December 15, 2012
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Why is it that when hundreds of children who are massacred in middle eastern countries that nobody gives a shit but the minute something happens in the US of A and everyone gets all upset… It is sad but just to point out that there’s so much that’s happening all over the world not just the us…
Start looking at the bigger picture and don’t just take news and mainstream media as the whole truth. The world we live in is effing senseless, i don’t see many bothered bout what’s going on in Syria and how America is trying to start a war with Iran..
Comments (8)
American shooting massacres are something we can try to solve through laws, rules, and and regulations. It is something we can attempt to approach through dialogue and understanding.
@Celestial_Teapot - yea, don’t think this can be solved by just reasoning and implementation of laws and legislations..
I think people tend to focus on stuff they can relate to.
for sure, i really want to be able to go like brad pitt in legends of the fall, and go solo with an axe and a knife and scalp all the fucked up people out there killing innocent people….but i dont, because i am scared.
http://www.soilchild.com
Well right now, ive all this rage for the media… My heart really goes out for the teachers, being a teacher myself in protecting the little ones than on and on bout the killer.
There was a study done a while back that found that people can relate more easily to individuals than large masses. That is part of the reason why charity organizations, for example, will highlight individual children that need help instead of listing all the hundreds of thousands of poor kids struggling to make it out there. Furthermore, highlighting one child or a few temporarily shines a new light on the situation, and as humans we are naturally drawn to novelty. (Or, at least, we notice it more) That, and we don’t have a very long attention span.
Thus we can more easily relate to the CT shootings than we can to the ongoing deaths of children in the middle east because:
1) Not as many children were killed in comparison to the thousands that have been killed in the ongoing conflict, making it easier to relate to the kids individually, and
2) It was a one-time event and not something stretched out over a long period of time.
I’m not trying to defend the disparity in media coverage that has occurred, but rather I am merely pointing out a rather interesting – and possibly disturbing – facet of human nature when it comes to the limits of our empathy.
It is partially what @QuantumStorm - said. I haven’t read the study he is talking about, but I am willing to go out on a limb to say that there the matter of feeling helpless and overwhelmed. Those people may be a small minority. I feel like I can help one or two children, but I can’t help them all.
I also think that people in the US (or over the world really) struggle to be empathetic toward events that affect people in other countries. If it happens somewhere else, we can’t imagine a friend, a family member, or ourselves in that situation. Living conditions like those that occur in the Middle East are so far outside of our sphere of existence that we can’t get it. We can’t relate to their lives on any level (actually that’s not true we can’t relate to the aspects of their lives the media shows us). We have been fed the idea that this is the enemy for so long that as callous as it sounds, some people in the US are able to say that it’s a causality of War.
i think that the CT shooting caused more grief because it hits close to home. we perceive Middle Eastern countries to be war-torn, dangerous, etc. shootings are seen as common. but here?