Be Excellent To Each Other

Keen observers of all things Mr Kissyfur will recall that I was in Malaysia earlier this year, and whilst there I saw my first corpse. Someone had been knocked off their moped and their body was lying by the central reservation. What really struck me was the absolute indifference of everybody to this, both the policemen stood by the corpse looking utterly disinterested, even bored, and the people driving past, who saw this as nothing more than an impediment to them getting where they wanted to go. Something about this really stuck with me, not in a PTSD-zomgees-I-saw-a-corpse-give-me-compensation way, but just the isolation of everyone concerned – the dead guy being all but invisible, and everyone else concerned being so wrapped up in their own worlds that this corpse didn’t exist in any meaningful way.

John Donne may have come up with a pithy wee ditty with “No man is an island”, but I’m not sure it’s true, if ever it was. We are all islands, or at least small enclaves, and people exist like that perfectly happily, and certainly act in a way consistent with everyone else being nothing more than wallpaper to their lives, whether a metaphorical promontory is washed away or not. People seem to have no real regard for anyone outside of their immediate circle of family, friends and, at most, colleagues. From the lack of an acknowledgement when someone holds a door open, or barging past people, the random abuse in the street or from a driver, or talking on a mobile phone whilst at the checkout in Sainsbury’s, people seem all too happy to pretend that people just don’t exist as actual individuals, with lives, feelings, hopes, dreams, outside of that enclave of the known. People seem to exist in a sealed bubble that’s just big enough to include them and their family and friends, and seems to preclude any acknowledgement of the feelings or thoughts or lives of anyone else.

Someone said on here on that Amy Whinehouse epic thread about how you just can’t get emotionally invested in the deaths of strangers, be they here or thousands of miles away. I think that’s probably fair enough, and if you did open yourself up to caring about that you’d be reduced to gibbering on the floor 24/7 in fairly short order given all of the horror across the world. But we can at least do the people we see or are near the courtesy of acknowledging their very existence, and give them at least a marginal level of courtesy as a result.

I’m not sure what the point of this is, other than a bit of a brain splurge. Perhaps it isn’t like this, and perhaps this is just a call for a bit more courtesy and consideration, and o give me more tempura, but if anecdotes and personal observation can amount to even a small amount of data, we do seem a callous lot. I won’t say more so than we used to be, because there never was a golden age, and at least now I can be assured that me being short sighted won’t lead to me being eaten by tigers.

This probably didn't deserve its own thread, in fairness.

I think it did rather, raises some interesting introspective questions. I can see why in and of itself, a corpse would potentially be something to not pay a great deal of attention to - after all, dead person is dead. Not a great deal anyone's going to do about that at this point. What I potentially find more interesting is the circumstances that lead up to it, and whether that makes people pay a bit more attention to their lives. In your example, I'm not surprised. I've seen the attitude to driving and accidents in most of Southeast Asia, and it's frankly horrifying.

I've seen two dead strangers in my life, and both affected me pretty profoundly. I think I've shared the details of both before, but I'll spoiler for gruesomeness.

Holy shit, Cras!

I don't think I've ever seen a corpse. Once, in my early teens, I was walking with a friend down Tottenham Court Road towards Oxford Street and we saw a man in a suit walking towards us. He was staggering about - we assumed he was pissed. Suddenly he collapsed in a heap on the floor and we presumed this was the drink too.

As we walked past, nonchalantly trying to ignore this apparent drunkard, I noticed his face was an odd shade of blue. By that point, other people had gathered around and started calling ambulances, and not knowing what else to do, we kept walking. Sometimes I think I should've hung about and done something, but fuck knows what.

I can see how the second death could happen, it is possible to get that low. As I have said I have had a shit year, and my mind wandered that way.

I have not seen a stranger's death. Yet....

The most weird/disturbing thing I have been involved in. We were on a rugby tour and played in a charity match, for a prop that had broken his neck while playing. We were not aware of it till we turned up. It did feel odd, especially the first scrum.

you take for granted your body and forget how fragile life is.

I'll spoiler mine too, although it's not as bad as Craster's.

That's the stuff of nightmares Grim.... Bloody hell.

For me Grim...'s isn't - that's just stuff that happens but Kov's is

** edit ** not the sporting accident but

Craster's second chap is sad - presumably he'd get fired, but probably not too much more, unless he was being actively fraudulent.

Nothing more at all. Terrible.

Dead people I have seen.

