When Reality Collides: Triage and the Limits of Empathy

Claudia Rankine’s latest work, Triage, is not a book about medical triage, although that concept is woven into its fabric. Rather, it’s an exploration of how we respond to the world’s atrocities when truth seems to be slipping through our fingers like sand.

The book begins with a friendship forged in the late 20th century on a college campus between the narrator and her friend, “the theorist.” They are young idealists drawn to activism and steeped in the texts and authors of their time. To cope with the traumas of apartheid South Africa and other horrors, they develop a game that allows them to momentarily escape the weight of the world’s suffering.

Rankine weaves together memoir, fiction, criticism, and lyrical lamentation to create a deeply personal yet expansively universal work. The book’s themes are not coincidental; they’re a reflection of our own times, shaped by the rise of fascism, deportations, war, climate change, and more.

What’s striking about Triage is its refusal to offer easy answers or solutions. Instead, it poses a simple question: when faced with such unfathomable realities, what do you do? Do you stand, or do you fall? This isn’t just a question for individuals; it’s also one for societies and cultures.

The book’s central game – collapsing in the face of overwhelming suffering – becomes a metaphor for our collective paralysis. We’re familiar with images of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean, children dying in Yemen, and forests burning across the American West. The media barrage can be numbing, leaving us unsure how to respond or whether we should.

Triage shows that our personal and collective triage – deciding what to engage with, what to ignore – can be just as deadly as medical triage. Healthcare professionals prioritize patients based on their need for treatment in medical triage, but Rankine’s book highlights the dangers of prioritizing some truths over others.

Rankine’s use of language is characteristic of her style: lyrical, precise, and searingly honest. She draws on a world reshaped by the Great Replacement theory, deportations, and climate change to pose questions about truth, empathy, and action.

Works like Albert Camus’ The Plague and Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek grapple with similar themes, but Rankine’s unique voice and perspective make Triage a standout contribution to this genre.

Triage demands that readers confront their own complicity in the face of these atrocities. It asks us to consider how our individual and collective responses – or lack thereof – shape our world. And it invites us to think about what kind of triage we practice: not just medical but also personal and cultural.

In a time when reality seems to be colliding with our perceptions, Triage challenges us to find new ways of coping. It’s not an easy task, but one thing is clear: the world needs more people willing to stand – or collapse, if necessary – in the face of unspeakable horrors.

The outcome of this struggle remains uncertain, but we can’t afford to ignore the question any longer.