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Meditations for the Resistance
Daily Attentional, vol. 1, week 2
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“There is a difference between helping and rescuing.” — Parker J. Palmer
The people in documentary photographer Sebastião Salgado’s photographs refuse easy sympathy. His compelling photographs are acts of witness. The subjects are not reduced to objects of pity; they retain dignity and agency even in hardship. This perspective matters for society.
When social justice is reduced to sympathy it tilts our civic balance. People become problems to be solved at the cost of time, emotion and money. It denies the coequal value of all citizens. Witness, in contrast, is marked by presence. It means staying open to our fellow citizens in order to better understand.
The writer and educator Parker Palmer draws a crucial distinction between helping and rescuing. As with the difference between witness and sympathy, helping respects agency while rescuing replaces it. Civic engagement is reduced when those with power presume to fix others without listening to what they need and offer.
Salgado’s example of witness teaches a civic lesson: true seeing does not include judgement. To witness suffering without categorizing, ranking or controlling allows us to recognize the suffering we all experience, and affirms our shared humanity.
Society depends on witness.
- Parker J. Palmer, "A Hidden Wholeness" (2004).
- Sebastião Salgado, "Workers" (1993).
COMING TOMORROW: The Cost of Looking Away
