Imaginary World
I've been reading Atlas Shrugged lately. I've gotten more than half way through it now and I'm completely involved in this world. It's crazy because I feel the frustration the characters feel in the book. When the "washington boys" do something that hurts the main characters, I become upset for them. I understand this is through the magic of storytelling and it is a great book for that, but I got to thinking about this in terms of my everyday life.
Why should I care about Darfur? What is the UN? Does Sudan even exist? I'll say that there may be problems in Darfur, the UN is an important part of modern civilization, and Sudan is a country in Africa, I can give those things to common knowledge that I have to assume to be true (since I cannot verify any of those fact for myself-but that's another discussion that's mostly pointless).
--The point: why am I upset about Darfur? Well, I'll blame the media. They are creating a story for me to become involved in. I the villans are both the 'janjaweed,' the Sudanese government, and the governments of the rich nations of earth. The victims are the people of Darfur that are getting raped and murdered and displaced. The UN is doing the bare minimum to keep this contained, but they cannot do more because the rich nations do not want to do more. There have been cries of help, but, what's this all to me?
To me, I am become involved in a story I don't know more about than what I hear on the news. It's sucking me in and making me emotional. It shouldn't but their goal is to make it so. They want me emotional so I can call/email my senator and get them to take action or something like that. But really, it's nothing more to me than my book. Is this part of a larger agenda to get me to hate rich governments and republicans (who run this particular rich country). Eitherway, when I realized after reading an article that this is an ongoing soap opera and I've become involved in but have no real place it and that it may even be fabricated for all I know, I became a bit upset with myself.
This is, after all, life in this day in age. The news is all like this. We all live in our own little bubbles and few of us actually talk to the people involved, the people that have seen the problems, the people that have dealt with the problems. So we have to take the news as news and believe it. But then we end up being manipulated. So it's apathy we're lead to eventually.
Why should I care about Darfur? What is the UN? Does Sudan even exist? I'll say that there may be problems in Darfur, the UN is an important part of modern civilization, and Sudan is a country in Africa, I can give those things to common knowledge that I have to assume to be true (since I cannot verify any of those fact for myself-but that's another discussion that's mostly pointless).
--The point: why am I upset about Darfur? Well, I'll blame the media. They are creating a story for me to become involved in. I the villans are both the 'janjaweed,' the Sudanese government, and the governments of the rich nations of earth. The victims are the people of Darfur that are getting raped and murdered and displaced. The UN is doing the bare minimum to keep this contained, but they cannot do more because the rich nations do not want to do more. There have been cries of help, but, what's this all to me?
To me, I am become involved in a story I don't know more about than what I hear on the news. It's sucking me in and making me emotional. It shouldn't but their goal is to make it so. They want me emotional so I can call/email my senator and get them to take action or something like that. But really, it's nothing more to me than my book. Is this part of a larger agenda to get me to hate rich governments and republicans (who run this particular rich country). Eitherway, when I realized after reading an article that this is an ongoing soap opera and I've become involved in but have no real place it and that it may even be fabricated for all I know, I became a bit upset with myself.
This is, after all, life in this day in age. The news is all like this. We all live in our own little bubbles and few of us actually talk to the people involved, the people that have seen the problems, the people that have dealt with the problems. So we have to take the news as news and believe it. But then we end up being manipulated. So it's apathy we're lead to eventually.