Source : @caitoz
I know that it’s because saying something with anguish or surprise means that it rarely happens, but this sentence striked me by its truthfulness.
If you tell someone “there’s a fire!” with anguish they’ll assume it’s in the building because what moron phrases it like that if it doesn’t directly impact the person you’re speaking to.
This is more im14andthisisdeep material than shouwerthought
Oh, ok, so that’s because we’re not concerned by this, they’re not “us”, understood.
(it’s not geographical since europeans will be more impacted by deaths in the west than, e.g., in Africa, it’s more of a tribal thing)I also hesitated to post « If you always agree with “the”( only) point of view of mainstream medias, then you should find it weird », because it’s different in foreign medias that we never read(, iranian, venezuelan, russian, chinese, zimbabwean, …), we usually call “foreign medias” those who are still in the west and aligned with our international policies. But i thought that this sentence was even more im14andthisisdeep material than showerthought, do you agree ?
Theres been a bombing
Place is implied. The logical implication would be local to the speakers.
Theres been a bombing in some place
We know the bombing took place elsewhere.
If you were in Afghanistan, and a bombing took place in america, “theres been a bombing” would imply it’s local to afghanistan.
There’s been a bombing
Place is implied. Could be anywhere in the west, if i’m in France it works for the south//north of France, the United Kingdom, America, Australia, or any country i feel like i belong to, that is in my tribe.
But if you say afterwards :There’s a bombing in some place
And that place is in the Middle-East, or in Afghanistan, we would say “yeah, of course, like yesterday and probably tomorrow, no need to be surprised”
It’s more about an event happening often or not than a geographical positioning. No need to be surprised if it happens frequently, which is perhaps mainly what striked me in the sentence, we grew accustomed to something that shouldn’t, while accepting as normal that we(sterners) were/are the ones doing the killing(, and acting as victims when a few of our civilians die by terrorist attacks, without once discussing the cause(s), and even less the possible solutions).
But thanks for wanting to correct me, it’s nice to have a chat with other people than from Lemmygrad for once.do you know how the English language works? The place hasn’t been implied at all. And thus it default to local (to you) when there are no further question to clarify.
And what you consider local is the countries you consider yourself belonging to, i.e., the west, ⟳ .
If you’re a separatist from southern France you can say “who cares about what’s happening in the rest of France ?”, there’s no need for anguish in your voice. Yet when the twin towers fell, or something similar, french people could say “there’s been a bombing there” with as much anguish as it happened in France, i think that you’re omitting the term “anguish” too much in this conversation.For example, you wouldn’t say « There’s been a bombing in the Middle-East ! », because we(sterners) would say « Yeah. And ? », that was the whole purpose of this thread, yet you focused on the omission of the location.
Dude of course local means local to me and with that I mean my town/city in my country on the continent I live on. Not the West or the East or the North or South. That’s a pretty limiting world view you have.
Interesting, so criticising our tribalism makes me the one with a limited world view, how so ?
We care much more about what’s happening in countries we’re allied with(, whether they’re on our continent or not), that sucks, we should help each other and not fight [insert a way too long list of countries here…]
It’s not that world peace is difficult, but that our refusal of unity is difficult to overturn, we(sterners) are the f*cking prime wagers of death&destruction, didn’t know that ten years ago.
That was an incredibly long “no”.
And your answer wasn’t a counter-argument
But in the end, if i’m the only one finding this sentence interesting then there’s no point in discussing it, i’ve lost interest in it as well.
Just that it shouldn’t feel more normal when we’re bombing than when we’re being bombed, i guess that’s ~all i aimed to point out, yet we’re only surprised when we’re on the receiving end, nothing new.
Oh, ok, so that’s because we’re not concerned by this, they’re not “us”, understood
Lmao you’re trying really hard to make this deep
Yes and no, while i do agree that this is considered normal behaviour, i also long for a world in which we would be able to say “there’s a bombing !” with as much anguish whether its in ‘the U.S.’/Europe, or in the Middle-East, Africa, etc.
