I assume you want North America to have the same amount of outrage at the killing of innocents in Virginia by a madman as when innocents are killed by terrorists in Bagdhad. If this were to happen what sort of outcome would you be hoping for?
i don't think that outrage is what i am hoping for. there is plenty of outrage to go around these days. my point is our tendency to forget these loathesome events is actually equal reagrdless of the outrage we demonstrate at any one of these events. Even though the 'noise' over the virginia shooting is louder now it will in my estimation produce relatively the same end result - almost none.
I think this cartoon makes an excellent point. We seem to care more about what happens in our backyard than what happens halfway accross the world. Our empathy seems to have a distance limit. For instance, our bible college had a special prayer service for Virginia Tech. Meanwhile, there have been no such vigils for the ongoing deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Okay, so innocent people being killed at VT is equivocal to a terrorist setting off a bomb in Baghdad and killing innocents. You don't need people to have the same amount of outrage but wish that the result of these events would push us to respond in a certain way. In regards to the VT shooting I am not sure what sort of practical response we could hope for. Everyone is dead and the perpetrator is unavialible to be tried in court. I wonder what you hope our response to killings in Iraq and Afghanistan would be.
7 comments:
It's so true. But how do we change that reaction? Can we?
It's hard...
...very hard
and it starts by asking the question.
I assume you want North America to have the same amount of outrage at the killing of innocents in Virginia by a madman as when innocents are killed by terrorists in Bagdhad. If this were to happen what sort of outcome would you be hoping for?
i don't think that outrage is what i am hoping for. there is plenty of outrage to go around these days. my point is our tendency to forget these loathesome events is actually equal reagrdless of the outrage we demonstrate at any one of these events. Even though the 'noise' over the virginia shooting is louder now it will in my estimation produce relatively the same end result - almost none.
I think this cartoon makes an excellent point. We seem to care more about what happens in our backyard than what happens halfway accross the world. Our empathy seems to have a distance limit. For instance, our bible college had a special prayer service for Virginia Tech. Meanwhile, there have been no such vigils for the ongoing deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Okay, so innocent people being killed at VT is equivocal to a terrorist setting off a bomb in Baghdad and killing innocents. You don't need people to have the same amount of outrage but wish that the result of these events would push us to respond in a certain way. In regards to the VT shooting I am not sure what sort of practical response we could hope for. Everyone is dead and the perpetrator is unavialible to be tried in court. I wonder what you hope our response to killings in Iraq and Afghanistan would be.
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