Bruce Thornton-Broadcasting Grief

"This unreal view of life and suffering and risk is abetted by the mass media, one of whose most important commodities is human misery and emotional drama. Discussions of principle and evidence and long-term goals and their costs and risks are dry and tedious, filled with complexity and uncertainty; they simply don't play as well as do the simple stories of individual victims and their suffering, personal dramas we all can identify with and respond to on a visceral level. And along with our enjoyment, we can display our culture's most important virtue: sensitivity to suffering, the sure sign of moral superiority. To talk, as Lincoln did, of the “terrible arithmetic,” the tragic truth that some must die today so that more don't die tomorrow, is insensitive and callous in the world of Oprah and Dr. Phil."