduces that large number of deaths to a statistic, thus numbing our ability to empathize. Thanks to Alex Stroup who also pointed to “Monsieur Verdoux”. One death is a tragedy and a million is more than the psych can handle but doesn't make it any less meaning full. (Verified with Google Books Preview of 2005 reprint), 1932, Lerne Lachen Ohne Zu Weinen (Learn To Laugh Without Crying) by Kurt Tucholsky, Section: Französischer Witz (French Wit), Start Page 147, Quote Page 148, Ernst Rowohlt Verlag, Berlin, Germany. Tragedy definition is - a disastrous event : calamity. One official arose and made a speech about this tragedy — the tragedy of having millions of people dying of hunger. Without additional corroborative evidence or an explanation QI believes that this citation provides weak support for the ascription to Stalin. “It’s strange, I think, all of us have seen so many dead in the war and we know that over two million of us fell uselessly–why, then, are we so excited about a single man, when we have practically forgotten the two million already? In 1956 the German novel “Der Schwarze Obelisk” by the prominent author Erich Maria Remarque was released. Life is meaningful; it’s meaning is completely unrelated to the fact that it eventually ends. Life Man Own. Some grief shows much of love;/ But much grief shows still some want of wit." Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence known to QI linking this saying to Joseph Stalin was published in 1947 by the popular syndicated newspaper columnist Leonard Lyons in “The Washington Post”. … [Comment edited to reduce length]. That’s the history of many a big business. It’s strange, I think, all of us have seen so many dead in the war and we know that over two million of us fell uselessly—why, then, are we so excited about a single man, when we have practically forgotten the two million already? Hundreds of articles, pictures, and conversations later, just like everyone else, all I cared about was numbers. A single death can be worse than a million. Media Contact & Reprint Requests. There are several interesting precursors that illustrate the possible evolution of this expression, and additional selected citations are presented below in chronological order. We do not respond proportionately when the number of people affected increases past an individual — this is why a photo of a struggling refugee child has far more impact than the photo of a thousand struggling refugee children. The death of one man: that is a catastrophe. Morning, John. Tucker Lieberman: Thanks for an interesting citation! And in the midst of that tragedy I don’t think God wants us to praise him for the tragedy, but to learn to lean into him because he’s bigger than any tragedy and can work amazing good even out of a the most horrendous things. I don’t write a lot, and this article is certainly not intended to provoke or advise. This is the folly of emotions. Death Million Statistic. When one person dies we see it as a horrible, terrible event (see princess di, the newest child murder in america, etc), but when you see the horrific deaths through civil war in Africa or the war in the middle east, no one even cares. Yet today, we nonchalantly discuss the numbers of deaths with colleagues. The pain of one million, it cannot. In 2018, there were 6,859 suicides in the UK. In whatever small way we can. She tells Juliet," Therefore have done. One death is a tragedy. The passage in Erich Maria Remarque’s novel The Black Obelisk (1957) goes: (NewspaperArchive), YouTube video, Title: Verdoux: That’s business, Uploaded on: Dec 6, 2009, Uploaded by: RedUmbrellaUnite, Quotation spoken by: Henri Verdoux played by Charlie Chaplin, (Quotation starts at 1 minute 02 seconds of 3 minutes 07 seconds), (This video shows a scene from 1947 film “Monsieur Verdoux”. The saying may draw on a writing of Kurt Tucholsky from 1925 (and in at least three later printings), Französischer Witz. Learn more. It is merely that the mind is unable to grasp a suffering in the gross. One Death is a Tragedy, 654,965 is a Statistics Debate. Any fool with steady hands and a working set of lungs can build up a house of cards and then blow it … The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less. That statement basically declares that a million deaths is not a tragedy, but a statistic. Usually, he wanted to highlight flaws in society and bad ways of thinking. But it doesn’t. There is double the pathos for us in the death of one little New York waif from hunger than there is in a million deaths from famine in China. (Thanks to Stephen Goranson who located the key citations dated 1925 and January 30, 1947. One Death is a Tragedy GDNet Lounge Community. Perhaps it’s an uncomfortable truth, but one that should be confronted nonetheless. Then this happened, and so suddenly. If you are a crazy statesman and send millions to their deaths you are a hero. That would mean he likely made the comment to point out that such philosophy is fundamentally wrong. This is how, with just one look at your insides, your doctor knows how old you are. Each moment, death is happening in us at the organ and cellular levels. by Chocolate Covered Katie. The family of sayings examined here is variegated, and the denotations are often distinct, but QI believes that grouping them together is illuminating. QI does not know what source Lyons used to obtain the details of this noteworthy scene and quotation. If that one life represents the best of humanity and more than humanity. “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” Stalin’s epigram is admirably illustrated by Ernst Schnabel’s pointilliste portrait of Anne Frank during the few months she lived after the last entry in her diary, Aug. 1, 1944. We have a huge dataset and we have to … Stalin, how long are you going to continue killing people?”, The Soviet Dictator quietly answered: “As long as it is necessary.”