Tell Me Why I Should Care

I've taken my fair share of bashings on ATS for not being sensitive, remorseful, or sad about the death of someone. So after reading comments regarding the recent death of John Travolta's child, I'd like to pose a question: Why should I care? Not just about John Travolta's child, but any one?

It's a simple question, really. Why should I feel remorse? Why should I "express my condolences"? Does it somehow make me a bad person to honestly not feel a thing about the death of someone I don't know and never will know?

When it comes to emotions, I, personally, draw the line at thinking; I do not put thought in to how I feel, I do not factor in my expectations of political correctness, and I do not attempt to wonder how the family of the dead person is feeling.

Emotions are emotional, not logical.

Look, I can understand the family being sad at the loss of a loved one. But why should I be sad as well? When I lose my mother, my father, or any other relative, I am already going to be sad, so why should I double my pain and feel sad for the loss of someone else's mother, father, or relative?

In light of that, does someone care to explain to me why I am expected to care?

Well i certainly wouldnt be shattered and an emotional wreck about john travolta and his wife losing their son,but one of the virtues about being human and having such a complex brain means i can put myself in their shoes,and see even slightly through their eyes how it would feel,or how i would feel if it happened to me or someone close.

[edit on 3-1-2009 by Solomons]

reply to post by Solomons


What I want to know is...

Would they care about my loss as much as I am supposed to care about theirs?

I'd have to say they wouldn't, and neither would most people. Hell, if I had a son, and he died under the same circumstances in the same manner as John Travolta's son, I'd be willing to bet that I wouldn't get near the news coverage and remorse as he has gotten.

But I guess having a "complex brain" only factors in when it is a celebrity or well known public figure that is involved, right? Expressing the same amount of remorse for every single person who suffers the same fate would be too "complex", right?

Treat everyone the same. In this case, either express remorse to all, or express remorse to none. That's my philosophy anyway.

reply to post by NovusOrdoMundi


I agree,
I can only feel sad and feel the loss of someone or anyone that I personally know.
But then celebrity's sell papers and get some people to tune in and watch news or read news websites.


[edit on 3-1-2009 by colec156]

Originally posted by NovusOrdoMundi
Emotions are emotional, not logical.

In light of that, does someone care to explain to me why I am expected to care?

It sounds like you almost answered your own question. There isn't a logical reason why you should care. But emotionally we care due to empathy amoung other possible reasons as well. That said, its hard for me to relate to someone so distant from me like John Travolta, so like you, I don't have any personal sorrow. It is sad and it is a tragedy, so when I hear of a death I normally think "oh that is sad" but I can't say that I experienced any sorrow for the their loss.

I should point out also that when I saw the story on the Yahoo front page the fist thing that came to mind is that it was not news at all. Millions of people lose their son or daugher at a young age. And while Travolta may entertain people and that is great, "that don't impress me much" to quote a song about the theme of seemingly artifical levels of apparent importance.

I think it would have been a very relevant and moving story if it had been about people who die at a young age and the grievance of their parents. However, it instead focused on one "random" couple in one little situation and as such it is just an empty story. In fact I'm entirely sure that is the reason I wans't thinking "oh that's sad" when I heard the news. Instead my prevailing thought was how strange the media is to obsess over celebrities.

[edit on 3-1-2009 by ServantPublic]

are you supposed to care?
I understand where you are comming from, and I know people do it almost as an impulse to say, "i'm sorry for them" when really they probably feel 0 remorse, but are saying because, it makes sense to say it.

If you are getting rediculed for not being affected by the death of someone you have 0 relationship with, then thats just messed up, if anything people should be sympathetic to you for your apathy.

Its the connection. Some people feel connected to people they don't even know or have seen for that matter. As long as they know something happened to them to respond emotionally. If someone tells me "hey did you know 200,000 people just died today? I find it hard to feel connected to 200,000 different people, but honestly would I really want to?

I think what you are talking about is that if you don't feel connected why go out of your way to? like I said, you shouldn't be rediculed for not caring, I think its biologically neccersary that we are not emotionally connected to everything.

edit: If you are being rediculed maybe it is your tone.
Saying something like "who cares" or "so...whats your point". That maybe casual, but to someone else it might sound like you are saying beyond what is neccesary to not care.

