The Boston Marathon is normally viewed as a safe place, much like elementary schools, such as Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., which became the site of a mass shooting in December 2012. Yet on Monday, bombs went off at the marathon’s finish line, killing three and injuring dozens more. Facts are still sketchy and pieces of information keep filtering in.

It is clear from these two experiences — and, indeed, our increased sensitivity to violence — that nothing is sacred. At this point, everyone knows that there are sick people in the world who have few compunctions about causing physical harm to masses of people who have done nothing to merit a violent response.

Having had a few days to begin digesting the event and responses to it, however, there is a silver lining despite all the misinformation and hasty reporting. The universal outrage about the Boston Marathon bombings, even if it was expressed only on Facebook and Twitter out of a codependent need to keep up with the times, shows that people are basically good.

The shock, horror and sympathy expressed from Monday show that most of us, in fact, would not consider bombing a race or making a similarly violent act toward a similarly innocent group. The stories about runners and bystanders rushing to help the bomb blast’s victims show that, when confronted with a disaster, many of us will step forward to keep other people safe.

In another important way, the Boston Marathon bombing can help Americans clarify their future courses of action in diplomacy, war and humanitarian aid.

It is not a large stretch to assert that Americans expressed outrage because we Americans are unfamiliar with the concept that violence can be a part of daily life. In other countries (take Israel and Palestine or Iraq and Afghanistan, for example) events such as car bombings, suicide bombings and other acts of terror are endemic and routine. Compared to that, we Americans have it made.

Bombings and shootings in the United States are just as horrible as they are anywhere else, and vice versa, but the universal outrage directed at the Boston Marathon bombings connects us better to all the people in the world’s less-developed countries who need our help creating thriving economies and stable political systems. In experiencing the same travails as they, we can perhaps better understand them and choose to work with them rather than impose structures from without, as we did, for the most part, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Already, questions about what we can do to lessen the frequency of such violence are arising. The answer, of course, is to take more responsibility for our communities and to act more deliberately as we seek to improve them. Although an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, it is unlikely that humans will ever live in a world devoid of violence. In response, people can demonstrate the same humanity and empathy that marks the outstanding individuals who assist at any disaster, such as the Boston Marathon bombings this week.