Mama Moonbat quits anti-war movement

[Grislygus]

Virgina Tech got two days of television news coverage, and dropped off the newswires entirely after a week.

We had a bigger "emotional connection" with Anna Nicole Smith.

[kahljorn]

I'm pretty sure it got more than two days... people are still discussing if teachers should have guns at schools or if there should be armed guards. Plus, there was weeks of, "HOW CRAZY WAS THE GUY" "WHAT WAS HIS LIFE LIKE" "LOOK WE GOT A VIDEO OF HIM TALKING ABOUT HIMSELF" "WHAT CAN WE DO TO PREVENT CRAZY PEOPLE IN THE FUTURE"? Maybe that's not what you guys would define as "Compassion" or "Emotional attachment" but as far as I'm concerned it either is compassionate or is more useful than compassion.

Regardless, if some random person accosts you on the street, "MY SON DIED IN IRAQ" how long are you going to be thinking about them? The next five minutes while you wish they would shut the fuck up? Sprinkle that on your cake and eat it.

[kahljorn]

Off the Wires

• Yankees donate $1M to Virginia Tech Reuters - Wed May 23, 10:05 PM ET
• Va. Tech panel fighting to get records AP - Wed May 23, 10:00 AM ET
• Va. investigator threatens court fight AP - Wed May 23, 12:31 AM ET
• Va. Tech gunman 'well-prepared' to go on AP - Mon May 21, 11:08 PM ET

» More Off the Wires

News Stories

• Virginia Tech honors and celebrates its 5,000 graduates for 2007 Fri, May 11, 2007
• Virginia Tech students graduating at BBC - Fri, May 11, 2007
• Celebration in Midst of Sadness at The Washington Post (reg. req'd) - Fri, May 11, 2007
• Tech to celebrate - and reflect at Richmond Times-Dispatch - Fri, May 11, 2007
• Learning from tragedy at Richmond Times-Dispatch - Fri, May 11, 2007

I bet I could find just as many stories about ENDING THE WAR IN IRAQ and a bunch of people who are fed up over itbecause 'think about the soldiers' or something. Weren't there like entire movements to try to end the war and isn't that what this is talking about? What the fuck do you people expect? "POOR MAMA MOONBATS KID WE SHOULD HAVE A MEMORIAL." "WELL ITS THE ANNIVERSARY OF MAMA MOONBATS KID TODAY SHOULD BE A NATIONAL HOLIDAY" "WELL MAMA MOONBATS KID DIED SO GAS PRICES ARE GOING DOWN FOR MOURNING" "NATIONAL CRY DAY FOR MAMA MOONBATS KID" "MAMA MOONBAT TO APPEAR AT STARBUCKS FOR FREE HUGS DAY: GIVE HER 700 HUGS GET A FREE PLUSH DEAD SOLDIER THAT SAYS, 'END THE KILLING'" "MAMA MOONBAT TO RECEIVE A PAT ON THE SOLDIER wink FROM PRESIDENT BUSH"

and even if it was only two days to a week that's a lot more care and compassion than most people will give someone else, even in a personal setting.

Anyway, this isn't about news coverage of a story but what type of responses people have to them. Personally, when the virginia tech shooting happened I was pretty pissed about it just like I am in real life when someone acts like a douche. I'm pretty sure when it happened there was a thread on this message board and everyone was like, "OMG THIS IS FUCKED UP." I bet we could browse some blogs and find people going, "OMG THIS IS FUCKED UP."

[Preechr]

Y'know, this conversation has gotten fairly interesting... We are all the time hearing about how violence or sex or whatever in movies, games and TV influence kids, but I'm wondering if maybe whenever anybody sees a person or a story in and audio/video presentation if there's not a natural disconnect.

Here's what I'm thinking: the popular thought is that our brains can be conditioned or programmed in various ways by negative images and audio, but has anybody spent any time studying the way the brain receives the incomplete sensory data received from a TV in general? This might be a good one for Seth... lol...