[edit on 3-1-2009 by juveous]

It's called sympathy. If you don't have it then that's your choice. I just hope you don't waste most of your waking time thinking whether you should care about it or not.

Move along folks. Nothing to see here.

I envy you and your ability to not care.Caring too much has always been a problem for me.

In my opinion you are better equipped to handle life if you can let your head rule and not your heart.

I was raised not to show emotion due to my fathers political life. It was very confusing to me as a child. My brother, mother and I had to smile no matter what went down. It scarred my brother and me for life.

Consider yourself fortunate to not care.

reply to post by NovusOrdoMundi


This is something that bites me as well. SOme old foggie passes off in his sleep and because her was this or that, flags are lowered, moments of silence, etc.

Now I'm not sure about Travolta's son, but I mean stars in general are pampered to in a way that makes my head spin.

The hand of death finds us all. It has no sense of time, age, or desire. I am rather tired of having newspaper pages and magazine covers promote sympathy for those "have's" when millions of "have not's" die every month and no one seems to give a rip.

Case in point: The California Fires. A bunch of rich people build their mansions on the same foundation it burnt from three years ago... And I'm suppose to cry for them? They have insurance. And if they don't, their mess up! Suits them for living in an area like that.

I know many peole who live in Tornado Alley and when their house gets whipped out, they pick up and move silently on.

If you're looking for sympathy from me I'll tell you just where to find it: Between s**t and syphillis in the dictionary.

You don't have to care about what happens to other people, but I think the right thing to do would be to keep that to yourself. You wouldn't go up to someone who lost a family member and say you don't care, would you?

Originally posted by NovusOrdoMundi

Would they care about my loss as much as I am supposed to care about theirs?

I'd have to say they wouldn't, and neither would most people. Hell, if I had a son, and he died under the same circumstances in the same manner as John Travolta's son, I'd be willing to bet that I wouldn't get near the news coverage and remorse as he has gotten.

How sad that we equate news coverage with caring.

If John Travolta knew you and your family – even without really knowing you – then why wouldn't he care as much about your loss as people care about his?

If for instance you were a member of the same gym as him, and worked out at the same time for years but without saying much more than "hi, how are you" to each other. And then he heard that you had suddenly and unexpectedly lost a sixteen-year-old child. Don't you think that he would be touched? That he would for a brief moment experience your pain and in doing so would be drawn to express sympathy toward you?

Maybe he wouldn't, maybe John Travolta is one of those unfortunate people without the gift of empathy. I don't know him. But most of us experience sadness when we hear a sad story, and most of us transfer that feeling to the people who are actually affected. Media coverage of celebrities just creates the strange situation where millions of people know more than we need to know about a certain few, so millions of people hear of and experience the losses of those few. Since the relationship isn't reciprocal, they have no way of directly expressing sympathy, so they comment about how sad it is online.

_________________________________________

To answer the question: there is no reason why you should care. But I think it's very understandable that so many do, and I think for most the caring would happen whether he was a celebrity or not. The only difference celebrity makes is in how many people are aware of his loss.

Do you feel the same about Travolta's kid as this?:

www.msnbc.msn.com...

What is wrong with Empathy, with Compassion? It is exactly this detachment from other human beings that leads us onto the slippery slope leading to war, prejudice, racism, religious intolerance, et al.

Not caring about others diminishes our basic humanity. Like it or not, we are social, emotional animals. As individuals, we flourish in an atmosphere of emotional inter connectivity.

I do not ask that people become immobilized by excessive display of compassion, just that we feel our emotions and not hide from them.

Does anyone here argue that we are better off by ignoring the trials and tribulations of those less fortunate then ourselves? We are in reality, one big dysfunctional family. Everyone benefits when we live and act in a caring manner towards each other.

reply to post by NovusOrdoMundi


I haven't read any of the other responses yet, but I don't expect you to care. If you DO care about it, you can express your condolences, but if you don't, it would be out of integrity to pretend that you do. And I personally don't have any negative judgment about those who don't.

People die every minute of every day and none of us "cares". We'd be in constant misery of we cared about every person who died. And the fact that he's John Travolta's son really doesn't mean anything. I like Travolta and I'm sorry his son died, but it's not like I knew him. I don't really care either.

Now, if it was someone who represented something that I care about or someone that I felt close to (like Tim Russert), I would and did care. I actually teared up a few times.

