The idea for this article came when I watched an episode Boston Legal which made me think of the importance of context.
The court case went as such, a homeless person cooks and eats the meat of his deceased friend.
Without context, you’ll probably view this act as vile and disgusting if you don’t know the context.
But here’s the story as depicted in the TV show, the homeless man, Mr Nichols, before his friend another homeless person passed away due to starvation, both made a pact that if either of them didn’t make it, that they’d cremate each other, because the law doesn’t allow for anyone to be cremated without a next-of-kin. What happens to the deceased body then?
It’s left along the road to rot and decompose.
Having been starving for weeks, seeing his friend’s burning body, his hunger overcame him and he took a bite off his friend’s cooking flesh.
If you’ve been starving for weeks with no available food in sight, would you perhaps be able to emphasize Mr Nichol’s action?
Words can help you understand so much, here’s the closing speech delivered by Alan Shore, the lawyer in the film.
Although this scene is straight out of a fictional story but the lesson to be learnt here is, context is everything.
Many media outlets portray only the sides of the story which excites others without the full picture of what happened, because they know if they did indeed portray the full story, it’d humanize the enemy.
And when you view the enemy as a human, it’s then hard to view them as the demon.
Always seek to understand the full story before you jump to conclusions.
Unfortunately, it’s human nature to be lazy as I myself, am also only human, sometimes fall victim to the trap of “jumping to conclusions” as well.