Post-Sympathy Society

Sympathy, when given on volition, is really what we're striving for as a society, but all too often it's twisted out of us by the powers of sensationalism. When sympathy is given freely, it is a blessing, but when given at the behest of manipulation, is only a sad sorry excuse. Feeling bad for someone on the basis of some group's political or commercial agenda is a waste of our tears and a diversion away from those who could actually benefit from that shedding.

And since the amount of sympathy twisted out of the tear-ducts of adults on behalf of children is unparalleled, no other group of people seems to suffer more as a result. No other group of people are loosing out to our diverted sympathies than children. This forms the basis of our sympathetic society. A "post-sympathetic" society would be one were people feel sympathy for people they can actually reach out and touch rather than those at such great distances that no amount of feeling bad for them could ever hope to reach across. It is a society where sympathy is not a commodity, a means to an ends, but an ends in and of itself, a charity.

In short, it's the idea that those around each and every one of us is more deserving of our sympathies and assistance than those who we can't hope to reach or contact in any way. No amount of feeling sorry for the child kidnapped in California is going to bring them back home where they belong if you happen to live in New Jersey, for instance. Human beings will naturally react to such a story with pity and remorse, and such is fine, but the near pathological sadness and depression brought on by the constant media barrage bent on ringing our collective sympathies into a fever pitch of hysteria and mob-mental hatred is never going to do these injustices any good. It thrusts a sense of endless victim-hood on those affected, and associates whole groups of people sharing the characteristics of the perpetrator with his evil deeds. It does nothing to bring the kidnapped child home, and in those instances, may help reinforce the perpetrator's reasons for not stepping forward to release their possession.

In a post-sympathetic society, people would feel sympathetic for those around them, and not those the television tells them to feel sympathetic for. This is an ideal, of course, and therefore probably unattainable, but a genuine one that most people may indeed feel sympathetic toward given enough media exposure. In such a society, they'd not bicker at the children riding their big wheels in the condo parking lot for making noise and then come inside and shed a tear for the missing child on the news -- unless they are somehow associated with that child the way they are with the children outside their door. They wouldn't sanctify the dead and ignore the living.

One can dream.