It’s not that much normal i think, and more the sign of a current problem.We are able to do that lmao
Yeah no, we don’t , double standard is everywhere. People would be surprised that you’re touched as much by something happening in your “tribe” than outside of it.
Just take the massacre currently happening in Palestine if you want the most recent example, some lives are more important to us than others, there’s a difference between what we proclaim our values to be and our practice of them.
We could be united in diversity though, instead of hating so many countries
Yeah no, we don’t ,
Don’t move the goalposts. You didn’t say we don’t. You said we aren’t able. We absolutely are.
You’re taking a quirk of language and trying to spin some commentary on human nature out of it.
Fuck off with your pseudo-intelelctual bullshit. All the sentence needs is “in Gaza” and you’ll get the response you were looking for. Stop trying to make people hate humanity, thanks.
If your goal is to engender love between “tribes” (stupid fucking word in this age) then stop spreading hate for any reason, even if the reason is that people don’t immediately assume “across the world” when you vaguely refer to events.
Don’t move the goalposts. You didn’t say we don’t. You said we aren’t able. We absolutely are.
Oh, i agree then, except in the case of apology of terrorism/enemies.
And indeed Palestine is easy( tell that to our medias and governments though), but i’d be interested if you know of a counter-example to our double standards(, at least once we’re interested in a conflict, it’s at this moment that we attribute a range of good and evil people, and are disinterested in the fate of the supposedly evil ones).
And the initial thread was more, since it is showerthoughts, that i haven’t thought of things that way, it is indeed a true statement, and more because of tribalism than the way language work, but w/e if i was wrong(, and one option doesn’t exclude the other anyway).
No “we” don’t, or no you don’t? Seems to me like you just assume everyone is exactly the same kind of bigot as you.
No man, we care much more about deaths in the west than outside of it, e.g. in the u.s.a. instead of Iraq, or Israel instead of Palestine, partly because we divide between supposedly good western civilians and evil terrorists with human shields, tsk.
5.4 million people have died in Congo between 1998 and 2008, wouldn’t we have cared much more if they were westerners ? Because i never heard of that before, and the examples aren’t lacking, it only depends if they’re allies or enemies. And how many die because of our selfish/nationalistic neo-colonialism ?
If someone says “there’s been a bombing” I will understand it is in the premises of where I am because that HOW LANGUAGE WORKS you fucking moron.
Omit the location in a location dependent phrase and the location is your location.
Stop spreading toxicity otherwise you’re the terrorist too.
Thanks for your comment, may i have your opinion on this answer ? https://lemmy.world/comment/5083460
Anyway, apparently other people here don’t find it that interesting(, just like one more bombing in the Middle-East compared to a bombing in the west,) so there’s probably nothing to learn by arguing any further.
OP quite obviously trolling based on subsequent comments
And what would i gain by trolling(, in the sense of not engaging in a debate but simply responding by mocking the other ?). Here’s the context of the sentence i read(, it’s more that we don’t care about bombs falling on supposedly evil people who deserve it(, she knows that but since the victims are civilians who can’t be all considered guilty/“evil” she’s not wrong)) :
Is that what happens when redditors use 100% of their brain?
If it’s so obviously stupid, then your argument is… ?
Why do we not find strange that we shouldn’t say with anguish “there’s been a bombing !” for something happening in the Middle-East, but only in the west ?
The anguish isn’t the confounding factor here. No one’s saying you shoudn’t care, there is no ingroup mentality etc. You just didn’t specify a place. That’s literally it.
If you said, “there’s ice cream,” I also would assume you meant somewhere close.
As i wrote somewhere else, the aim of my post would have stayed the same if i titled it :
« If you tell someone “There’s been a bombing in the Middle-East !” with anguish in your voice, they wouldn’t care nor be surprised as much as if it’s in the west. »
Such claim wouldn’t be less true. It still seems to me more linked to the word anguish and our lack of care than to the absence of a location(, but ok, w/e 🤷♂️).
