What I’m Playing

Nationalizing tragedy

 The Rage! It Burns!
Aug 152010
 

All of us have read, or watched, or heard it. Some horrible disaster happens abroad…maybe it’s a plane crash, a massive explosion, or a huge natural disaster that smashes an entire region of a far flung country. And it’s reported as so :

Disaster in (insert nation here) today, as a (insert event here) shattered this normally peaceful region. Early numbers indicate that as many as 3,000 people may be dead, with tens of thousands more homeless. Officials report that as many as 4 Canadians may be among the dead. And now, a wacky human interest story involving dancing gophers.

What exactly is the point of that little bit mentioning that amongst thousands of casualties are a handful from whatever nation you happen to live in? Are we actually to the point of being nationalistic over casualty reports and death tolls now?

Suck it, Ireland! I don’t see any of you drunken louts listed there! We TOTALLY kick your ass when it comes to dying somewhere else!

Or is it some weird move to make us care because…(GASP)…some of our OWN bought it.

I didn’t care about it or anything, but then I heard that a few countrymen who I’ve never met and know nothing about lost their lives. And that apparently made a difference over just hearing about a few thousand foreign people who I didn’t know losing their lives.

It doesn’t make any sense. If we as a society truly are not affected by an entire region being smashed to bits by some massive event, are we magically going to care now that a couple of people who we don’t know (but share a passport with) bought the farm? Do we just tune out until we find out that not everyone involved is brown, dirt poor, and employed for ten cents a day making our shoes? Is a culture with that level of self obsession going to give a fuck about some dude four provinces over who picked the wrong time to go sight seeing?

Just something that has never made a lick of sense to me.

  • http://feelingsofwhite.com James

    There’s been a few psychology studies (don’t ask me to cite which ones, I’ve just read about ‘em) that say humans react exactly like that. We are more likely to care about some remote tragedy, bicycle invention, etc, the closer it relates to our “tribe”. So if you hear a serial killer murdered someone yer all like “big whup, happens every day”, and then if they’re like “that person was your uncle!” you’re all like “holy shit now that’s relevant!! although that uncle did have it coming, creepy guy”. Same deal, although slightly less impact, if it was your neighbour… then less still if it was an edmontonian… an albertan.. a canadian. so when millions die in thailand. eh *shrug*
    So the news outlets are trying to tap into that natural bit of human psychology. Although I agree that they do it very very poorly.

  • http://www.peerpressureworks.com Cliff

    While I don’t doubt the psychology, I DO doubt that being the reason behind the networks doing what they do. I really do think they’re following a ‘nationalization = eyeballs’ strategy.

   
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