. Hunderttausend Tote: das ist eine Statistik!”, At which a diplomat from French Ministry of Foreign Affairs replies: “The war? The verse was implicitly critical of this unjustified societal reframing. If one stranger dies it is disregarded. Has everyone else? It is not that distance glosses over the terrible picture of the Chinese horror, or that a feeling of national kinship with the waif impresses us the more sincerely with his plight. One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic. The truth is that if you can put a face to a tragedy, people will listen. This attribution may have been an echo of Tucholsky’s French diplomat: 8. Thanks to James Marx who pointed to the line spoken by Charlie Chaplin in “Monsieur Verdoux” and to the work by Beilby Porteus. Ich kann das nicht so schrecklich finden! In 1957 it was translated into English and published as “The Black Obelisk”. Thanks to Fred Shapiro’s “The Yale Book of Quotations” which included the Chaplin citation and the 1958 citation. I checked on a Russian search machine – several comments popped up attributing the quote not to Stalin, but to Erich Maria Remarque. The nervous system can not handle a million tragedies but it should not turn us into zombies of meaningless hearts. This reminded me of Joseph Stalin’s well known quote, “One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.” It’s a horrible thing to say, but when it comes to data visualization and analysis, it’s true a lot of the time. Have I become an emotionless robot? Would you please explore this topic? In Act 3, Scene v, Of The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Lady Capulet believes Juliet is grieving Tybalt's death. P.S. Tragedy (from the Greek: τραγῳδία, tragōidia) is a form of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Would you please explore this topic? The foulest stain and scandal of our nature Numbers sanctify my good fellow. The following excerpt did not contain the word “statistics”, but it did discuss tyranny and provocatively contrasted the ramifications of small and large casualty numbers. The problem is that no one of us can make that call without becoming a monster. ... Harry Emerson Fosdick. A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. His work still goes on. Ich kann das nicht so schrecklich finden! (Google Books Full View), 1916 May 1, The Blast, Volume 1, Number 12, Edited by Alexander Berkman, A Timely Thought, Quote Page 104, Column 2, (Page 6 in original publication), San Francisco, California. ... One of the most helpful philosophies I learned was from Eckhart Tolle. (ProQuest Historical Newspapers), 1939 September 9, Sheboygan Press, With the State Press, Quote Page 20, Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He began to enumerate death figures … Stalin interrupted him to say: “If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. The article did not contain a statement matching the quotation, but it did contain a thematically related comment attributed to Stalin that portrayed him as a callous autocrat indifferent to death although the reporter expressed uncertainty about the veracity of the tale: 5, Although the interview which the Shaw-Astor party had with Stalin was theoretically secret, the story is told in Moscow that hardly had his guests been shown into the room when Lady Astor exuberantly opened the conversation with this remark: “Mr. Mourning practices in Judaism are extensive, but they are not an expression of fear or distaste for death. Posted by a friend along with stark commentary on the lack of empathy for the hundreds of thousands of people that have lost their lives so far, and countless numbers that remain at high risk. One murder makes a villain, millions a hero. Columnist Lyons stated that the words were spoken during a meeting “of the highest ranking Commissars”. Philosophers are always claiming that death makes life meaningless, or meaningful, or things like that. Joseph Stalin. Remarque included an instance without attribution: 9. Instead, a more complex cultural process of reinterpretation depicted the deaths as a manifestation of “heroism”. I tried all this time to figure out the lessons to be had out of my own mother’s untimely death, and I think I was getting to it. Death is not the end and it really depends on what you believe in this life on whether death is a tragedy or the beginning of something greater. My friend read it somewhere when we were young (like, 10 years old, so he really just was repeating it; today he’d hardly quote things like that). Stephen: Thanks for sharing that valuable information! (Accessed on youtube.com on January 27, 2016), 1948 October, Atlantic, The Atlantic Bookshelf: Reader’s Choice by Charles J. Rolo, Quote Page 106, Atlantic Monthly Co. (Verified on paper), 1957, The Black Obelisk by Erich Maria Remarque, (Translated from German to English by Denver Lindley), Chapter 8, Quote Page 141, Harcourt, Brace & World, New York. If I feel X pain for the death of one person that I don’t know, shouldn’t I feel 4000X pain for the death of 4000 people? Perhaps future researchers will locate further relevant evidence. A few months ago, my wife shared a GoFundMe campaign for a young husband and father that passed away, survived by his wife and two kids. Millions a Hero. Give me a choice and I'll take A Midsummer Night's Dream over Hamlet every time. The attribution to Stalin could be a meme, i.e., something that sprang up by itself. As noted previously in this article, in January 1947 the saying was attributed to Stalin in a syndicated column by Leonard Lyons: Stalin interrupted him to say: “If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. (Französischer Witz was previously published by Vossische Zeitung in August 23, 1925 and September 10, 1925; under the titles: Französische Witze (I); and Noch einmal französische Witze (II)) (Scans and bibliographic note in Wikimedia Commons Archive), 1932 December 29, Christian Science Monitor, Revised Impressions of Russia by J. Roscoe Drummond, Quote Page 12, Boston, Massachusetts. The definition of statistic is basically a number or a measurement. Only more helpless. I don’t think