By: Gideon Lewis-Kraus
In the context of daunting, historic, and intractable problems, a humanistic approach—one that walks humbly alongside individuals as they navigate the private commotion of the everyday—can seem not only inadequate but entirely beside the point. Such a treatment can come across to the reader like an invitation to wallow in stirring but useless sentiment; to the writer, a performance in the role of the “witness” can be wholly genuine and nevertheless a little vainglorious.