Am I a bad person because I don't want to hear about the WTC?

In My Humble Opinion
1

It’s not that I don’t care, but it’s so horrible, and I can’t do anything about it. I don’t know anybody in New York City, famous or not, and I can’t get any emotional traction on this. I don’t care about terrorism. I can’t do anything about terrorism. I refuse to even consider that anything like that will ever happen to me anyway, even if I lived in NYC.

I hate hearing people being so frightened when I can’t fix what happened. I suspect some people are overreacting anyway, given that they’re not directly involved either, and I hate that too. I hate that the radio has been talking about this NONSTOP ALL MORNING, and that my supervisor has seen fit to share this with us (I’ve been wearing earplugs all morning), and that every office I’ve talked to this morning has had it on in the background, and I hate that talking about it so much seems to make it horribly less significant somehow.

I hate the way you can’t f*cking get away from hearing the news. I hate the way everything comes to a complete media halt and you HAVE to watch/hear about this horrible stuff, and that in a way it’s like gaper’s block on the highway, in the way that everyone has to hear the latest awful details about people jumping out of buildings. I mean, even if I were interested, I wouldn’t be interested any more, I’d be BORED. And THAT’S horrible.

And we’re going to be hearing about this every day for years. Looking for survivors, interviewing their grieving families, big public memorial services, endless discussion of terrorism, endless debate over America’s response (and another thing - I don’t trust Bush to handle a crisis well. Worst case scenario: he’s gonna start military action of some kind to show us, and the world, how tough he is), increased security at airports and big buildings (not that that’s bad, of course), and the slow process of clearing the debris and rebuilding.

Sorry if this is disjointed. It isn’t meant to be a rant. If this were a daytime talk show, I’m sure they’d find some therapist type who would say that my attitude is healthy stress management. But I still feel bad that I don’t feel worse about this, if you see what I mean. So, am I a bad person?

2

Well considering that it only happened about 5 hours ago… you aren’t a bad person just extremely insensitive. Fine, you don’t want to watch the news but why post this? 5 hours! Not 5 days even! If you are sick of it already you must has ADD or something.

3

You do not need to want to hear about this. You need to respect the fact that within the course of 2 hours the entire world balance has changed.

This fact alone warrants coverage and reflection.

4

What a35362 said is how I usually feel after some well-publicized unpleasantness, like the O.J. Simpson case. I get tired of hearing about it, and it’s hard to care. Sometimes, as with the Oklahoma City bombing, I can’t bring myself to pay attention to it. I hide from it. I get numb. I see the melodrama and the exploitation looming in the media, and I can’t bear to watch. It’s a magnitude of pain and human loss that I just can’t cope with. And I can’t bear to see it trivialized by repetition . . .

But this. This I can’t ignore. This is HUGE. We’re not talking about a hundred people here, we’re talking about thousands, potentially. And the crisis is not over. Not for those people who were affected directly. Not for the people who are on the scene, struggling to cope with this tragedy that is still unfolding right in front of them. Not for this country, which has experienced an unprecedented shock. It’s only been a few hours. We don’t even know the extent of what’s happened at this point.

You’re not a bad person if you can’t bear to watch. I can’t blame you if you’re numb, unable to grasp the reality of what’s occurred, or in denial. But I can’t imagine what kind of person simply doesn’t care.

5

I wouldn’t say that you are a bad person. But I would dare to say that you sound like the kind of person that lets things affect them only when it happens to them. If the plane had crashed into the building next to where you work, then you would care.
It’s not that it happened in NYC or in DC. The thing is that it happened in the USA. This is where we live, work, raise our children, have our past and our future. It’s what we bitch and moan and belittle every day about. But it’s ours. To have someone come in and do this to our country and our fellow Americans is hideous. They killed innocent people that probably don’t even know why they had to die today. They hijacked a plane and flew it into a building, can you even begin to imagine the horror and terror those passengers felt?
No, for most of the people in the country it didn’t hit close to home, but it should have hit close to the heart.

6

There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to hear about today’s attacks (WTC and Washington DC, remember). Between today’s incessant media coverage of the event and the sheer shell-shocking nature of it, it can all be a bit too much to absorb. I’ve had to go find some frivolous stuff on the internet several times already today just to avoid wallowing in depression over the whole thing.

As it is now, I’m often bouncing between shock at the attacks themselves and outrage at the small-minded idiots who want to send troops to the middle east immediately and shoot anyone who looks vaguely Islamic…

7

rjung:

This, too, is a normal reaction, even if it is an unworthy one. When wounded an organism (and I believe that any given society cna be seen, at least metaphorically, as an organism) is wounded, it will turn upon its attacker in defense.

