Why Is It The More Local The News The More Serious It Seems?

[Booldawg]

This question is, of course in reference to the Paris attacks.

I've noticed several people on social media asking the question why people are taking the recent events in Paris more harrowing than the many other terrorist attacks across the world.

Is there a name for this syndrome?

Its the same when you read about someone dying on a local road, but don't give it as much attention if its 100s of miles away.

[bhg481]

Perhaps it's the "It could have been me" aspect of the event being local.

[jim360]

It seems to be just a part of the human condition. Deaths that are happening "over there" are generally far easier to deal with than those closer to home. Also, in this case, while Paris is in a foreign country it's certainly a place that many people will have been to in their lives, perhaps even recently -- and certainly will know someone who has been, or someone who's stayed there for an extended period of time. My own flatmate was in Paris the previous weekend. It's that much easier, then, for many, to form a personal connection with this particular tragedy.

[EDDIE51]

145 people were murdered by Islamic terrorists at a University in Kenya the day after the Paris attacks but it scarcely made the news.

[jim360]

Are you sure about that Eddie? That story was trending on the BBC -- but it was from an incident back in April.

[IggyB]

It's the human condition for risk awareness. I've seen it argued that the sharing of harrowing stories was one of our great survival strategies, our ancestors share a tale of bob being eaten by a croc when fishing in the lake nearby and we then judge the lake to be a risk to be avoided. We here a tale of a nameless individual getting eaten in a lake on the other side of the world and it triggers nothing on our risk assessment so we keep fishing in the local lake.

News these days is just the same, if it's close and the people are similar to us it triggers our risk assessment and our interest

[sevenOP]

People in this thread are talking about "the human condition" when 'their human conditioning' is far more accurate; and 'their human conditioning (tribal/social/cultural) is also my answer to your question Booldawg.

[keyplus90]

////Is there a name for this syndrome?////

Double Standards.

[RandyMarsh]

2000 Nigerians murdered back in January and it hardly registered.

[fiction-factory]

To extend the point, a death in my family is more serious to me than a death of someone on the other side of the world. It's just about being closer to home.

[Hypognosis]

@Booldawg

There used to be a thing which irked me, whereby the Teletext news would mention a ferry disaster in Africa or the Far East, usually with 500+ dead, so you'd watch the TV news to find out more but it wasn't even mentioned. This would happen three or four times a year. Perhaps they didn't want to ruin the backpacker tour companies or something.

The extension to this is that it would get a 10-second, one-liner, ending "but there were no Britons on board".

After years of complaints (none from me), they've grown out of this and the Taiwan disaster got the coverage it deserved.

News is a local thing though. When did we ever care about far away places if the events have no effect on our daily lives?

[Hypognosis]

I was thinking of a thread of my own, asking how appropriate it is to go through mourning rituals for people who you never knew but I've been preoccupied with other threads and news pages.

[Old_Geezer]

One can not be permanently distressed over every sad event in the world. Evolution ensures survivors relate strongly just to events that are near enough to home to be of personal concern.

[wildwood]

I suppose the name for this 'syndrome' is Evolution. As said..... the closer we are related to the people that suffer from a disastrous event, the more notice we take. Note the mention of relation, not distance. If two people were killed by by Isis in Sydney, it would be all over the news in the whole western world.

[Peter Pedant]

stalin syndrome ?

Uncle Joe - once the left's darling remember - said

one death is a tragedy - a million deaths a statistic

( referring to his own losses in 1941
by 1945 29m ( yup twenty nine million ) Russians had died

[Peter Pedant]

well funnily enough - the local news oop t North is leading on the 16 y o who was shot dead on a canal in the ''pule

drugs gangs wars

concentrating on his young age

[Hypognosis]

@O_G

Fair point.

Meanwhile, in the Paris attacks it was alleged that at least one attacker - who we learn could have been among the French or Belgian home growns - shouted "This is for Syria".

They, evidently, regard attacks on remote countries who just happen to share their religion and/or ethnicity as being the same as an attack on someone close to them. A classic case of that taking offence on other people's behalf.

Or, more likely, a weak excuse to express a long-harboured hatred of our way of life.

Or they hate the USA but cannot get in because of their immigration bar, so they take it out on whoever is conveniently within reach.

There was a new observation, in today's news was that they can live in one country and be monitored long-term by security services but get in a car, cross a border and the non-joined-up police there have no clue that they are a threat.

Dropping border controls was insane.

[Hypognosis]

@Booldawg

//Is there a name for this syndrome? //

Parochiality.

[sevenOP]

The media dictates what the parish discuss, th why it is such a useful tool.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/11/21/people-click-stories-about-paris-not-beirut-its-more-geography-and-apathy

[Baldric]

EDDIE, your attack from 09:43

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/02/africa/kenya-university-attack/index.html

Updated 0142 GMT April 3, 2015