Becoming a Barbarian by Jack Donovan

Author:Jack Donovan [Donovan, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3, pdf
Publisher: DISSONANT HUM
Published: 2016-04-11T22:00:00+00:00

“You never would have come here unless you believed you were going to save them. Evolution has yet to transcend that simple barrier. We can care deeply — selflessly — about those we know, but that empathy rarely extends beyond our line of sight.”

— Dr. Mann, Interstellar. (2014)

NO TEARS FOR STRANGERS

It is true that all humans are genetically similar, that we suffer from many of the same diseases and ailments, that we share the same basic physical and psychological needs and wants. It is possible to empathize with the predicament of almost any human being, anywhere in the world. Thanks in part to advances in global communication and the weakening of ethnic and national spirits, humans all over the world now share similar cultural experiences. With the right camera angle, music and sensitive narration, we can put ourselves in almost anyone else’s shoes.

But we don’t — and can’t — care about everyone on the planet. The idea that we can care about what is going on everywhere in the world is an illusion created by modern communication technology and the media. In truth, the human brain can’t physically conceptualize billions or even millions of people as individuals with unique hopes and dreams and feelings. It is impossible to know and keep track of everything that is going on in a small city, state or nation. News networks pluck stories about people from all over the globe and deliver them to us in an easily digestible regurgitation.

While you were reading this, a child was molested. A man was beaten, or maybe raped by another man, or possibly murdered. Someone died of a drug overdose. Or cancer. Or a heart attack. An old woman collapsed, and she was a lot like your grandmother. There was a freak accident. A man suffered a life-changing injury at work. Someone was cheated by a salesperson or an insurance company or an employer.

Someone, somewhere suffered or died and you didn’t care.

You didn’t care, because no one told you to care.

If you cared or pretended to care about anything that happened to any stranger, you cared because the media selected a story for you to care about symbolically. Every week, executives and producers and editors and bloggers pick a handful of rapes, murders, atrocities, disasters, celebrity deaths, diseases, accidents, scandals and court cases for you to care about because those stories “popped” more than all of the rest of the human suffering that actually happened.

People care about those curated stories because no one has the time or the emotional energy or the brain processing power to care about every story. People care or ritualistically go through the motions of caring about those collected stories and doing so makes them feel connected to people all over the world.

They feel more connected, but they’re not. Caring symbolically about strangers is not the same as caring about people who are close to you, and who you actually know. Caring symbolically about strangers is not improving human relationships. On the

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