Kundera on tragedy

William Powers, on writing "The Tsunami Effect" for the National Journal, says:

"At the start of his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera writes about a 14th-century war between two African kingdoms in which 100,000 people died 'in excruciating torment.' His point is that we never give a thought to that war. All of that suffering is completely absent from our consciousness. It's as if it never happened.

"To be truly conscious of every tragedy that befalls the planet would be an awful burden. So we tend to live in blithe ignorance of the world's horrors. Wars, famines, genocide, disease, earthquakes, and other natural disasters are always happening somewhere. Many thousands die miserable deaths every day, and we scarcely notice."

Forgetting, like the theme of most of Kundera's writings, is the ultimate tragedy. But the paradox is that we can never survive without this tragedy. Or can we?