This is just something I've been thinking about. In the UK, we had this big outpouring of grief for Princess Diana, even those that had never met her were somehow 'altered forever' by her death etc. More recently, the whole city of Liverpool was afflicted by much the same thing over the execution of the British hostage in Iraq, Ken Bigley. There was a day of mourning, random people in the street were saying how much their lives had been affected by it etc, even though in a city the size of Liverpool, the number of people who actually knew him would be very small.

Then I just read this article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4183495.stm) in which the president of Harvard said that women might be genetically predisposed to be slightly worse in science and maths (based on research and the fact that they generally perform worse in these areas).

A quote from a passage in the article:

I mean, come on!!

I know that if somebody told me that men were genetically predisposed to do worse at English it really wouldn't bother me, and it definitely wouldn't make me black out... Its either dramatism at its worst, or she's so ardently feminist that she really would have become ill at his statement, in which case one would have to conclude that her feminism is unhealthy!

So, my questions to you good people are:

(a) Have the general public reached a point where they are so emotionally fragile that they clutch at a shared feeling of loss to substitute in the place of something missing in their lives?

(b) If we have reached the point where personal views are held so strongly they can make you ill (feminism in this case, but there are plenty of others), is this a 'bad thing' and is it symptomatic of a greater malaise in society? (I was thinking here of the massive increase in use of and reliance on psychologists etc for example)

Note1: I've nothing particularly against feminism - it just happened to be the example that cropped up in the article. Note2: Discussing the actual merits of what the president said or the merits of feminism in general would sortof be offtopic from the real issues I was musing, so please keep to a minimum if possible! Thanks [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 01-18-2005, 09:29 AM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

To both a and b: some do and some don't. Hasn't it always been like that ?

<font color = lightgreen>a) Yes, many people are emotionally fragile and it seems as if any tragedy, even if it happens to people they don't know, causes them distress. This is empathy taken a little too far.
One reason for this is that some people live for drama; if their lives don't have enough drama they find a way to experience some. This is also why soap operas and other TV drama shows are always so popular.

b) Yes, if people choose to let themselves be so fragile as to cause illness because of possible then they are limiting their own lives and causing themselves to look ridiculous.
I don't think that this is a symptom of a larger problem in society, because not everybody in the society suffers from this.</font>

a) Not the general public, just a few vocal individuals playing drama queen.

b) I don't think we've reached such a point; people who get ill over having their sensitive emotions offended have always existed. Nowadays, they might just get more attention.

Also bear in mind, they're from Liverpool [img]tongue.gif[/img]