She has a point...

[Nanny0gg]

www.spiked-online.com/2022/02/27/ukraine-is-not-all-about-you/#.YhuQJN68KWY.twitter

Julie Burchill article

Actually it would be good if someone could think of the poor train driver who has to deal with the fact that a person has ended their life by chucking themselves in front of their train? I have met several drivers who have had to live with the trauma of seeing a person do this. They apply the brakes knowing that the train won't stop in time and then seeing/dealing with the aftermath. Not to mention the emergency services who have to attend.

Hmm, I am on the fence about this. Commentary/observation is not action, no. Having opinions or feelings about something and sharing them isn't action, behaviour or system change (because of social media and we see it more frequently and instantly so it is becoming a bigger thing than it was in the past maybe) but I wonder if people think 'awareness raising' is action enough? I see/hear of plenty of people who are actually taking action and plenty of other people offering an opinion, sending solidarity or just voicing their worries. Who are we to place a value judgement on what is less or more valid? It seems a bit 'I am the oracle' and misguided to be so strong about it. These events are being played out, in real time, with sounds and images on the world stage in our houses, for the first time. Judging or telling people how they should or should not be reacting to it seems to lack understanding of how humans work. Relating things back to yourself and processing them with reference to your own reality is normal isn't it? I think social media is so new (it's less than 20 years old remember) and this war in our living rooms on constant stream 24/7 is also new, we are all finding our feet with it, I would be cautious in sneering at people's reactions just yet tbh.

@loislovesstewie

Actually it would be good if someone could think of the poor train driver who has to deal with the fact that a person has ended their life by chucking themselves in front of their train? I have met several drivers who have had to live with the trauma of seeing a person do this. They apply the brakes knowing that the train won't stop in time and then seeing/dealing with the aftermath. Not to mention the emergency services who have to attend.

By 'someone' you're clearly referring to the people who commit the act of suicide. If you've reached a point of desperation that leads you to hurl yourself into oblivion onto a railway track, you won't be thinking particularly rationally about the effect of that act on others, and certainly not so far ahead as the clean-up operation. It's not a state which is conducive to clarity of thinking.

It IS possible to sympathise with the trauma suffered by train drivers, first responders, and those who commit suicide, at the same time.
Unless you're Jeremy Clarkson, apparently, whilst being all-too willing to cry for sympathy over the death of his dog.

She may have a point, but it is such utter nonsense that people who were evacuated and bombed in the UK during WW2 were cheerful and stoic and unaffected. People were deeply mentally scarred for life by it. And she hasn't seen anyone from Ukraine acting afraid? Utter bullshit. Why are people trying to flee their homes in droves if its just a jolly adventure that they can stiff-upper-lip themselves out of? Utter bilge. Burchill should be ashamed of publishing that.

@ldontWanna

YABU . Virtue signalling is still virtue signalling regardless of what side it's on.

Ohh I'm better, stronger,tougher,more stoic than you.

Ohh I'm more empathetic,worried, feeling,with more emotional intelligence than you.

Nah mate you both suck. Two opposite sides of the same shitty coin.

Moaning about "celebrity" twattery is like moaning England is wet.

It's like "isn't this generation so shit and snowflakey" bingo.

I think this is mostly where I am with it.

Yes there are people out there who like to make things all about them (I had a "friend" after 9/11 who spent months convinced that a plane was going to be flown into her small village in the UK and existing everyone else to comfort her) but they are thankfully not a huge proportion of the population.

Just getting on with day to day life isn't superior to being upset at what's happening, neither is the other way round. And honestly we kind of need both types in the world, we need people who get emotional and put themselves in the shoes of the people suffering - sure I read a study that showed charities got more donations/volunteers by appealing to empathy. But we also need the stoic ones who get on with the other stuff. And we need all the ones in between too.

What I don't think we really have a use for is people who like to sow division and cause conflict.

god she writes such an absolute load of shite. She's a racist, reactionary bullshitter.

Another Spiked article that knocks down a generational straw-man so crusty readers can feel less awful about getting old.

She’s right