Since the plane crash this morning, the day seems to be going on like business as usual, no all-day news reports, no people crying on the street or glued to their televisions. I even found myself forgetting entirely about the incident from when i heard about it this morning until i got home this evening. My question is: How large is the psychological impact of these constant tragedies? It was like a whole new world on 9/11, and a little less concern with the anthrax, and a even less today (even though it’s a good chance it’s not terrorist-related, but still, nearly 300 people were killed). Are we getting to the point where we don’t care, because we don’t want to be hurt?
I suspect people are a little shell-shocked.
I was asking myself the same thing. I came to the tentative conclusion that if today’s events had happened pre 9/11, I’d be giving it about the same amount of attention i.e. not very much. There was a good deal of news coverage, especially on the cable networks, who have been constant on this since this morning, just as they were with other significant crashes, and the death of JFK Jr. to name a few. But I don’t recall the networks doing the same for these other events.
It’s impossible to place anything in this environment and make comparisons. I think many people are looking at this and breathing a sigh of relief that it’s (apparently) not terrorist in origin.
Well, the networks–not just the all-news channels like CNN–seemed to be giving it pretty extensive coverage this morning as it was breaking. I’m sure they’d have done the same on September 10–an airplane with over 250 people on board nose-diving into a residential neighborhood in New York City is clearly a fairly major news story, enough to justify breaking in to the normal shows, although not enough to justify a week-long pre-emption of all regular TV programs. What we would not have done on 9/10 for something of this nature is shut down all New York City airports, close down NYC bridges and tunnels, and scramble fighter jets. Some things have definitely changed.
I saw some people at an airport in the Dominican Republic who seemed to care.
Aircraft have been falling out of the sky for years, off and on. This one has received no more or less media attention than other air disasters that were caused by mechanical failure.
I think it hurt everyone to breathe a sigh of relief when they found out that it’s not likely to be terrorism. But then we resumed our normal lives like we would after other similar events (I’m remembering the plane that went down around the time of the Olympics).
Sadly, 270 dead means a lot of people who will care very deeply. I’m sure all of us feel their pain.
Pretty much everyone around me cared. We were worried. We called home. And we continued to work or study or eat. . …
What expression of caring are you looking for jon? More flag waving and maudlin pop songs? We can smell the disenfectant and smoke quite a way away from “ground zero”. My kids could see today’s billowing smoke cloud from our top floor apartment window. When I called my daughter her only question was, “Did they crash it on purpose?”
And the sad part is that I was glad to tell her they think almost 300 people died by “accident”.
But I don’t see why anyone in Denver would have the same reaction as I did.
I’m sorry if my clarity was lacking, I really wasn’t trying to be offensive. I don’t mean that there weren’t people that don’t care. I think that deep inside, everyone cared. What I’m talking about is the psychological state of our country. It rips me up inside thinking about being one of the families who have lost a loved one. But this morning at work, someone came in and told us about the news, and then gave a joke in the next sentence that got a good laugh (but not about the plane crash, of course). It was like everyone was in denial, like it didn’t even happen. It seems like we’re tired of trying to sympathize with the victims because it hurts too much. And it really saddened me when i got home today and didn’t realize i had forgotten about the entire thing within hours, especially in relation to 9/11, when i couldn’t think about anything else for weeks straight. So I really didn’t mean to offend, but am concerned about public health in general. It just doesn’t seem right to feel relieved inside that this wasn’t a terrorist activity, even though hundreds of people died. And yet that is how I feel, and I’m sure others do too.
And Biggirl, this post can’t possibly apply to eye-witnesses, as that is an entirely different situation. My apologies once again, about missing that point in the OP.
Well, people don’t normally do that when a 'plane crashes (except me, but then I have a near-obsessive phobia of 'planes). For the first half hour or so, the CNN site and other news sites were inaccessible so I would guess that people were frantically trying to find out what exactly had happened. It became obvious fairly quickly that this was not a Return of the Terrorists. After that most people treated this as they would any other 'plane crash (in stolichnaya’s case, giving it not too much attention; in my case, thinking fearfully that I am doomed to die in a fiery inferno the next time I travel by air).
This plane crash has affected me more than any other I can remember. Not sure why. Perhaps because it seemed like another terrorist attack at first. Perhaps because its a tragedy on top of another tragedy* in NYC. Perhaps I’m more sensitive to the lives of others lately due to some patriotic unity or human unity in the wake of Sept 11. Maybe I’m just older. Dunno.
FWIW, CNN.com had this strongly covered yesterday with frequent updates & apparently lots of internet traffic to their website.
Maybe I’m an exception, but I care more, not less.
- In general, I dislike calling Sept 11 a “tragedy” because, for me, that has a connotation of an accident or a natural disaster. I prefer to call it a massacre, a mass murder, an atrocity, or something like that which is more suited to what actually happened.
Phobos, I feel some of the same stuff you are feeling. It was front page news on the Chicago papers, and looking at the photo and the headline with the number dead, I almost started to cry a few times.
I’m a bit shellshocked, sad for those people, sad for New Yorkers, and, a new one for me, a fear of flying.
I think many of us try to ignore plane crashes. “You are safer in a plane than in a car!” we are always told. Plane crashes happen to other people, not me, not people I know. I think this crash made it impossible for me (at least in the short-term) to rationalize the possibility of a crash away. So next time I get on a plane I’ll probably need to drug myself to sleep in order to stop thinking about all the little widgets and gadgets that could cause an accident over the New York sky, not to mention some new idiot gets through Chicago airport security with knives and stun guns every single day. I know this is a silly, less-than-rational reaction, but my roommate and I are both flying over Thanksgiving and we just had a big talk about exchanging emergency contact information in case something happens to us.
So yeah, I care. But like Biggirl said, without the round-the-clock news coverage, cheesy pop songs, and flag waving.
magdalene, why did this crash affect you more than others which have occured all over the world in the past? Because it followed so closely on the heels of September 11th?
I know it’s irrational, pennylane, but yeah. I’ve flown all over the country, and all over Europe since I was 16 but lately I’ve been flying to New York once/twice a month and my boyfriend has been flying out of there to visit me. I was there the week before 9/11 and 2 weeks after, now I’m going next week for Thanksgiving. It just seems very close and real all of a sudden, whether or not it IS. There is a “what ELSE can happen to New York?” feeling. And, since I know and love many people who live there, and will likely be relocating there early next year, stuff that affects the city affects me more than it might have a year or so ago.
I wasn’t trying to point out the irrationality, magdalene, I was really just wondering why. I’ve always been rather afraid of flying but it was the Concorde crash in Paris which really sealed it for me. (I live in Paris.)