Death, and who to mourn.
 

What are the rules when people die? If there are two events involving death happening at one time, are we allowed to feel sadder for the event we feel more emotionally connected with? Or is it simply the sheer number of deaths involved that decide where our grief should go?

I ask this, obviously because of the now closed Amy Winehouse thread. There were people who felt the need on more than one occassion to bring up the fact that there had been attacks in Norway, and how they were more tragic than Amy Winehouse's death purely because of the circumstances around them.

I dont have a problem with people having that opinion, but I DO have a problem with those people voicing this opinion at inappropriate times. Amy Winehouse's death, the attacks in Norway, the Somalian famine, the deaths in the military, all of them are tragic, but all of them are separate issues, that should (in my opinion) be kept separate.

Personally, I find it very disrespectful to both those who passed and those who are grieving for anyone to openly compare death tolls, or compare circumstances of the deaths. In effect, by comparing tragedies you are telling someone that their grief is irrellevant if they dont agree with you.

I think that each incident should be mourned and honored on it's own merit. There is no need to compare Amy Weinhouse's death to that of the other artists who died at age 27, nor is it necessary to compare the attacks in Norway to those of the Oklahoma City bombing. I think such comparisons sort of trivialize the events.

Ex: "Oh, another bombing. Just like the OKC bombing. How tragic. And Amy Weinhouse died, another gone at 27. Should have seen it coming. Just another day in the life."

I always see death as a very sombre and unfortunate event (hell, I even mourned Bin Laden's passing) but then, I accept that you just aren't attached to people who die when you dkn't know them, so you can't be expected to feel much more than sorrow for them and their families. My thoughts, and if I was religious my prayers, go out to everyone who's grieving over the losses such as the attacks in Norway and the famine, but am I myself haunted emotionally by them? Not really. I think it's awful, but I can't find an emotional link between myself and those people. You can get into the sciency stuff here about Monkeyspheres, but in summary, no, I don't think it's necessary to truly mourn every death with anything more than a bit of sorrow and respect.

Rules? Different deaths will effect different individuals in different ways, there's no uniform code of practice nor should there be.

People should have enough sense and empathy about them to know how to behave.

Why is it disrespectful to point out the silliness of grieving for Amy Winehouse while ignoring the youths in Norway? Here's the difference in my eyes:

Amy Winehouse: a celebrity who drank/drugged/partied herself to death. I don't know Winehouse personally, and to be honest, I can't much recall anything she ever wrote or did aside from persistently make headlines for being such a mess.

Norwegian teens: a group of people congregating in the name of progress. Like Amy Winehouse, I didn't know them personally, but the fact that they were acting in the interest of their country makes them infinitely more missed (in my eyes) than Winehouse. Furthermore, the youths that died were victims of something our of their control: a murderer fueled by religious hate. On the other hand, Winehouse died because she couldn't ****ing sober up.

I don't give half a **** about Winehouse in comparison to the death in Norway. If you were a big fan of her music, I understand why you would feel differently. And perhaps I'm too quick to judge. But surely, in this case, one group is far more deserving of media attention and our sorrow than the other.

The only issue I have with your post is I didn't see anyone ignoring what happened in Norway when Amy Winehouse died.

Perhaps ignore was the wrong word, but to put things into perspective, I saw 1 friend on Facebook make a status about Norway. Then I saw 8 or 9 statuses about Winehouse. To me, that was pathetic- that we seem to care more as a culture about a celebrity than young people trying to make a difference

Why do you care what other people are mourning though!? It doesnt affect you whatsoever how they feel about a situation, but because you think one is more important than the other it seems you think everyone else should feel the same as well. You say you can understand why people would feel differently if they were a fan, but nothing in your post outside of that line indicated that you do actually understand at all. Why can't you just leave people to grieve about what they want to grieve for without belittling their feelings. That attitude is far more pathetic than our culture of caring about celebrities

You're absolutely right, I don't want to dictate how people should grieve. I'm just making an observation and stating my opinion. But I think the difference is, in this case, nobody I know is actually grieving for Amy Winehouse. They see an opportunity to make some kind of snarky comment (She should have gone to rehab! LOLOL!) and feel that such a waste of energy is a better use of their time than something like "Wow the attacks in Norway are horrendous!"

I guess it's less disgust at how people grieve and more disgust at the nature of Facebook and social networking. To the facebook thread!

I can't believe I'm responding to this abortion of an argument, ah fuck it.

I have enough sense not to feign crocodile tears at the expense of whatever recent celebrity overdose is gracing the tabloids, but...

...I have more sense not to piss on their grave.