Hmm, not certain if I agree with that. It may boil down to defining “care.”
If people did not care, they wouldn’t read and comment, would they? We can observe there is enough attention and salience for this other person’s situation to achieve some level of “care” in other people’s minds. Maybe the caring involved is a more distant and superficial sort? Maybe it is the kind of caring that comes out of avoiding one’s own cares.
I use this thought personally to observe when I care enough to type in a comment, and which of my own cares I am avoiding when I do so.
I didn't provide enough context to illustrate that my point was about selfishness and avoiding feelings of obligation or guilt?
I am not immune myself even though I levelled the charge. I only get through the day by generous application of denial.
If I can't avoid seeing someone hungry, then plan B is figure out a way to conclude that it is within their own power to feed themselves, and so not my problem.
Failing both of those, then I have to deal with it. I either have to share my food with them or I have to consciously decide I'm ok with keeping mine and ignore their misfortune.
Obviously, intellectually, academically, I know that the world is one big continuous stream of unbelievable tragedy, and I can't actually live even one second for myself if I were to try to treat all of that the same way I do when my own partner suffers so much as a headache. So I don't. I pretend everything is fine by arranging things so that mostly everything I see is fine, and when I see something else I mostly rationalize some sway to ignore it. I drive right by that guy standing at the intersection with the sign, etc.
I just at least try to be self aware that I'm doing that and not confuse a sanity/survival strategy, however justified and necessary, for reality.
I'm saying that a lot of people don't seem to do even that last little part.
I rationalize my choice of inaction when I feel obligation or guilt to take action. I am unable to observe the interior rationalizations of others' inaction.
If people did not care, they wouldn’t read and comment, would they? We can observe there is enough attention and salience for this other person’s situation to achieve some level of “care” in other people’s minds. Maybe the caring involved is a more distant and superficial sort? Maybe it is the kind of caring that comes out of avoiding one’s own cares.
I use this thought personally to observe when I care enough to type in a comment, and which of my own cares I am avoiding when I do so.