Not so bothered anymore

[mangojango]

I find it annoying that many people were so bothered about "helping other people" and "not being selfish" before the vaccine - now they're alright (Jack), they don't have anything to say about the pandemic, helping other people and I feel left in the lurch regarding the effects of lockdown etc.

Our lives with young kids are definitely not back to normal.

That's because loads of people who got it didn't actually get it for altruistic reasons but loved to wax lyrical about it and feel virtuous anyway.
So just an illusion of people caring about strangers. (This doesn't apply to everyone, but many)

I’m not surprised to be honest, but what does surprise me is how acceptable it has become to voice these kinds of opinions so openly. It’s incredibly rare for someone to do something purely for the benefit of others, it’s usually a happy side effect to personal gain.

Nobody is obliged to truly give a shit about anything but there was a social convention that you don’t verbalise that and leave those who do to get on with it. It concerns me that people are now very comfortable with saying they don’t care about the suffering of others. It feels like a very dangerous notion for society to become comfortable with.

I did it all at the time, I suppose because I kept believing it would be short term, but looking back I can't believe we all complied as well as we did.

Re the vaccine, I'm not even sure it's ethical to ask people who don't really need it (the young) to take a drug that does carry risks (albeit small) for the benefit of others. Although, I and my DC have had it, I'm not sure I really thought it through, especially for DC

It's true we never really do anything solely for the benefit of others. Even the most aulteristic are getting a lot out of it themselves, even if it's only a warm fuzzy feeling.

Bluntly, for many people, it’s been eighteen months of putting lives on hold for the sake other people you’ve never met. Most people, however much they claimed to be concerned for others initially, were only actually concerned for themselves and those they loved. Plus the idea of protecting the NHS is quite nebulous: most people get that we need to make sure hospitals don’t become overwhelmed so that they can still provide healthcare to other people, but if you’re healthy, visit your GP maybe once every couple of years and haven’t seen the inside of a hospital since you were a small child, you’re more likely to think “well, I’m not likely to need to visit a hospital anyway, so why do I care if they’re full of old people with Covid?”

There is no such thing as altruism. Lots of really interesting social anthropology on the subject.

@Cornettoninja

I’m not surprised to be honest, but what does surprise me is how acceptable it has become to voice these kinds of opinions so openly. It’s incredibly rare for someone to do something purely for the benefit of others, it’s usually a happy side effect to personal gain.

Nobody is obliged to truly give a shit about anything but there was a social convention that you don’t verbalise that and leave those who do to get on with it. It concerns me that people are now very comfortable with saying they don’t care about the suffering of others. It feels like a very dangerous notion for society to become comfortable with.

We say, without verbalising it’s, that we don’t care about the suffering of others daily - we don’t care about the people in developing countries who make our clothes, grow our food, mind our precious metals in often appalling and sometimes slave labour conditions. We don’t want to change our lives to make their lives better. I’m not surprised we’re now just extending that to people in the UK.

@Cornettoninja

I’m not surprised to be honest, but what does surprise me is how acceptable it has become to voice these kinds of opinions so openly. It’s incredibly rare for someone to do something purely for the benefit of others, it’s usually a happy side effect to personal gain.

Nobody is obliged to truly give a shit about anything but there was a social convention that you don’t verbalise that and leave those who do to get on with it. It concerns me that people are now very comfortable with saying they don’t care about the suffering of others. It feels like a very dangerous notion for society to become comfortable with.

This is how I feel. I actually can't believe what I'm hearing sometimes.

I kind of get what OP is saying -- but truth is we're all in emotional burn out. There's little left to give.

@lljkk agree. Feels like compassion fatigue has kicked in big time as its been so relentlessly shit (in so many different ways)

@lljkk

I kind of get what OP is saying -- but truth is we're all in emotional burn out. There's little left to give.

Completely agree with this

For some, who have been utter sociopathic cunts from day one of this pandemic emerging in early 2020, there never was any compassion whatsoever to have burnt out.

My priority is getting my childrens' lives on track and keeping my own head emotionally afloat. No one else gave a toss about us last year. School didn't bother checking in on a child with SENs who submitted no work for months and months and still kept him out in the winter for a repeat of a couple more months of lost learning time.

I've had my vaccines for more of their wider social efficacy than personal gain. Our lifestyle is fairly low risk for transmission. I am beyond fed up of compromising my life for a society that doesn't recognise the costs of those compromises and sacrifices.

None of us is guarenteed a long and healthy life and having suddenly lost relatives in their 40s and 50s, it taught me to live life as well as you can, as long as you can. I want to be free to fully participate in society, not sacrificing myself and my children for it.

