A Few Thoughts on Distance Sympathy

After my last post, I spent a bit of time wondering why I was moved to blog about Owen Wilson, but not about these suicidal farmers in India that I learned about on NewsHour.

As I watched the report on farmer suicides, I was rather clinical. My thoughts ran toward framing the problem and assessing whether there was anything I could do about it, or anything that leaders could do. I also wondered are these farmers mentally ill? Did their situation drive them to a kind of clinical depression, or were they reacting normally to a horrible situation?

The farmers spoke for themselves in interviews and I could see their expressions of despair. Some of their faces even reminded me of my relatives. Yet something kept me from being personally upset. Maybe it was the angle of the report--farmers are miserable, perhaps because of international cotton prices driven down by subsidized farms outside India. It seemed like the appropriate response to the report was to think, not to feel. But feeling is what drives people to action. I felt connected to some dude because he'd made me laugh in some movies, so when I found out he was troubled, I spoke out about it in public. My connection to the farmers seemed so abstract that I didn't feel the need to do anything about it.

Still, I don't see any reason for guilt over feeling more or less for one celebrity or than I do for a large community of people that I've only heard about once. I don't criticize people for feeling sorry for fighting dogs when other creatures, human and nonhuman, are suffering. Many factors make it easier to cry at a silly commercial than it is to cry about news of real problems, or to cheer at a baseball game but remain silent at the news of a child being born-- for all that crying and cheering are worth. I don't pretend that emotional reactions should be based on rational or moral principles. What concerns me is the basis for my actions.

Mama Ass and I used to talk about how the capacity for suffering is like a vacuum in that a small amount of suffering can fill that space just as easily as a large amount of suffering. Maybe the capacity for sympathy and understanding is the same way.