1) My Grandma, she was staying with us, in my brother's room, and she died whilst having an afternoon nap. I went to wake her up for tea. And ran down stairs saying I couldn't wake her up (I was about 9)

2) I lived in a block of flats, and some woman decided to jump off the 5th floor (the highest open balcony you could get to. She wasn't dead when I saw her, but she died from her injuries. My bedroom was on the 4th floor, and I could look out and see her (It was the day of my primary school's Easter show, and she jumped just before I'd arrived home from it, so I would have been 11)

3) When my wife's sister died, (she was knocked down by a speeding car when crossing the road, and died a few days later in hospital) I was with my sister in the hospital, and she wanted someone to go with her to say her last goodbyes. This was only about a year after going out with her, and I hadn't met her sister, (bbut I had spoken to her on the phone). I offered to go in with her, and just held her hand whilst she was as tearfull as you'd expect. I would have been about 22.

I was offered the chance to see both of my parents when they died, but declined.

I guess if we're talking strangers then only 2 counts. I did see a dead deer by the side of the road, that was there for 3 days last week. I imagine if it was this week it would have looked a lot worse in that time!

Malc

Wow. Well, this wasn't intended as an "I've seen dead people!" thread, but it'll do.

I've never seen a dead person. Well I have, my nan, but that doesn't count as she was alive at the time.

Your nan was a lot more alive than you think, even when she was alive.

(not sure if this make sense, but bare with me)

The familiar can always become the mundane. The streets of Manhattan are lined with awestruck tourists amazed by the sights on every corner, but swarming around them are the locals. The locals no longer see the majestic buildings and iconic skyline. They only see the traffic jams and crammed subways. Manhattan holds no wonder for them anymore.

Imagine yourself as camera clicking tourist in the world of death. Our society has become very good at shielding us from the reality and mechanics of the end of life, but sadly, for the lower classes of society in poorer countries, the shield isn't there. Death is a much more real and visible thing when you have no access to proper healthcare. Imagine the motorists in Singapore as the locals. They may see a few deaths on the road every week. The familiar has become the mundane.

You make a good point, Davpaz. However, to my mind the indifference borne of overexposure is in reality little different to the lack of empathy that leads people in the First World^TM to whip out their camera phones as their first response to some tragedy. Both treat the "other" as something other than a person - either as a backdrop or as entertainment.

If you had seen someone dying in the street, crying out for help while passers by ignored them then I think you might have more of a point. However it's been my experience that when someone gets into bother in a crowded place that most of the people nearest to them will go to their aid. If someone gets into bother out in the wilds then people with no connection to them will go to extraordinary lengths, often endangering themselves, to help.

People tend to film things with their camera phones when there is nothing else that they could really do. It's a fairly natural impulse if you have a camera and see some unusual set of events unfolding before you to want to take a picture. The main difference these days is that most people do have a camera and so you get these odd looking scenes with crowds holding phones up.

Yeah. I don't think it's a lack of empathy. I mean would you really think it a better thing if a crowd gathered and had a good cry?

What concerned me about the Woolwich affair was that people were happy to film the guy come out with his insane ramblings, rather than deck him to the ground.

Admittedly, he had a knife, and at least it kept him in one place, but I'm sure the response in, say, Glasgow, wouldn't have been like that.

And I didn't really want to see the footage, including his bloodied hands, on the telly anyway.

I'm really not sure about that. There were two blokes, armed and ranting covered in blood having just murdered someone. I don't think that many people would be rushing in, even if they were Scottish.

True; it would have been a confused situation.

Moving away from that particular example, I have a deep-rooted fear of being the first on the scene of an accident. Whilst I've done plenty of first aid training in the past, I worry that were I have to have to use any of it, my mind would freeze up or I'd make a silly error or something.

That sounds pretty healthy to me. I'd be more concerned if you felt supremely confident and just itching for someone to get mashed up in front of you so you could have a go.

Out of curiosity, what exactly are we implying about Glaswegians here?

Hailing back to the guys that gave the Glasgow airport bomber a kicking, I suspect. Though it's a bit of a stretch suggesting that's the default glaswegian attitude, I suspect.

I suspect.

Yes. A bit of stereotyping for a Friday morning.

I thought all Glsawegians were staunch defenders of the crown and would stop at nothing to defend it against those who threaten. A noble group of people from a fine city, indeed. I went to Glasgow, once. It looked to be a beautiful city. And did so even more when it was on the telly for the cycling the other weekend. Unlike those fiends at the other end of the motorway. Untrustworthy, that lot.

