It was such a humid day; I could feel sweat trickling down my spine and houseflies buzzing around my ears but I was numb to it all. My thoughts were driving me crazy; they were suffocating me with their whispers.
I had made up my mind that I was not needed in the world. My wife had left me, my family had ostracised me. I had nothing left to lose and the only option that I felt was available to me was to end it. When I tasted the coldness of the revolver, I could see the angel of death approaching me from his dark abyss. It was at that point I knew I didn’t have the balls to do it. “I DIDN’T HAVE THE BALLS TO END MY LIFE”, but I killed Thea, I ended my daughter’s life.
Thea was my beautiful baby girl; she was only 6 when it happened. Even at that young age, everyone could tell that she was an adrenaline junkie. She had been pestering me for weeks to take her on a new rollercoaster ride called Everest at Disneyland. I finally gave in and decided to take her, little did I know that I will live to regret that decision.
On that fateful morning, I was in a deep sleep until I felt someone tugging at my arm. It was Thea, she was grinning from ear to ear, I doubt she had slept well, she must have been up all night thinking about the ride.
We finally got to Disneyland and we were accompanied by my friend Lekan. We all went on the Everest ride a couple of times but they both wanted to go one more time. I was too tired to go, so I let her go on the ride with Lekan.
Thea’s trolley was quite empty. A trolley should normally contain six people but since they weren’t enough people willing to get on the ride, they let the trolley go with just two people in it. At some point on the ride, one of the trolleys started malfunctioning and the brakes couldn’t be controlled. I quickly ran to the control room to speak with the operator. It was at that point I noticed that the trolley had completely lost control and was heading to a crowd of unsuspecting children. The operator had a panic attack so I was saddled with the choice of letting the trolley crash into the crowd of children or pressing a switch that turns the trolley onto a side track that will crash into the trolley where my daughter and Lekan were both on board.
At that point, it was like two people met at a table inside my head, one represented my emotional side screaming at me to let the trolley crash at those random children who I did not know; after all my child’s life was worth more than the other children’s’ lives. The second voice represented my objective side, it said in a tranquil manner, is your child’s life really worth more than the lives of ten children? How many parents need to weep for you to be happy? It was at that point I knew what I had to do and it was on that fateful day, I lost Thea. It was on that day my life lost meaning.
WHEN THE EXPRESSION OF LOVE AND LOYALTY TOWARDS ONE MEANS WICKEDNESS TOWARD OTHERS
The aim of the short story above is to provide a pictorial image of a popular psychological dilemma which, asks the question will you sacrifice a multitude of people for one person?
There is really no right answer to this, the answer given depends on the personality and moral compass of the person the question is directed to. I added an extra touch of familial connection and love to the trolley dilemma, to make the question more personal and invoke emotions.
Humans tend to be biased towards people that they have an emotional connection with or people that they have some sort of ties to. This is generally fine, but at what point does it stop being okay? Sometimes our show of preference for our love ones may have terrible physical and moral consequences for others.
We don’t see the harm when we give preferential treatment to people who we consider important to us because the harm is invisible and it is done on a very small scale. What we fail to notice is that other people are hurt by our actions. A good example of this is the employment system in Nigeria, where the best jobs are gotten by those who know people in management. The people who suffer the loss are those who may have better qualifications but don’t know anyone.
A larger-scale example is our political affiliation in Nigeria which is largely based on ethnicities and not political ideologies, or who the best person for the job is. The consequences of this have been underdevelopment of the country and gross mismanagement of our resources.
As I said earlier, there are no right or wrong answers to the dilemma. The dilemma depicts the possible dangers of bias and preferential treatment. Are you someone that holds the happiness of your own more than the happiness of a multitude, or are you a utilitarian that believes the best decision is one which leads to a greater amount of happiness?
I end with one last dilemma. Cast your mind back to the Biafran war, Nigerian soldiers have just taken control of Awka and they are executing Igbo civilians. Soldiers are patrolling the area looking for survivors, and you and your townspeople decide to hide in an uncompleted building. Your six-month-old baby is wailing and may draw the attention of the soldiers. You can cover the baby’s mouth to stop the sound but this will suffocate the baby or you can let the baby continue wailing and this may mean the execution of you and the other town-people in hiding. What will you do?
p.s. For a deeper analysis of the trolley dilemma visit; Hidden Brain by NPR: How Favouritism Leads to Injustice.
photo by Justin- unsplash.com
Mindsmash 