Wednesday, July 29, 2015

In the News...

As a student of human behavior, I find myself curious about the top news story today, the dentist in Bloomington who hunted and killed a lion in Zimbabwe for sport. So many people are outraged at his cold, inhumane behavior and it's one of the top news stories today. His business is ruined and his and his family's lives are in peril, society is so up in arms about his deplorable behavior. (Relax, I'm not defending him in the least. Please don't freak out and think I'm on his side. Read on.)

This very similar story, about an eight year old girl lured up to an apartment by a young boy she knew, killed, and thrown into a dumpster, is a harder story to find. It's the same theme, though - humans luring trusting innocents away from safety so they can torture and murder. Wouldn't one think that the story about the human child should be the one that outrages and inflames the public? Why aren't we knocking down barriers and demanding to know who that killer kid is?

Is it because we are used to seeing news stories about dead children, but we are used to seeing lions safe, secure, and idolized in zoos? (Don't even suggest I am unfeeling toward animals. I think it's horrible that anyone would hunt wild, beautiful animals for sport, I don't understand it at all, but there's a lot of things about people I don't understand. This is why I'm studying them.)

The dentist who killed this lion is, for sure, lacking some sort of empathy gene. But so is this teenager who lured away the little girl.. If I were that girl's mother I'd be beside myself with fury at the whole world right now, being so angry about the death of a beloved lion and totally ignoring the fact that people get hunted and brutally murdered like that right here in our own towns, and no one seems to be outraged about that.

I think we are desensitized by the media. We are so used to shootings, kidnappings, abuse, and killing of each other that we don't get upset anymore. It's the overspread of news that is doing it - we can only take so much awfulness. We just can't handle being horrified at human abuse anymore, our psyches can't take it. For our own emotional protection, we have had to put up a wall to avoid being shocked and aghast at what the news reporters tell us happens every day in our cities and neighborhoods. We've reached our shock limit.

Okay that's all I have to say about that, have to go - homework to do.

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