Q. Do you think it’s advantageous when it comes to being well-resourced and “in the know”?
A. In the abstract, yes, of course – knowledge is power. In reality, however, most people experience information glut which leads to information gluttony which generally leads to empathy fatigue and on to downright indifference. Look at Yahoo.com’s homepage for evidence of this market spread of “interest” — the news right now varies from People-magazine style celebrity gossip to Israel hitting Lebanon even more aggressively. If you do your websurfing by the “most popular” articles on the site, you see that most Americans are far more interested in Brangelina than in Lebanon. The medium of the web, basing content push/pull on “popularity” is not much different than your worst high school nightmare — under these conditions, all of life becomes a “popularity contest” — witness Facebook, Friendster, Myspace, etc.

so true!!

It’s hard not to be comfortably numb when on one end you have people glued to their TV where they see violence and tragedies of all varieties constantly, whereas on the other end people see violence and tragedy happening in their homes, neighborhoods and streets. It gets to the point where after a while, news becomes more of a comedy, hence the idea behind the Daily Show With Jon Stewart or The Onion.

I still don’t see a reason good enough for people not to be aware, however. People’s awareness and their involvement has become other less fortunate people’s last and only hope. And it’s very hard to be aware when it’s not really encouraged.

I consider awareness a form of prevention. People need to understand that in order to prevent history from repeating itself, their involvement is required. You can’t just focus on surviving without realizing what the future could bring to your children. If people were truly aware of what’s going on everywhere, current and future events would be different. It’s not always healthy to focus on the “here and now.”