LogFAQs > #892025382

I just made that word up on the spot, not sure if there is another word for it. What I mean is caring, or pretending to care about people outside your immediate life. I understand what it means to be empathetic to a sibling, friend, lover, etc. but people I've never met? Why would I waste my time and energy worrying or feeling bad for someone on the other side of the planet? Even if they were part of my ethnic, religious, ideological, etc. group, I still don't know them. It seems highly illogical to pay the slightest attention to anything about them. If anyone honestly did feel sorry for all the people in the world the way they would for someone close to them, I would have to guess there was something wrong with their head. Thankfully this doesn't seem to be the case and yet... People like to pretend it is? People will say they feel bad after reading/hearing about some tragedy in a far off country, but it's so obvious they don't care, and yet people still buy it? It's like a big joke everyone's playing with each other or something. More interesting is when something hits relatively close to home, without directly effecting them, then the care seems more genuine. My theory is that seeing something that they think could potentially happen to them or a loved one (regardless of the chance of it actually happening vs. anything else, as people can worry about anything, especially things the media tells them to worry about) causes a fear in them for their own safety, so the emotions are real, but they are only directed at others because it "makes more sense" so to speak, and in truth are only directed inwards and towards loved ones.

Thoughts?
---

Nil-