Not the last one in, likely.
There are terrible things happening in the world every day.  People are murdered, tortured, raped, or subjected to any other sorts of inhumane treatment.  We as a society have chosen to both ignore this harsh reality and refuse to help.  Paradoxically, we have also determined that people matter and that human rights should be at the forefront of our minds when we deal with all that the world has occurring.  How is it that these two things happen together? Koestler discusses part of these ideas and presents a simplistic answer, but it is only the first step in moving towards a society that genuinely cares about and mobilizes human rights intervention. Koestler believes that the issue here is a “split conscience”- the divide of knowing about atrocities and believing them.  He provides the example of people watching the horrors of the Holocaust at the cinema.  They know that these things are occurring because they see it on the big screen, but it is hard to believe it because they are removed from it and cannot imagine this atrocities.  This is essentially where the article title, “On Disbelieving Atrocities”, stems from.  Society’s issue with “believing” atrocities comes from a victim’s, or screamer as he puts it, “inability to communicate the unique horror of his experience” (88) and perhaps others that “lack the faculty to face the facts” (89).  The screamers and society may be both at fault, but Koestler believes that it is the responsibility of society to try to imagine these atrocities. The old saying goes somewhat like this: to understand a man, you must first walk a mile in his shoes. Koestler suggests that people should close their eyes each day, even if only for a few minutes, and imagine the atrocities that occur around the world.  Doing this may force people to believe the terrible things that are happening around the world.  In essence, he wants people to try to remove the distance between themselves and what is happening.  This is certainly a start to reconciling the paradox that exists in society, but I believe, as Rorty did, that sentimental education is a way to further accomplish the creation of empathy in society.  A person can be told about the innocent people slaughtered by one group because they are different.  They can be told to imagine it, and maybe they can, but they must also be able to see it.  In this respect, I believe that “showing” and not “telling” is the most effective way to bridge the gap that exists in society between its real attitudes and the constructed image of its empathetical morality. Getting society to both know and believe the atrocities in Syria is only the beginning.  When society can finally remove the distance between it and the conflict in the Syria by developing more empathy, it will be willing to do more to help those affected.  It is clear that many leaders in the United States are unable to do this.  Their unwillingness to even being the process of believing was displayed when many governors, including our own, publicly stated that Syrian refugees would not be welcome in their state.  They lack empathy and therefore cannot genuinely declare that “people matter” because they refuse to understand the struggle of the Syrian woman and child that, through no fault of their own, have been caught in the middle of this awful conflict.  The example that they set for the rest of society has created a terrible precedent for how people should react to these crises. And where are we because of it?  A few giant leaps backward.
