Universe Of Obligation Essay

Thousands of refugees come into the United States every year, seeking refuge from warring countries. What are our responsibilities and obligations, as individuals and as a society, during periods of injustice? The Universe of Obligation is a very broad idea, but it is this idea that helps us to think about what our responsibilities as people are. In this essay, we talk a lot about how the Universe of Obligation influences our ideas and actions toward refugees and what we can do to help them. When refugees enter our countries and communities, it can be scary, but these people have risked their lives to look for a better life. In times like these, it is our responsibility to welcome them into our communities and provide economic and physical

One article stated that countries have one of two different reactions to people, they either have welcoming parties or border fences. (Guterres) Instead of putting up border fences, we want to be that welcoming party. Although at times it can be hard to manage the refugee population, welcoming them shows that we support them, and after living in a warring country, that may be one of the main ways these people heal. It gives them great comfort to have a welcoming and supportive community. Although welcoming them sounds easy, it scares many people. It’s not just the government that may have a bad reaction toward refugees entering the country, it also can scare the citizens of that country. Once refugees enter their country it can dramatically change their lives. In some cases, because the population is so high it causes the local communities to suffer. Salaries went down, rent and prices went up, and also unemployment rates shot up. (Guterres) This can cause people to panic, so instead of wanting to welcome these refugees, the citizens feel threatened by them. People may begin to feel like the refugees are taking their lives away or that they are freeloading on the country. Out of panic and even

Every day people come into our country with nothing but the clothes they managed to save from their journey. They lose so much in order to leave a warring country, so when they arrive they may not have the need to start a new life here. As a society, it is our responsibility to give economic help to these people. We do have organizations but “the general underfunding of these organizations'' (Guterres) leaves them cluttered and unorganized. Because of this, the refugees end up not getting what they need. We as people need to step up and help fund these organizations. With more funding, the organizations can better help refugees. We can also use our money to help them in small ways. But although many people would like to help with donations and funding, there are a lot of people who do not agree with this thought. One experiment was conducted on people to see how they would donate their money. “People in one group could donate to $300,000 fund for a medical treatment that would save the life of one child-- or in another group, the lives of eight children. People donated more the twice as much money to help save one child as to help save eight.” One doctor from the same article states that happier people donated more. (Nicholas) When a human sees one person suffering it is more heart-wrenching than a mysterious group suffering. It is our responsibility to donate to not only the individual but