I'm just sensitive to any "All Glaswegians are violent psychos hurr hurr" implications because I've seen some breath-takingly ignorant attitudes even in this day and age to the city and it's people. There are folk who genuinely still think it's a fun-park for murderers and that we all walk around casually slashing passers-by with razors for fun.

If my experience of my own town is anything to go by then I'm going to guess that the stereotype is perpetuated as much by some of the locals who choose to revel in it as it is by outsiders.

I dunno, in previous forums I've frequented I've seen people (usually from London for some reason) who don't have any direct experience of Glasgow or people from Glasgow talking with a completely straight face about how they'd be too scared to even set foot in the city which is just mind-boggling.

No offence meant. Sorry if it was a little close to the bone.

I've always thought it looks pretty nice. I might make a trip one day, I've always liked Scotland.

No, it's fine as I assume that's not what you meant to imply; I was genuinely just checking.

My Dad is from Greenock, and I used to remotely manage an internet cafe (based in the Waterstones on Sauchiehall Street) consequently I've been into Glasgow dozens of times, it (certainly the areas I've been to)'s always been really nice. Now, I probably haven't been to all the dodgy areas, but the bits I have been to are lovely.

Malc

Also, I admit I'm almost certainly over-sensitive to such things which isn't anyone here's fault obviously!

Easy mate, calm down, nobody's looking for a fight.

No - thats Malc74 not Malc

One of my best friends in this here world is from Glasgow and he has never tried to slash me with a razor blade. He does often ask if he can have a go with my Proton Pack though and I do normally just hand it straight over, just in case.

As for some of the other points made in this thread, I guess it's a bit like when myself and the gf go and visit her hometown of Chippenham. She's so used to it there that she has no remaining perception of the vague smell of cowshit that permeates the air, whereas Urban Boy here finds it inescapable.

Which is a very valid point, I'm sure you'll all agree.

Glesga being one of those cities where you can wander in to pretty much any* pub on your lonesome & come out an hour later pals with the entire pub, I've always found that Glesga terror thing helluva funny.

That London on the other hand can be a bit intimidating. Nae cunt talks, even when they're at the bar waiting to get served. (How they get their Nat King I'll never know ) That said I still have nae worries about wandering around alone at night.
*If you're ever daft enough to do the Subcrawl you'll find a couple of pubs that you won't really want to go in to. Even they're fine.

Just to let you know, Kissyfur. I would piss on you if you were on fire.

HTH HAND

I find the Glasgow friendliness can be pretty terrifying though

And, I don't know many people who've been subject to violence, but I know a girl who's been threatened and chased down the street in Glasgow city centre and a guy from my old work got a minor stabbing at a bus stop there. So in my mind it is a vaguely more than averagely sketchy place to be out of an evening.

Shit like that happens everywhere though.

Because Scottish people are everywhere.

I prefer ignoring stuff than rubbernecking. Was driving to Whitstable the other day and was in a traffic jam for about an hour just because people were slowing down to look at an accident that had happened on the other side of the road.

What a bunch of twats. Just drive you morbid shitbags!

Very much

I stopped reading a reenactment forum after feeling physically sick over a thread in which the members were pouring over a hi-res photo of a corpse and noting just how his jacket was cut and what kit he was carrying. It might have been from 150 years ago,but it just didn't feel right to me.

I have a sneaking suspicion it was I who said you can't get too upset over the death of strangers you never knew. That is of course true because without any form of emotional investment, it's difficult to become too distraught.

As you say, if we were so open to the suffering of others we'd be non-functional. In the same way that our eyes are forced to discard much of what we see because we cannot process it all, we have to assume there is some evolutionary imperitive to being indifferent to things that aren't meaningfully connected to us.

When I was 19 my friend was killed in a hit and run. After being informed a few of us went to the hospital and met his emotionally-crushed parents who displayed a rawness of grief I haven't experienced before or since. His mum asked if we wanted to say our goodbyes in the chapel of rest, and being too dumbstruck to say anything else we said yes.

It was weird seeing him, knowing he was dead. He looked asleep, except that he was never going to wake up again. I sort of remember thinking that it seemed really implausable and really he could open his eyes and show us all it had all been a funny joke. Instead we stood there in silence while his girlfriend cried and kept repeating his name. That was 10 years ago in March and I still miss him. Nicest guy I knew at the time. I made a will a little while after that.

I think you're right. In both my cases the emotion either derived from the situation, or the brief glimpse into a person's life and the introspection it causes.