Re: The line from A Time to Kill: That’s the crux of the problem isn’t it? The problem, I mean, with society as a whole. We cannot (all) seem to identify with those who are in some way too dissimilar to ourselves and when we can, we are too likely to believe that everyone sees the works the way that we do—or should see the world our way.
More of us can see the death of a child as tragic, but even that is not universal. Fewer of us see that the lives of all children have value and fewer recognize the value of adult lives, much less the lives of old people or those who are ‘foreign’ or dissimilar to us or make us uncomfortable in any way.