How does it affect us to receive the depth and breadth of news that is now broadcast?
This morning, I continued to spread my toast when I heard the news on the radio that 8 people were killed in Iraq yesterday by a car bomb. News of 8 innocent deaths? Shouldn't that bring me to my knees in horror? I am immune to tragedies that do not personally affect me or those I love. Maybe people always have been immune to the tragedies of others, but it is only recently that we have started to receive news of them on a daily basis.
A hundred years ago I may have heard of a death in my village or town. I would have heard very little of occurrences beyond that. My sphere of influence, if you like, would have been, say 5 miles in radius and, say 2,000 people. Now, we each have a sphere of influence that is global. We hear of tsunamis in the Pacific, hurricanes in the States, genocide, terrorism, shootings... We also hear of a 13 month old baby who lives in a far away town who dies in hospital because he is mis-treated by the staff there. We hear of the death in a car crash of a celebrity. And via the telephone we hear that someone we worked with 10 years ago and did not know very well has died suddenly of a stroke at the age of 39. And via the internet, we know of the life's work of all those we were at school with. Are our minds designed to cope with all of this information?
But are we subject to more tragic news today than were our ancestors 100 or so years ago, when infant mortality was up to 50% and when we ourselves could expect to lose babies to stomach bugs, whooping cough, measles? Is it the case that our own lives are, on average, less tragic than those of our ancestors, but to make up for this we hear a whole lot more about the tragedies of others around the world.
What concerns me is that a century or so ago I may have heard, first thing in the morning that Mrs Miggins from the pie shop down the road had died in the night (were I Black Adder). I would then have ceased to spread my toast and run to the rescue of Mr Miggins and their children, with offers of comfort and practical help. Now, we hear news of terrible things and do absolutely nothing about it. The Morning News washes over us like the soap we used moments earlier in the shower.
When I did hear by telephone, fairly recently, that someone I had worked with 10 years ago had died suddenly of a stroke at the age of 39 I was dumb-founded. I could not stop thinking about it for 48 hours. I had to counsel myself about this and the only way that I could let it go was to tell myself that I ought not to know about it. This was information that had reached me via modern-age technology. It was information that I could do nothing with - I did not know her family; I could neither attend the funeral nor offer help. I had to put it out of my mind (impossible, of course, and I think of her family who I do not know at very regular intervals).
What a jumbled post this is. I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make other than to say that I am fascinated by impact of the "global village" on our psyche. I am intrigued that I know more about Tom Cruise and his wife's birth, Jade Goody and Paris Hilton than I do about my next door neighbours.
I'd do well to save this post as a draft and come back to it when I'm less tired, but I'm terrible for not doing that. I'm gonna stick it up the flag pole and see who salutes. And then I might come back to it and clean it up another time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
This is such an interesting post! I share the same questions you asked. However, I think that being humans, we'd be able to get a hang of what really life is. ;) It ain't the end of the world when someone is struck by tragedy, but we are still affected by the mere thought of these things... Haha.. same thing .. I dunno what point im trying to raise in this comment!
I jut liked your post :D
Yet another deep and meaningful moment on your blog.
I have often been struck by similar thought trails, but my concern often centres around our desensitisation by the tragedy and horror that we are bombarded with from our telvision screens, hence I rarely watch the news. I believe the youth population are so desensitised they do not have fear of violence or death, by knife or fire-arm, because they see it everyday on the news, in films, computer games and playstations. "Games", "play", they have changed their meanings and killing on the screen easily becomes reality because of the confusion they cause. On the screen, we can spring back to life in the 'new game' and it is forgotten that in real life, dead is just that, dead. So children aren't learning the real consequence of carrying their 'toys', the badge to show how brave and strong they are.
Oh dear, I'm off the track and on a completely different soap box, but it all comes from the same evil, too much communication of the wrong sort freely available.
Sorry for hijacking your lovely, thought-provoking post!
No, no, no. Do not apologise Louise. You are absolutely right. My sister is a histopathologist who sees death every day and she recently talked to me of her concerns at "punch ups" on the telly. Phil punches Grant, who gets up off the floor and punches Phil back. And in the next episode of the dire soap (pre-watershed: one minute they're making a cuppa, the next they're punching someone's lights out, and the next they're fixing the exhaust of their car), one of them might sport a faint black eye and life goes on. But in reality, these punch-ups can be and are fatal.
Jayson - thank you for your comment and for reading my post. Another thing that interests me is that we find it so hard to comprehend a death, when in fact death is the only certainty in life!
"Mankind cannot bear too much reality" is one of those very true observations that poets manage...I think that we do have too much information to allow us to respond from the heart to most of it, and the line between fact and fiction can blur all too easily as well,-but actually we do still respond when there is something we can really DO to make a difference.
And if nothing else, the wider range of information gives us the option of informed prayer, if that's our thing. And though we don't manage the "right" feelings in each situation, I'd stake my all that God does!
Post a Comment