Survival That's Worth The Cost Of Survival Sparknotes

Survival That’s Worth the Cost In life people make hard choices -- difficult choices -- but sometimes to survive people don’t have a choice at all. During “The Cost of Survival” the author talks of two groups of people, separated by accountability. The first group of survivors ended up in life-or-death situations because they got the wrong end of the stick, so to say. The second group of survivors ended up in life-or-death situations because of risk taking stupidity. People in survival circumstances should be split into two groups (those responsible for their positions, and those not), these groups should be judged by accountability accordingly.
Bad luck is the cause of most survival situations. Natural disasters, wrong-place-wrong time ordeals, and accidents take the brunt of accountability for putting people in life-or-death positions. “Usually, when people need to be rescued, it’s because something unexpected happened” (The Cost of Survival 127). When people need to be rescued from these unexpected circumstances, they should not be held accountable. The circumstance itself is accountable, and the victims cannot do anything to stop the unexpected.
The aforementioned two groups are also separated by guilt.
Specifically subjective versus objective guilt. “Subjective guilt… is thought to be irrational because one feels guilty despite the fact that he knows he has done nothing wrong. Objective or rational guilt, by contrast--guilt that is “fitting” to one’s actions… guilt is appropriate because one has acted to deliberately harm someone, or could have prevented harm and did not” (Sherman 154). The separation of guilt shows how unrelated the two groups are, and how they must be treated differently. One has done nothing wrong, and the other has knowingly done damage. For example “The Seventh Man” exhibits how someone can feel guilt even though they have done no harm. “I knew the truth. I knew that I could have saved K. if I had tried” (Murakami
140).
Some do not agree and say that people should never be responsible for their rescue costs. They give examples of people not asking for help because they cannot afford the rescue costs, thereby making their problems worse. “The Cost of Survival” gives an example “And a second lieutenant in the California Air National Guard… put it this way: ‘We’re out there to save lives. You can’t put a price on that’” (The Cost of Survival 127).
On the contrary, there is a price, a price that taxpayers pay. The people that disagree are asking taxpayers “to cover the cost of rescue for those who put themselves at risk” (The Cost of Survival 127). It is not fair for the government to make people pay for the dumb risks of others, that could have been prevented by the risk taker, and were actions deliberately done and carried out. Asfor those who chose not to ask for help because they are afraid to foot a bill, it is not a rescuer’s fault that they did not ask sooner rather than later.
People in survival circumstances should be split into two groups. These groups should be judged by accountability according to their responsibility or lack thereof in the situation. Tough choices are made in life-or-death circumstances, but it’s the actions that lead up to the circumstance that should determine accountability.