I'm wondering if there's a biological reason "most people" "don't really make an emotional connection with the subjects like they would if they met the people personally." Our brains were not built to understand TV. Sure, we can hash it out cognitively, but the parts of the brain related to real emotional response aren't located in or subject to the frontal lobes, are they?

Maybe we see images on TV like we would in a mirror. Max alluded to the idea that maybe some people put themselves in her place, but I wonder if that's the only way any of us can experience her story unless we know her personally. When we see reports about Va Tech or whatever, don't we filter it all through something along the lines of "What if I were there?" or "What if that was me?"

I don't think real compassion is even possible. Empathy, maybe, but even that is essentially self-serving, for lack of a better word. When you really feel compassion for someone, it's not about you.

Way off topic, but I thought I'd put it out there. I still think that logic and reason outweigh any emotional response morons might have to something as serious as a freakin WAR, but your discussion made me think of this other thing...

[kahljorn]

I think when people feel "Compassion" they are essentially feeling outraged by injustice. When I see something on television I don't like, I feel the same.

When people walk up to me on the street and tell me their life story I don't care. Bums do this all the damned time to try to get money from me. I don't attach to them on an emotional level. I don't connect with them on a personal level. People on the television are the same as people on the street because I don't even know them, yet I sometimes find myself feeling more compassion towards them. Possibly because their position actually merits compassion.
What about if someone random came up to you on the street and told you their whole family died in a car wreck and started crying? Would you be thinking about it for weeks and ways you could help them feel better? Honestly is there anybody who didn't feel horrible when 9/11 happened? Didn't it move an entire country to pursue a war? Isn't the definition of COM-PASSION to feel bad for people's misery and attempt to alleviate it? Feeling PASSIONATE for another person? Considering that the people who appear on television are complete strangers who I will never meet I think that I'm having quite a bit of an emotional attachment to them...

When you guys say personal level I think family and friends. I think it's dumb to compare the compassion and emotional attachment to someone you actually know on a personal level to the compassion you'd feel for strangers who you don't know. Regardless, if I hear something i interpret as injustice I still think, "WHAT THE FUCK? WHY? AND WHAT CAN BE DONE TO FIX THIS? MAYBE THEY COULDVE DONE THIS." Just the other day my friend was telling me about how her husband is suing her for half her belongings-- this guy's a complete douche. I felt outraged. It's the same feeling I get from watching stupid shit on television.

I think comparing movie violence influence to compassion/outrage for real events is impossible, mostly because they are two entirely separate emotions and situations -- maybe. I don't know, I think videogames if anything just encourage people to act on their feelings, because you can do that in videogames, almost as if it makes you "God" and outside of/above humanity. I think it may also aid in exaggerating emotions for the same reason.
But i think it would be interesting to note that some people CRY WHEN THEY SEE SAD SCENES IN MOVIES and sometimes men HOLLER when they get excited over football and other times people laugh when jokes are made on television. God this is a retarded conversation. Aren't there some movies that the problem with them is stated as, "I couldn't feel attached to any of the characters. I just didn't care about them. They were dumb" etc?
How are there good guys and bad guys in movies and television? How are there heros and villains?

Anyway, none of you has even remotely demonstrated that people don't feel compassion for people on television. And what makes the compassion you feel towards people in real life any different? I doubt you guys show that much more compassion in real life. I kind of agree with preechr when he says that compassion doesn't even really exist, or not in the way people think it does. You guys seem to be defining it as like crying with other people and having some severe emotional crippling because of something you see on tv. How often does that happen in real life when someone tells you their boyfriend broke up with them? Isn't the only difference that you have direct contact with them so you try to comfort them? Does that make the feelings you have stronger? I don't think it does, and if it does it's just because they are sharing more of their hardship with you, and through the back-and-forth conversation they are giving you more and more reasons to be outraged -- some that the person knows may outrage you in particular, and usually people hide flaws from their side of the story. News stories often develop in a similar way, though, it just takes time.