So, my thought is: Don't let others' expectations pressure you. If you care, you care and if you don't, you don't. And if other people have a problem with that, it's THEIR problem.

Originally posted by NovusOrdoMundi
does someone care to explain to me why I am expected to care?

Quite simply...sometime, somewhere, you may need someone to care for you.

Would you expect them to have a reason before they did so...or be grateful they are kind and considerate, even if you were a complete stranger.

What goes around comes around and your world is what you make it.

Take care my friend. We may bump into eachother one day.

Originally posted by juveous
I think what you are talking about is that if you don't feel connected why go out of your way to?

That is exactly what I am talking about. I am one of those people that recognizes that humans are no different than animals, and thus, are still subjected to nature. One of the characteristics of nature is instinct. If I feel nothing when I first hear of someone's loss, I'm not going to go out of my way to over-think why I feel nothing just so I can fit in with the crowd.

And whats more, I don't believe a lot of the people that express sadness do actually feel it. I think a good number of them feel nothing, but feel they are expected to care. Personally, I'd rather be ridiculed for being myself than hate myself for being fake.

Originally posted by enjoies05
You don't have to care about what happens to other people, but I think the right thing to do would be to keep that to yourself. You wouldn't go up to someone who lost a family member and say you don't care, would you?

It really depends on how strongly I cared about my opinion of the person. Celebrities and other public figures I tend to feel more strongly about because I'm sick of hearing about their losses, and would most likely tell them I don't care.

Originally posted by Jkd Up
Do you feel the same about Travolta's kid as this?:

www.msnbc.msn.com...

I'm not sure if this was directed at me, but if it was, yes I feel the same in the sense that I'm not sad. But in another sense I don't feel the same because seeing that he died of a heroin overdose, the first thing that I see and feel is he is an idiot. You take drugs, you get what you deserve.

Originally posted by scottsquared
As individuals, we flourish in an atmosphere of emotional inter connectivity.

I have plenty of emotion. My emotion is what fuels me not caring. Emotion is not only the expression of some pre-approved by society feeling or reaction to a certain situation. It's not always "positive" by political correctness definitions.

Emotion is how you feel regardless. If you're going out of your way to express a fake emotion to fit in with the crowd, that's more disgraceful than not caring about someone's death could ever be.

reply to post by NovusOrdoMundi


YOU are correct actually.

people want to make themselves feel sad or whatever in order to claim to others that they actually are good people.
there is a big difference between LOGIC and EMotion.

most people on this forum think about everything (nwo, illuminati, etc...) using their emotions..therefore they can not observe what is happening in reality.

keep up your thought patterns..you will go far in life.

It is much more beneficial to your soul to express empathy. You think you don't care, but you do. You think you don't have pain, but you do. Suppressing it is not good for the mind, body or soul, and when you suppress it, you compound the emotional trauma of future events so that they become much more painful for you and much more harmful to your well being. The pain you bury today will be resurrected someday. The trigger event will awaken all of your past suppression's at one time and this will be devastating for you. You may already have numerous suppressed events waiting to spring to life and overwhelm you when the trigger event hits you. By dealing with each event now, including all the ones from your past, you will save yourself from serious harm and devastation later.

It sounds like you have lost all hope in humanity's ability to find a way to heal itself of the multiplicity of problems it has brought on itself.

I know I have, so if that's the case you are not alone.
You have no need to show remorse in this particular scenario as you did nothing to cause it, nor could you or anyone else have prevented it.

Now I will go out on a limb and risk coming under ridicule.

I sense that you actually do have compassion and empathy in you. But I also sense that the difficulty you have expressing it goes back many years to a time when you suppressed a lot of pain, because no one taught you how to deal with each of those instances when you were hurt, treated unfairly, lost something, lost a friend, or a loved one. Now that you have grown, you can deal with these by freely entering your past (in your mind) to bring new understanding and teaching to your child within. As long as we live, that child lives in us. Every day of our life is still inside us and the child is as much alive as ever. There may be some walls to break down to reach your inner child, but Your child needs all that you can bring it, Love, forgiveness, patience, kindness,compassion, etc. and your child needs to learn to forgive from you because as children we don't really know how to forgive, and we bury our feelings. I hope you find the strength to forgive and the ability to teach and heal your inner child.