It's just interesting to me that Charlie Kirk of all people is causing a revolution in human empathy
TinyViolins · 31-35, M
This is performative outrage. People do it after every shooting and then things go back to the status quo. Time and time again on these comments you have people saying that they never watched or never heard of Charlie Kirk. This merely presents an opportunity for people to virtue signal and wave their moral superiority in other people's faces
This happens all the time with public figures. They receive more attention and accolades after their death. It's not that they are deemed more important or that their deaths are deemed more tragic, it's simply that people have formed a connection with those people through familiarity and shared experience. When hundreds, or thousands, or millions of people are killed in some conflict you don't have that same intimate knowledge of the individuals. There are certain cases which you may read about and they do indeed grab you, but those are by exception.
Ultimately people die every day so why do we mourn anyone at all if we don't mourn the loss of everyone? The answer is usually about the connection that we have formed with an individual. People invest in a person emotionally and that is what brings the biggest outpouring of grief. As for the statements from political leaders, they are almost duty bound to acknowledge certain deaths when the person who died had a large public profile and particularly in the political sphere.
I don't think that the empathy expressed is fake for the most part. Nobody is walking around being empathetic 24/7. How could anyone live life if they did nothing but grieve for every horrible death in the world? It's the moments of human connection on an individual level which bring death and tragedy home. It's particular stories of particular individuals which make tragedy relatable and I know that I've been affected by many of those from the great many world conflicts about which I've read. Charlie Kirk was no more or less human and no more or less deserving of humanity over his life or death. He didn't bring death to anyone else, he didn't commit any crimes, he was a father of young children. He wasn't more deserving, just more known.
Ultimately people die every day so why do we mourn anyone at all if we don't mourn the loss of everyone? The answer is usually about the connection that we have formed with an individual. People invest in a person emotionally and that is what brings the biggest outpouring of grief. As for the statements from political leaders, they are almost duty bound to acknowledge certain deaths when the person who died had a large public profile and particularly in the political sphere.
I don't think that the empathy expressed is fake for the most part. Nobody is walking around being empathetic 24/7. How could anyone live life if they did nothing but grieve for every horrible death in the world? It's the moments of human connection on an individual level which bring death and tragedy home. It's particular stories of particular individuals which make tragedy relatable and I know that I've been affected by many of those from the great many world conflicts about which I've read. Charlie Kirk was no more or less human and no more or less deserving of humanity over his life or death. He didn't bring death to anyone else, he didn't commit any crimes, he was a father of young children. He wasn't more deserving, just more known.
Miram · 31-35, F
@ostfuidctyvm
It is absolutely fake for the very reasons you mention here.
You blur grief and empathy. They are not interchangeable. They operate on very different psychological levels.
Grief is an inward response to personal loss or parasocial familiarity, while empathy is an outward, moral recognition of the suffering of others even when you have no personal connection.
Treating selective grieving for famous figures as evidence of “empathy” is misleading, because what is really being described is something we call familiarity driven affect, not empathy.
I.e parasocial bonds, availability bias, and the identifiable victim effect make known figures feel emotionally closer than anonymous millions. Acknowledging the mechanism shouldn’t justify it by conflating it with empathy. It is what empathy is not.
Selective grief as you call it might be understandable, but when it is mislabeled as empathy, it normalizes selective outrage: the tendency to react only when the victim is familiar, famous, or politically convenient. That tendency becomes deeply corrosive when scaled to world events.
And here is the critical point, this isn’t about the occasional failure to empathize with distant strangers. We are talking about the deaths of millions:wars, famines, displacements, genocide, cases of mass s abuse...millions all ignored for years. .. When political attention consistently centers individual high profile losses while remaining silent about systemic, mass death, the conflation of grief with empathy does real harm.. It builds a hierarchy of whose lives count and whose deaths are deemed “grievable.” That hierarchy is not a neutral human quirk, it is shaped by media exposure, cultural bias, and political strategy.
So selective statements about prominent figures are not evidence of empathy, they are evidence of political necessity and symbolic capital.
Ordinary people’s selective grieving is not evidence of empathy either, they are cognitive bias and parasocial attachment. Real empathy does not demand that you grieve every death, but it does demand that you care consistently about the principle, not once in few years, consistently, that you resist the slide into numbness simply because the victims are faceless or countless. It does demand that .. and it is not "grief" and none of it would legitimize indifference to systemic injustice, and allows selective outrage to masquerade as natural.
If you accept that indifference, you resign yourselves to a world where the lives of millions can vanish without moral recognition while the death of a single known figure becomes international tragedy.. if it hasn't already.. you allow distortion that isn’t just psychologically inaccurate . It is an ethical failure perpetuating silence in the face of mass suffering.
It is absolutely fake for the very reasons you mention here.
You blur grief and empathy. They are not interchangeable. They operate on very different psychological levels.
Grief is an inward response to personal loss or parasocial familiarity, while empathy is an outward, moral recognition of the suffering of others even when you have no personal connection.
Treating selective grieving for famous figures as evidence of “empathy” is misleading, because what is really being described is something we call familiarity driven affect, not empathy.
I.e parasocial bonds, availability bias, and the identifiable victim effect make known figures feel emotionally closer than anonymous millions. Acknowledging the mechanism shouldn’t justify it by conflating it with empathy. It is what empathy is not.
