Last night I watched a chilling documentary on a serial killer who posed as a doctor - giving his patients lethal injections under the guise of caring for them. At least, it was supposed to be chilling. Here was a man who killed again and again just for the thrill of it, all the while playing the perfect GP. It's the stuff of (dignified) Hollywood horror films. And yet it completely failed to enage me at any level deeper than the intellectual. Am I hard? Am I cynical? Am I over-exposed to news of evil and destruction? I don't know. I could be any, all, or none of those. The same phenomenon occured for me when three thousand Americans died in the 9/11 catastrophe. Yes, I prayed for the victims, I agreed it was sad, tragic, the perpetrators should be punished, et cetera - but I felt no pain, I experienced no shock; I merely watched. I hadn't expected it, but wasn't surprised. It was like attending a golf tournament as a spectator knowing nothing of the sport, and having little preference as to who wins. You politely clap good shots, and half-hope that some unlikely candidate comes out on top just for the novelty of it.
Is it a sign of our media saturated times that I can immediately empathise with Eric Liddel as he joyously breaks the tape, Frodo Baggins as he crawls agonisingly up the slopes of Mount Doom, and Cinque as he crys out passionately for his freedom, but I feel nothing when a real person dies? True, I don't know them, I'm not acquainted with their larger struggle, there's no emotive music in the background to create the mood . . . but these people didn't die in the morning, have a lunch break, and then do Take 2 in the afternoon. They've left us - permanently.
I'm afraid today I'm leaving you with more questions than answers. Perhaps you can't relate to this and are just wondering if I am a good person after all. Though if there's one thing I've learned, it's this: my problems are not peculiar - many others share them. As soon as you say No one has any idea what I'm . . . you're just talking a load of rubbish. There's more human in us than individual (even if the individual is the key part). People may be unique - but they're not very different.
4 comments:
No, I know exactly what you mean.
It's been years since I've felt any real pain for any group of people. If someone I know is affected by something I can relate to, sure I can identify.
But I'm just not affected by the death of large numbers of people.
It's like in War of the Worlds. People get killed all around Tom Cruise, but do we care? Nah, only Tom matters.
But what can I say? It's almost like a preventative measure. We can't identify with everyone's pain or we won't survive. But can that go too far?
We can't identify with everyone's pain or we won't survive. But can that go too far?
That, I guess, is the question. If this a normal emotional defense mechanism, then is it functioning as it should? Or has overexposure to remote catastrophe unnaturally strengthened it, cutting off an important area of our lives and preventing us from connecting as we were designed to?
There is one thing that scares me. Have you ever noticed is that the people who are actually over-exposed to the media (ie those on government welfare), are those who go out of their way to talk about remote events. Those same people will often become cripplingly terrified of terrorism (promoting racist reaction).
These people aren't dulled by media exposure. In fact, they are exactly honed to it's demands. Cry NOW! Be concerned NOW! End immigration NOW! Ban nuclear power NOW!
The messages should be: Pray NOW! Turn of your TV NOW! Worry about your family NOW!
We humans were never designed to a have remote emotional connection to the masses. Communism enforced such equality and identification — George Orwell hypothesized the results.
I fear that if we attempt to shut down our defense mechanism, we will only reverse it, making us dead to the important needs that we can truly fulfill.
You know what? You're absolutely right.
Cheers for hitting the nail so concisely. :)
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