Being isolated away at home and having to interact with expressionless, barely audible people when out has not exactly fed my sense of community spirit! If you shrink people's worlds down for a year, don't be suprised that they only care for a shrunken world.

Good job I never did moralise over others or parrot #bekind.

It's not surprising really especially after so much about the pandemic has been so divisive - everyone's seemed to feel others have it easier whether it's those on furlough vs those having to work harder than ever, or those "jumping the queue" for an early vaccine vs those having to wait...

I always thought all the rainbows in the windows and clapping for carers stuff was very fake when in reality most of the people out on their doorsteps never cared about their neighbours or their local delivery people or posties before. And it's a natural survival instinct to look out for you and yours before strangers. Very few people are genuinely altruistic.

People do care, but after 18 months people are worn down and really at the point where we need to look out for our own families priorities and needs. For example, I need to focus on my baby and making sure she gets the social interaction and experiences she needs, and I also need to prioritise my own mental health so that I can be in the best place to look after her. So personally, I want restrictions to go so that my family can get on with living our lives normally. Someone CEV might need to prioritise protecting themselves, which might include making tough choices about how they live going forwards. They would want restrictions to stay. There is no right or wrong view if you're looking at it from an outsider perspective,

'Selfish' works both ways too. I would say it is selfish to expect the whole population to continue with restrictions to protect an increasingly small minority.

The problem is we have lots of different groups of vulnerable people in our society and they don't all have the same interests. Sometimes opposing. So for example I can see that ending the bubble burst isolation policy in schools is worse for ECV kids than keeping it. But it's better for children who are neglected or abused at home. Both groups are vulnerable, both deserve protection, no clear moral case to prioritise one over the other.

I lost my business as a result of the pandemic and DS8 developed extreme anxiety with self harming for which we were given no support.

Why should I give a shit about society when it doesn't give a shit about me?

I don’t disagree @ComtesseDeSpair but I also recognise that people can’t care and mobilise for every atrocity, natural or manmade, currently underway in the world.

What is noticeable (to me at least) is the increased prevalence of some people to not only acknowledge that they personally aren’t participating towards a solution but then qualifying that with they also don’t care about it. It strikes me as a newer phenomenon, there was a general bar before where we could largely agree certain things were ‘bad’ even if we personally did things that knowingly contributed to them. The recognition of the bad part seems to have dissolved.

For example, if I buy a T-shirt from primark I know it’s been made taking advantage of someone who’s likely working in horrendous conditions. I feel guilt about that but not enough to not buy the T-shirt whether that’s because it’s the only one I can afford or because I’m choosing to spend my money on something else. If I take that one step further and feel no social constraint not to declare that it’s not my problem and it’s down to that worker to sort out their own lives it’s broken a boundary that (I feel) is actually pretty important for a healthy society.

People do shitty things (inevitable) and will do those more often and openly if they feel justified and comfortable they won’t be judged by others for it which in turn leads to others behaving the same way. That kind of mindset doesn’t limit itself to one topic iyswim.

@Overthebow: “ 'Selfish' works both ways too. I would say it is selfish to expect the whole population to continue with restrictions to protect an increasingly small minority.”

Exactly this.

And we need also to reflect upon whether we’re actually protecting people, or just making them feel better. Although both merge into the same this at some level of mental health, it’s really the former that is important. (Even then, not everyone being protected actually wants it.) People that argue strongly for maintaining restrictions for the sake of making people feel better… well, perhaps some straight talking is a better answer.

The whole 'caring for the vulnerable' thing is so laughable I can't believe anyone buys it. When people were calling for schools to be closed in January they didn't care a bit about the children for whom spending even more time at home would mean further torture and abuse - only one type of vulnerable counted and that was the type that bothered them personally.

It's funny how pre-pandemic there was so little concern for the poor and the homeless - the vulnerable of society. Where were the virtuous do-gooders then?

@TheDailyCarbunkle exactly

@TheDailyCarbunkle yes, many people only concerned now as it is them being affected.

It does anger me when I see older people out socialising and enjoying themselves (and I bet they don't bloody isolate anyway), and all the young kids who have sacrificed so much for those old people are still facing restrictions!!

@TheDailyCarbunkle

The whole 'caring for the vulnerable' thing is so laughable I can't believe anyone buys it. When people were calling for schools to be closed in January they didn't care a bit about the children for whom spending even more time at home would mean further torture and abuse - only one type of vulnerable counted and that was the type that bothered them personally.

It's funny how pre-pandemic there was so little concern for the poor and the homeless - the vulnerable of society. Where were the virtuous do-gooders then?

Correct.

I quite understand people being more bothered about whatever vulnerable group they or someone close to them belongs to. No objection there, that's just human nature. But the moralising? Repulsive.

I’m not sure whatever the opposite is of moralising is much more palatable tbh.