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Selective compassion at the right times?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
So all we have heard about is Katrina and the BBC tells us to feel sad for all the people... Whole news reports telling us about all that's going on, huge sections of programs that are giving us updates... Yes this was a natural disaster, as was the Tsunami, it was Mother Nature knocking the shit in to human kind and soon enough we'll have celebrities jumping on the band wagon to help as usual... That or we'll be told to feel sad.
I'm not saying that what is going on hasn't angered me, or many people but the BBC have reported so much on the hurricane, yet thousands of children die every day from curable diseases. The other day hundreds of Iraqi pilgrims were killed in a stampede and people seem to have barely batted an eyelid...
What I mean to say is that why are we encouraged to feel sympathy for some people and not for others? We seem to be led to believe that by wearing a Livestrong band we're changing the world when regular work for a charity, even an hour a week would do a lot more good. People gave money to the Tsunami appeal because we were shown how horrible it all was... Yet if we're so compassionate then why don't we donate all the time?
What I mean to say is that often i feel like we seem to have a social obligation to feel sadness, or anger towards the pain of other people who we don't know... Or that sometimes we go through fads of giving a damn and paying the odd quid towards something because everybody else is.
Is this caring real? Or superficial?
I'm not saying that what is going on hasn't angered me, or many people but the BBC have reported so much on the hurricane, yet thousands of children die every day from curable diseases. The other day hundreds of Iraqi pilgrims were killed in a stampede and people seem to have barely batted an eyelid...
What I mean to say is that why are we encouraged to feel sympathy for some people and not for others? We seem to be led to believe that by wearing a Livestrong band we're changing the world when regular work for a charity, even an hour a week would do a lot more good. People gave money to the Tsunami appeal because we were shown how horrible it all was... Yet if we're so compassionate then why don't we donate all the time?
What I mean to say is that often i feel like we seem to have a social obligation to feel sadness, or anger towards the pain of other people who we don't know... Or that sometimes we go through fads of giving a damn and paying the odd quid towards something because everybody else is.
Is this caring real? Or superficial?
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Comments
suffering today is on a huge scale ...millions living in small spaces so when something does go tits up ...millions suffer.
there was coverage of the loss of life in iraq ...but lets face it ...an entire city more or less being wiped out is BIG ...MUCH BIGGER NEWS and so it should be.
when disaster strikes these days it strikes big ...simple.
are you suggesting that a thousand dead should dwarf ten thousand dead and a million or more made homelessamnd posessionless overnight ...and in the richest country in the world?
news is business ...big bizz.
are you maybe suffering from disaster overload?
people asking for your help ...is manipulation ...it's part of the human condition.
How many people grieved for princess Diana? How can you really cry over somebody who you didn't know personally?
If we really all cared about the world we'd be researching on the net charities that appeal to things personal to us or that we believe in and giving consistant help. It wouldn't surprise me if a charity is set up for the New Orleans people, but how long before we forget about this disaster and decide to focus our attention on something else?
I really care. Thing is... what can I do about it?
i have just invested a big lump of dosh into a biz ...bit of a gamble but reaping rewards already but ...i'm all for a high tax economy as a way of sharing some of the wealth of this nation ...one of the richest on earth ...which puts me at odds with others in biz.
i also DO ...for others on a regular and organised basis.
we live in a world of endless information yet so many people seem locked in bubbles of self ...leading to much of the depression thats about as far as i'm concerned.
I want one that says "Chinese Slavery Fund".
No doubt there are a lot of very genuine people out there who do do a lot for charity, but why do we cry over the deaths of people who we don't know? Or give money to charities to help people who we've never seen? Just because of a few pictures on the television?
Is it because of guilt? Is it out of genuine want to help people? Or is the media programming us to be selective in who we care for?
the media is controlling what an awful lot of people believe ...what we need and want before we know we need and want it ...what we should feel and what we should look like ...it is worth avoiding most of it if you don't understand this.
People who cry over people they don't know are a minority...and a pretty silly minority at that imho.
Giving to charity is a fairly normal human reaction to tragedy and suffering...I don't consider the media to be conditioning us to be charitable...although obviously their coverage of events does play a part in to whom that charity is channelled.
But then there were people who were moved by what they saw on television or who went along to be a part of history...
The whole idea was to get as many people on the bandwagon as possible...otherwise you'd only be attracting a small group of politicos.
big show ...shows over.
yes of course there are a handfull here and thr who have been motivated but ...bandwagons rarely achieve much ...if anything of substance.
lets face it ...all of us ...are in a way blinded and brainwashed by our comfort.
It gave people's conscience a bit of relief, perhaps. But you're right, it achieved next to nothing.
'bout time we started talkin' Revolution.
Or if we want an altruistic society, start instilling it in to our children from youth.
i find it scary that only one tenth of the worlds population lives in this dream we want to tear down ...
To be honest, I'm a firm believer that everyone without exception is utterly selfish - regardless of how selfless their acts are. People who do good only do so because it makes them feel good in return.
I don't think selfishness is the real problem anyway. It's our society.
our society encourages selfishness.
we can own! we can be famous! we can be powerful! we can achieve anything! but ...we must consume consume and consume some more ...it's all of course a load of bollox ...except the last bit.
for a long time a mans worth has been measurd by what he has ...a man who has little ...desires little ...is seen as unfit for office.
the result ...idiots and lawyers ...killers and thieves ...are those who rule.
if you have plenty ...you can have it all.
the only qualification to rule is ...you already own lots.
so the seats of power fill up with idiots instead of the wise.
Tsunamis and hurricanes are different, they get all the coverage and all the short term support needed.
Though I will agree that the media focuses on some things more than others, I'm not saying one was worse than the other, but when the Beslan atrocity happened, it was off the news in less than a week, hundreds of children dead, 9/11 was in the news for months.
I'd rather be a poor wise man tbh. At least I have a bit of sense about me unlike most people these days.
Not really, I can still live how I want to live, I'm just bound by some laws.
There is a very good reason for that, Africa is not news, desperate poverty isnt what the public wants to look at day after day.
'Yet more people die in poverty in Africa' does not make a snappy headline.
Natural disasters on the other hand have action, excitement, danger and this one had guns thrown in. News is about entertainment a lot of the time. People dying because of poverty is not entertaining.
No doubt evolutionary psychology bollocks. Take a look around you, you see altruism every day.
I'm always helping women with push chairs on the Tube, its a little thing but it makes me feel good. There is an evolutionary reason to help others, we are pack animals, if we help our family and pack we are better off ourselves.
The whole selfish/selfless reasoning is bollocks because you can make the case just as strongly the other way because it requires no evidence.
It's classic backwards thinking.
You could equally say everything is altruistic and make up bullshit reasons why you are right.
Like - "he murdered their families and took all their stuff"
"Well from an evolutionary perspective, his actions where selfless, because he reduced the number of idiots in the gene pool", or "he was motivated to get things for his own people and family, in a totally selfless way"
See, bollocks.