I have discovered, as I have grown over the years and experienced the death of public figures, that I do not seem to have the capacity to be upset about people I don't know dying. I can acknowledge that death as a concept is bad, and that people dying is sad, but I don't find any emotion over it unless I know the person. When I expressed this recently, I was met with hostility toward my attempt at understanding (I was later informed that my wording and/or timing was inappropriate). Is there something wrong with me? Am I 'damaged goods'?
If you would like to understand my thoughts, the following paragraph is an explanation to the best of my abilities:
The death of a person is without doubt sad. This much, most can agree on. However, that this person provides a public service to the world shouldn't produce a difference. My 'moral compass' tells me that all death is bad, and that the badness level of death should be equal for all people. As such, I do not see a reason to care more about the death of a public figure than the average of ~2 people dying every second. These people were likely to have had friends and family, so the argument that a public figure has people that care about them seems rather unreasonable.
I suspected, for a while, that people pretend to care to seem more compassionate, but that does not feel like a satisfactory explanation.
As a final thought, I would like to express that I anticipate experiencing more emotion for the death of someone closer to me than I experience for the death of people I don't know. I do have some empathy - somewhere.
03 Jun 2015, 1:23 am
