Am I My Brother's Keeper? Response

In this article Elie Wiesel and Richard D. Heffner discuss their reactions to the multitude of information that our society is now bombarded with.  Wiesel believed that as humans we are only able to taken in a limited amount of information and be able to remember it later.  He defines knowledge as the information we take in and remember.  The media gives multitudes of information about many different topics.  Wiesel states that we are overly informed about too many things.  We are now able to read news in the newspaper, listen to it on the radio, watch it on the television, or even see it live online.  There are now hundreds of locations to access information that we often find ourselves overloaded with information.  These media sources tell us that we need to respond to events and that it is our moral responsibility.  Wiesel thinks all the information pulls our attention in a lot of directions and makes concentrating on one cause difficult.  Many causes are left unattended to which Wiesel draws our attention to, like the racist killings in South Africa.  We are expected to help those who are in need but with so many people to help it is often difficult to decide who to help.  In the beginning of the paper Wiesel discusses the phrase “my brother’s keeper,” which is found in the bible and its implications to today’s society. He questioned whether people today could really consider themselves their “brother’s” keeper when so many people need our help.  The Bible tells us that we should help each other but when so many people need assistance we are left to either choose one person to help or wait until we are told to help a certain person.  Wiesel uses the example of Cain and Able to explain how poor communication can lead to a neglecting of our responsibilities.  He believed that because we live in a world of much increased information we are neglecting more of our ethical responsibilities. To emphasize this point Wiesel mentions how images of concentration camps were in magazines around the country for five years but that we did nothing.  The reason for this, Wiesel claims, is because we are informed about too many things.  I do not agree with this idea however.  Being well informed is not a problem but allows us to really focus our attention on to what matters most to us rather than just what is on the cover of the newspaper.  I also did not like the writing style of the paper. I felt as though I was listening in on someone’s conversation or watching an interview.  It did not allow me to feel as if I was participating in the argument, which left me feeling a little isolated.