I can't say that I disagree with this post (except #6, of course,) but I think you're oversimplifying #1 and a little misguided on #2. I only mention it because as a half hearted deist, my personal beliefs fall somewhere in the middle of the two. (And keep in mind that I am in the middle of reading "The God Delusion" by Dawkins, so the hamster in my head is churning on this exact subject.)
I just finished "God is not Great" by Hitchens, so I'm right there with you. Those guys are atheists, obviously. But to my way of thinking, atheism commits the same error deism does: intellectual arrogance.
The scene at the end of Contact sums it up: What if we're just an infintesimal speck in the marble of some pair of giants playing ... well, marbles, with our lives? Could be. Who the fuck are we to say for certain?
And notice, I say "religion" as opposed to "belief" or "faith." Those last two are a-ok with me. But religion---that is, the organized and institutionalized set of rules, pronouncements, ritual----is a joke. Of the highest order.
I don't know if so many people suffer from compassion fatigue as you suspect. I spent the better part of an hour surfing random LJ accounts, and I'd gather that more than half of those included posts commenting on the Myanmar tragedy.
However, a very large percentage of these posts were coming from people who are not in the U.S. So, maybe it would be more accurate to speculate that citizens of the U.S. suffer from "compassion fatigue". There's also the fact that while fewer died in 9/11, it was still a very large terrorist attack on the states. Myanmar is simply the result of a natural disaster, though that doesn't make it any less tragic. I guess my point is that Myanmar is less "ZOMG!!!?" than 9/11 was.
Oh well, yeah, sure. Compassion fatigue is something of a Western concept, specifically American. And it's not jusssst compassion that tires us out; it's the relentless onslaught of demands on our attention and sympathy. It's the media glut, really
( ... )
Comments 4
Reply
The scene at the end of Contact sums it up: What if we're just an infintesimal speck in the marble of some pair of giants playing ... well, marbles, with our lives? Could be. Who the fuck are we to say for certain?
And notice, I say "religion" as opposed to "belief" or "faith." Those last two are a-ok with me. But religion---that is, the organized and institutionalized set of rules, pronouncements, ritual----is a joke. Of the highest order.
Reply
However, a very large percentage of these posts were coming from people who are not in the U.S. So, maybe it would be more accurate to speculate that citizens of the U.S. suffer from "compassion fatigue". There's also the fact that while fewer died in 9/11, it was still a very large terrorist attack on the states. Myanmar is simply the result of a natural disaster, though that doesn't make it any less tragic. I guess my point is that Myanmar is less "ZOMG!!!?" than 9/11 was.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment