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We live in a world that has lost its collective conscience. There are intermittent expressions of sympathy, the comprehensive well of consideration when tragedy occurs, when the world is in mourning or when thousands are snatched away by the clutches of death. But on the whole, society has forgotten its purpose, its sense of compassion. It has been replaced by fixation, by the fetish of curiosity. In every era there has been a class system that turned the common man into a thief, striving for a small taste of infamy, a glance into a blessed life not granted to all. The Greeks had their Gods, the Elizabethans, their Virgin Queen and now we, the dregs of the morbidly curious, cling to the smallest bit of scandal, the deconstruction of a fairytale life. We have become vultures seeking decay, grave robbers sifting through the dirt and rot to consume what remains of a charmed life. It is time that we reevaluate our missing souls, that we recapture the generosity of the past, that we refuse the pariah-ruled industry of the media.
Our society is filled to the brim with hunkering, stealthy “photographers,” hungry for the most embarrassing, most incriminated picture of a fallen star, which he’ll sell to the highest bidder. At night, he will sleep without any semblance of guilt, without any thought of whose life he has destroyed in the process of filling his pocket.
We allow them to exist.
We encourage their stalking nature, approve of their guiltless actions, and perpetuate their necessity. We adore a starlet, praise her too-thin frame, demand a glimpse into her personal life, insinuate ourselves- as if it is somehow our right- into her life, desperate to know her every move, assuming her choices are her own, that her privacy is now public domain. In the same breath, we laugh at her poor decisions, ridicule her for her mistakes as though she should be perfect, as though we are, passing judgment, casting blame as if it is our God-given right. Her sins become public property, her death our personal business and when she is gone, when her young life has spun from Fairytale to chaos, finally landing in eternal loss, we forget that we once loved her, that we allowed her soul to be raped, her privacy obliterated.
Today a little girl lost her father. She will never remember his touch. She will never feel the joy of his pride as she journeys through life. He will never hold his grandchildren, never feel nostalgic for his little girl when she holds a degree in her hand. He will never kiss her cheek and grant his blessing as she leaves his side and stands next to her husband.
Rather than obsessing about this very private loss, take a stand, be original and refuse to invade in this family’s sorrow. Turn down pictures of the corpse; ignore images of the weeping mother, the stunned former lover. Leave them to absorb the sinking hole of this loss, let them mourn in peace. Take a small step toward the restoration of the collective conscience, help reinstate the absent sympathy of the human condition.
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