Pause for London

[whaywardj]

I think I disagree entirely with the idea that's it's hard to feel sympathy for the lives of other individuals. All you have to do is take time out from your own preoccupations and imagine yourself in their shoes. That one of the PRIMARY purposes of having an imagination at all, in my book: to able to empathize. But, before a person can employ their imagination in that way, they have to be a little less selfish and little more selfless. On this point, a suicide bomber is light-years ahead of most of us. Which, to me, is the irony of terrorism.

[misombra]

this is all too much for me.

[Tone]

Interesting post Hayward.

[whaywardj]

Yeah. I'm still trying to get my mind around some of it myself.

[nomas]

I agree, all you have to do is put yourself in their shoes to empathize...yet people die of tragic causes every day. This story made the news because it was a rare instance on an otherwise progressive and economically sound city. I don't recall you ever starting a thread to pause for those who die of hunger and who obviously had worse situations in their lives to begin with.

In a very loose comparison, take the cases of missing teenagers that are sensationalized in the news from month to month. People go missing everyday, but one case makes the news for it's newsworthyness: these aren't my words, but some say that the stories that are selected have to be of "rich/white/attractive" people. So it becomes the talk of the community..again the manipulation I was talking about. THEY TELL US WHAT TO TALK ABOUT and we do.

[misombra]

i agree there. like the girl gone missing in aruba, if an aruban girl was missing here in the states it wouldn't be all over the news at all.

[Tone]

Very true, Nomas, very true.

[Tone]

i agree there. like the girl gone missing in aruba, if an aruban girl was missing here in the states it wouldn't be all over the news at all.

Grr that story makes me so mad >:[

And yeah you're 100% right on that.

[whaywardj]

Yes, so true, nomas. Nietzsche phrased that paradigm best, I think: "History is a chronicle of the rich...noble is as nobility does." Or words to that effect. Think it was in "Thus Spoke Zarathustra."

[shh!]

While i was helping my dad at the barn, we saw some soldiers approaching. So they told us to quietly start heading towards the school. When we came there, women, children and old men, were seperated from those men (usually 18 to around 60). Stayed at the school for hours while my father was taken to the camp. Later we were released and when we reached our house, everything was broken and they took all the valuable stuff. That's how it all started...The next 8 months or so, we stayed in our homes in fear. During this time their forces with no known command came in and started randomly killing.

How awful! (And I don't even have to know you in person to sympathize with you - imagine that!)

But seriously - did your father make it home again?

[boobaa]

I think I disagree entirely with the idea that's it's hard to feel sympathy for the lives of other individuals. All you have to do is take time out from your own preoccupations and imagine yourself in their shoes. That one of the PRIMARY purposes of having an imagination at all, in my book: to able to empathize. But, before a person can employ their imagination in that way, they have to be a little less selfish and little more selfless. On this point, a suicide bomber is light-years ahead of most of us. Which, to me, is the irony of terrorism.

So, you all MAKE yourself feeling symphaty? Yes, I can make myself also, but just feeling and making yourself feeling is two different things.

Then you should post like: "I made myself feel so sad about those people", not "I feel so sad about those people". Maybe you don't know what the feeling is?


If I felt too much, then I probably couldn't live. I know a person who killed himself because of that, he felt too much. he had a perfect family, all was Ok, but he knew, he saw the real world outside his window, and he just couldn't live with it.


When Soviet Union came, some of my granparents were taken to Siberia. And there, my friend, was nothing but an empty land, you had to build everything, just to stay alive. You had no luggage as you only got like two minutes for packing and it was usually a night, or very early morning, lets say. You were taken from sleep.

After war, there were no animals on street, then, people started to dissapear. It was common to discover human fingernails from sausage etc.

And the irony of terrorism is that we feed it.

[Asip4u]

How awful! (And I don't even have to know you in person to sympathize with you - imagine that!)

But seriously - did your father make it home again?

Thanks, shh!..Yes, he was one of the lucky ones. Has anyone seen that movie Harrison's Flowers?..I don't know if anyone remembers, near the end, the guy couldn't speak at all (not just because he was burnt all over) but because of what he had experienced. Well, my father barely spoke a word after he came back from the camp.

[misombra]

that is terrible asip. i had no idea you had gone through this stuff. i have a friend from yemen who's father died right in front of her because they were in a car getting pulled over by fighters and he had a heart attack. they threw him out of the car and left him. terrible. she has many stories similar to yours. how long was he in the camp?

[shh!]

I agree, all you have to do is put yourself in their shoes to empathize...yet people die of tragic causes every day. .

I think the difference is that victims of terror are deliberately murdered, and randomly at that, as a result of governmental policies they may or may not support. Yes, plenty of other people die as victims of circumstance, but those circumstances do not necessarily have a human face. That people die of starvation is certainly tragic in its own right, but that doesn't explain or excuse boob's lack of compassion for victims of terrorism.

[Asip4u]

that is terrible asip. i had no idea you had gone through this stuff. i have a friend from yemen who's father died right in front of her because they were in a car getting pulled over by fighters and he had a heart attack. they threw him out of the car and left him. terrible. she has many stories similar to yours. how long was he in the camp?

yea misombra, talk about cruelty. They tortured them every single day...He was there for 4 monts.