That “the attacker” in this case is unknown, then the small minded will seek to identify with the closest approximation to what they belive their attacker to be.

It’s wrong; yes. No doubt. And I’m positive that saner, better people will respond in a more dignified, thoughtful manner.

Generally:

The desire to not want to hear this is also a normal reaction: Denial. When events are too enormous for our minds and emotions to comprhend and absorb, we retreat from it and deny its actuality until we can come to grips.
The trait that allows us to feel these events personally is empathy. For instance:

My job currently has me at a project site in Smyrna, TN (just south of Nashville) and the National Guard Armory that we are working out of has no outside TV access. So several of my coworkers and I went down the street to a convenience store that has a TV to see this. We arrived just in time to catch the breaking news about the attack on the Pentagon.

While standing there in this convenience store watching this unfold, a soldier (a Nat’l Guard Specialist/E-4) asked what was going on, and we told him that the World Trade Center Towers had been attacked (and how), and that the Pentagon had just been attacked as well.

His response?

It took every fiber of my being to keep from smacking his nachos with chilli/cheese sauce and super-gulp soda out of his hands and beating this pasty, flabby sack of shit within an inch of his life.

I know maybe two dozen people in N.Y. and D.C. (all of them Straight Dopers) and the thought of any one of them being victims of this tragedy was unbearable; as well, though I no longer serve in our nation’s Armed Forces, I still have a deep, abiding respect for thse that do so with honor and distinction, and look upon them as my fellow brothers and sisters in service.

The thought of their burned, broken bodies lying buried beneath tons of concrete and steel because of a cowardly terorist action is…“unbearable” is too mild a word for how I fel about it; my heart and prayers go out to their families and children who know only that their sons and daughters, wives and husbands, mothers and fathers will never come home again.

In a very real sense, it is as if my own blood kin have been taken from me.

Empathy. Get some.

8

No, you are not a bad person, but it is rather insensitive. Just because this does not effect you directly is no reason to blow it off. It effects all Americans. It seems as if you have not yet realized that the good ol US of A has been attacked. I do not personally know anyone in New York or DC, but the whole thing still concerns me. I realize that there is alot of news coverage, lots of people may have not yet had a chance to see the news, and it is slightly overwhelming.

9

Ocassionally, all the mayhem is warranted.

I don’t think I’d be out of line to suggest that this is one of those times.

What you’ll find is that it takes an extraordinary amount of solidarity to move forward as a nation…

…it’s in our best interest.

10

No, you’re not a bad person. It is a lot to absorb, and may seem unreal and faraway to you. In my opinion, that does not make you insensitive. Everyone deals with stuff like this differently.

I haven’t really wanted much of this news either, on a grand scale. It just seems to breed panic, and I can’t do anything about something that has already happened. Best to see what people close to you may need in terms of support, succor, etc., and corny as it may sound, see how you can do your civic duty on a person-to-person level if called upon.

To me, that’s the best way to get a handle on picking up the pieces and moving on with things, whichever direction they take.

11

I don’t think a35362 is a bad person for not wanting to hear about it. It takes a while to absorb this stuff.

I want to know if I’m screwed up because I’ve had music stuck in my head since I heard. Soul Coughing’s Is Chicago, Is not Chicago, and Godspeed You Black Emperor!'s Dead Flag Blues. Go read the lyrics for the connection.

12

Jeez you guys, I didn’t say I didn’t care about this. I said I don’t want to hear about it.

Why do I need to hear fcking audiotape* of a building exploding and people screaming? Why do I need to listen to frightened people calling in to a radio talk show and telling their tales with shaking, tearful voices? What am I supposed to do with this information? I can’t do anything about any of this.

You’re right: it’s too much. It’s too horrible. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t like the way it changes me. When the Murrah Building was blown up I went home every day at lunch and turned on the TV, and every day I started crying again. I’m not going to do that again. I don’t think it would do me any good to watch and listen to the coverage. I don’t watch the evening news anyway because I don’t think it’s good for me to hear stories of crime and violence and tragedy. I don’t think I would be a better citizen for paying attention to stories about local fires and robberies, so why should I let myself get pulled into hearing about thousands of people dead and zillions in property damage and the whole terrorism issue and all the rest of it?

Oh, f*ck. I’m already pulled in. What a stupid world.

13

There are numerous threads about this disaster in both the BBQ Pit and Great Debates. This topic is too reactionary for IMHO, so I’m locking it off. I’m not saying it’s a bad topic-I’m just saying it belongs elsewhere.