Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site sunybcs.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!rochester!rocksvax!sunybcs!colonel From: colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (George Sicherman) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: emotional pain Message-ID: <985@sunybcs.UUCP> Date: Sun, 5-Feb-84 22:42:34 EST Article-I.D.: sunybcs.985 Posted: Sun Feb 5 22:42:34 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 9-Feb-84 09:48:59 EST References: <1379@pur-ee.UUCP>, <3482@utzoo.UUCP>, <525@orca.UUCP> Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Computer Science Lines: 20 Second-hand "emotional pain" (is this a new euphemism for grief?) doesn't come easily to all of us. A young woman I know used to save the product (bar) codes from everything she bought because she heard that they could be used to assist cripples somewhere. The friend who told her this had been pulling her leg, but did that make her grief and pity any less real? (This is not a rhetorical question!) Maybe what we need is some sort of neural hookup that lets us suffer directly with disaster victims. Merely reading about it isn't as satisfying somehow. (On the other hand, if it weren't for the news media, our national reserves of pity would dwindle alarmingly.) It's natural to grieve when somebody you love suffers. But natural sympathy has limits - very narrow ones for most people. I would sooner lose a thousand strangers in a disaster than one casual acquaintance. (And in general I do!) Hope this helps. :-) G. L. Sicherman ...seismo!rochester!rocksvax!sunybcs!colonel