Opening page…
Should you put your own people first?
You can save someone you love or five strangers, but not both. Almost everyone would save their own; impartial arithmetic says five is more than one.
Your answer
A little context
You would drive across town at midnight for your sister without a second thought, and you hesitate to give a stranger twenty minutes. Most of the time that feels like love, not a moral failing. It only starts to look strange when you write it down as a rule: my people count for more.
Nearby questions
- Can you choose who you love?Falling in love sounds like something that happens to you. Staying in love sounds like a decision. Arranged marriages bet on the second.
- Is anything unforgivable?Some people forgive a murderer in court. Others never forgive a friend who insists they did nothing wrong.
- Can you love someone you don't respect?Care, admiration and respect usually travel together. Sometimes you are left with only the first.
- If someone you love committed a serious crime, would you turn them in?The Duke of She boasted that in his country a son would testify against a father who stole a sheep. Confucius answered that where he came from, fathers cover for sons and sons for fathers, and that this is what uprightness looks like.
- What is love?It has been called a fever, a decision and a kind of attention. What is love?