that death and meaning have anything to do with one another. In fact, death began in us even before we were born. One hundred thousand deaths: that is a statistic!”, In 1932 “The Christian Science Monitor” printed an article describing a meeting that included George Bernard Shaw, Lady Astor, and Stalin. Jews have a firm belief in an afterlife. (page 107 in the 1958 Crest paperback reprint). When one person they know dies it matters and makes it personal. Terrible stuff. One of his papers, titled ““If I Look at Mass I Will Never Act: Psychic Numbing and Genocide”, in Judgment and Decision Making”: http://journal.sjdm.org/7303a/jdm7303a.htm, Wiki source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychic_numbing, http://journal.sjdm.org/7303a/jdm7303a.htm, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychic_numbing, What to Do if You’re Tired Without Having Actually Done Anything, Nature’s Plant That’s a Powerful Anti-Anxiety Remedy, When Challenging Your Eating Disorder Thoughts Isn’t Working, How to Cope with “Brain Fog” When You’re Chronically Ill, Why You Feel Anxious When You Stop Drinking, Don’t Tell Me to Pray My Mental Illness Away. Humans are selfish. My friend all those years ago also said that it was by Stalin, but again, he only read it somewhere. Hitler's invasion of Poland … But I am (and we are) not alone. These words are often attributed to the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, but I have not found a precise citation for this harsh expression. How to use tragedy in a sentence. But probably the reason is that one dead man is death—and two million are only a statistic. But probably the reason is that one dead man is death–and two million are only a statistic.” If you shoot one person you are a murderer. If millions die, that’s only statistics.”. Vaclav Havel. For Christians it is the start of something greater and not a time of despair. Boldface has been added to excerpts: 1, In the days when Stalin was Commissar of Munitions, a meeting was held of the highest ranking Commissars, and the principal matter for discussion was the famine then prevalent in the Ukraine. However, different works. Not every death is a tragedy By Timandra Harkness It’s no coincidence that less wealthy nations have in many cases weighed the risk of pandemic against the certainty of starvation for subsistence communities, and decided against imposing lockdowns . Became its boast — One Murder made a Villain, one death : tragedy :: a million deaths : statistic. The tragedy is that we haven't really lived what we estimate to be full, long lives; for most, decline and death come way too soon. Thanks to commenters Mary and Tucker Lieberman for pointing to Erich Maria Remarque.). The tragedy is for us here now. Part Went for Liquor, Part for Women, Rest Spent Foolishly, Dr. Mardy's Dictionary of Metaphorical Quotations, 1947 January 30, Washington Post, Loose-Leaf Notebook by Leonard Lyons, Quote Page 9, Washington, D.C. (ProQuest), 1759, Death: A Poetical Essay by Beilby Porteus (Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge), Start Page 1, Quote Page 12, Printed by J. Bentham Printer to the University, for T & J. Merrill, Booksellers at Cambridge, Cambridge, England. recently I remembered this quote. If you kill a couple persons you are a gangster. In 1916 an anarchist publication based in California called “The Blast” printed a story that contrasted the feelings engendered by the personalized death of one individual versus the depersonalized death of many: 3. Seeing as no one can realiably source it to the monster, I’d be in favour of Remarque having written it – he often commented this way, using irony and pointing out wrong ways of thinking like this. Oh well, let’s get to work. The quotation appeared in a book review column called “The Atlantic Bookshelf” which was written by Charles J. Rolo. Because human life is far too valuable to be reduced to a statistic. Suffering is so intimately personal a thing that it must be explained through the personal equation, if at all. Welcome to my first blog! One says the meaning of the quote is present in No news from the West. ‘Each death is a tragedy with devastating life changing effects on the families of the children killed.’ ‘Random accidents and everyday tragedies become just another ratings-boosting gimmick, filling airtime before the next disaster strikes.’ One person and a single photo is all it took to feel sad for this family — how the mother and kids would miss their husband and father! If a million people die only the person or people they may have known matter to them. While anecdotal evidence is typically unscientific, in the last several decades the evaluation of anecdotes has … In 1939 a newspaper in Wisconsin reprinted a short item that contrasted the divergent responses evoked by the varying number of causalities caused by an individual: 6. Erich Maria Remarque? I’m a logical person. “A tragedy is a tragedy, and at the bottom, all tragedies are stupid. Simply put, the pain of one person, our brain can imagine. I was left quite confused. Der Tod eines Menschen: das ist eine Katastrophe. Perhaps a statement was made by a witness, but QI has not located such a document at this time. These are deaths of real people — mothers, fathers, daughters and sons that meant the world to each of their families. Death is inherently bad. In 1759 a classics scholar named Beilby Porteus published a prize-winning work titled “Death: A Poetical Essay”. Ah! (ProQuest), 2006, The Yale Book of Quotations by Fred R. Shapiro, Section Josef Stalin, Quote Page 724, Yale University Press, New Haven. Emotions are temporary and not of sound judgement but humans live their lives on them. While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, … tra‧ge‧dy /ˈtrædʒədi/ ●●○ noun (plural tragedies) 1 [ countable, uncountable] a very sad event, that shocks people because it involves death The tragedy happened as they were returning home from a night out.

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