Why do we like feeling sorry?

After we talked about the young man that was a victim of hate crimes for being homosexual, I was thinking about the way people reach out to cases like these. So why do we as a culture enjoy feeling sorry? We have so much to worry about in this life and so much to care for. So why do we have this incessant need to grab onto the woes of our culture? I am not leading on to say that we shouldn't care for cases like this but more to the root of why. As I talked about in class, a good modern day example of this was the Amanda Todd suicide. This girl tried (and failed) to kill herself with bleach, then posted a video about her life and her reasons for wanting to die. After posting this she succeeded in killing herself by hanging. This video has gone so viral that the group known as "Anonymous" got involved and has since claimed to have hacked into the man's, they believe responsible, life and posted his name, address, phone number, etc all over the internet for everyone to see and take action against.

So why, of all the suicides and deaths attributed to bullying, is this girl's story the one that gets taken to this level? The easiest way to say it is from our reading, she was pretty, young, and dead. There are a lot of children who are bullied and harassed daily but a YouTube video and claims of innocence from the victim later, and there are riots in the streets to find who is responsible and ask why there weren't measures taken to prevent this from happening. Since that video and Todd's death there has been evidence that she wasn't so innocent in all of her claims but still the outcry is loud and the evidence is being ignored?

All of this only leads me to believe that the reason we enjoy feeling sorry for cases like this is because it gives everyone something to talk and argue about. With few exceptions all the response to the video has been yelling, strong opinions, and questions of why didn't anyone do anything. There are few things actually being done. This story has given the internet something to argue about. There are hundred of YouTube videos made in response to Todd's death, but none featuring what was being done to stop bullying. More reason to believe that we as a culture need this emotion of feeling sorry so we can turn around and argue about it. This is far from a blog about not caring at all about people. It is simply that maybe we as a culture should stop feeling sorry just so we can argue and voice our opinion. Then maybe we can solve some of these issues so we won't have to feel sorry anymore.