Selective grief as you call it might be understandable, but when it is mislabeled as empathy, it normalizes selective outrage: the tendency to react only when the victim is familiar, famous, or politically convenient. That tendency becomes deeply corrosive when scaled to world events.
And here is the critical point, this isn’t about the occasional failure to empathize with distant strangers. We are talking about the deaths of millions:wars, famines, displacements, genocide, cases of mass s abuse...millions all ignored for years. .. When political attention consistently centers individual high profile losses while remaining silent about systemic, mass death, the conflation of grief with empathy does real harm.. It builds a hierarchy of whose lives count and whose deaths are deemed “grievable.” That hierarchy is not a neutral human quirk, it is shaped by media exposure, cultural bias, and political strategy.
So selective statements about prominent figures are not evidence of empathy, they are evidence of political necessity and symbolic capital.
Ordinary people’s selective grieving is not evidence of empathy either, they are cognitive bias and parasocial attachment. Real empathy does not demand that you grieve every death, but it does demand that you care consistently about the principle, not once in few years, consistently, that you resist the slide into numbness simply because the victims are faceless or countless. It does demand that .. and it is not "grief" and none of it would legitimize indifference to systemic injustice, and allows selective outrage to masquerade as natural.
If you accept that indifference, you resign yourselves to a world where the lives of millions can vanish without moral recognition while the death of a single known figure becomes international tragedy.. if it hasn't already.. you allow distortion that isn’t just psychologically inaccurate . It is an ethical failure perpetuating silence in the face of mass suffering.
ViciDraco · 41-45, M
Is he though? I don't know a lot of people showing genuine empathy here. I know some people who think the world is better without him but don't like the escalation of violence.
I know some people who don't really care at all.
I know some people who speak towards empathy but are using it as a means for attacking their political opponents.
I think the only people showing genuine empathy are the people who always show genuine empathy.
I know some people who don't really care at all.
I know some people who speak towards empathy but are using it as a means for attacking their political opponents.
I think the only people showing genuine empathy are the people who always show genuine empathy.
WestonT · 18-21, M
@ViciDraco I think maybe I'm seeing a lot of that third one. I think I'm seeing a lot of grandstanding, not genuine empathy. But Kirk''s death has started a conversation about it.
And yes, there are also people who are just empathetic in general and show empathy for all humans, and that's admirable.
And yes, there are also people who are just empathetic in general and show empathy for all humans, and that's admirable.
tobynshorty · 51-55, F
I have avoided all of this news. I didnt know anything about him at all. This country usually comes together during a nationwide tragedy but knowing nothing I prefer to stay on the sidelines.
My heart today goes out to families of September 11. It was something that will scar this country forever. We will always hurt for the many innocent people that died that horrible day.
My heart today goes out to families of September 11. It was something that will scar this country forever. We will always hurt for the many innocent people that died that horrible day.
Mellowgirl · 31-35, F
@tobynshorty I'm here with you on this. Uk citizen but I know very very little about him. So observing. September 11 is something I think about and take a moment to be quiet out of respect for the passing of so many lives.
EBSVC · 36-40, T
Because all those groups you mentioned are faceless hoards
It’s easy to dehumanize them
With a famous person we have all these pictures of them smiling and hugging their family, etc…
That’s not the only reason but it’s a big one
Parasocial bonds, familiarity bias, and such also play a part
Your observation isn’t wrong, but it will be lost on those with no inclination towards self awareness and questioning their own motives
It’s easy to dehumanize them
With a famous person we have all these pictures of them smiling and hugging their family, etc…
That’s not the only reason but it’s a big one
Parasocial bonds, familiarity bias, and such also play a part
Your observation isn’t wrong, but it will be lost on those with no inclination towards self awareness and questioning their own motives
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WestonT · 18-21, M
@BrandNewMan No, you didn't.
A. This is not a post for ranting about left/right. I didn't mention anything about the left or right in the post.
B. I never said people expressing sympathy for Kirk lack sympathy for the other people I mentioned.
You did not understand the post.
A. This is not a post for ranting about left/right. I didn't mention anything about the left or right in the post.
B. I never said people expressing sympathy for Kirk lack sympathy for the other people I mentioned.
You did not understand the post.
This message was deleted by the author of the main post.
I think it's kinda weird that Kirk was one at the head of the line for the 'yeah, we're sure you're not involved in any terrible ways, but let's go ahead and get into those Epstein files', he's shot in the neck from ~200 yards out on a college campus in one of the reddest states in the US (keep in mind it's a single shot and donnies would be shooter cut loose with a half doze or so from 1//3 the distance), by someone who rather mysteriously just evaporated into a crowd of people, but somehow the same sorts of people who tried to raid the lower levels of a pizza place built on a swamp jump around and scream about 'an evil left that's celebrating someone's death'. and offering up zero reputable stories for these 'celebrating' claims. how are the conspiracy gins not spinning up?
bijouxbroussard · F
RedBaron · M
I wouldn’t call it a revolution.
oldguy73 · 70-79, M
why say of all people?? its very obvious, he is pro trump. so all the fn anti-trump haters, love this and will talk about him, that's the fn problem, politics play all the things that happen or are said,
oldguy73 · 70-79, M
@ElwoodBlues okay, got that
MarkPaul · 26-30, M
That's the case with any celebrity though.
At least you didn't eated a voodoo chicken
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Roundandroundwego · 61-69