An individual who didn’t distinguish between his or her own child and an unknown child in a faraway land – who felt the same love and the same obligation toward both – would hardly be human anymore. What has happened, though, is that the distinction between “us” and “them” is not as sharp as it used to be.
没人会认为我们正日渐模糊亲戚朋友和陌生人之间的区别。我也无法想象这一幕的出现。一个无法将自己的孩子与异国他乡的陌生儿童区分开来的人——自觉对两者都有同样的爱和责任——大概也就失去人性了。而现实中真正发生的，则是所谓“我们”与“他们”之间的界限相对模糊了而已。