'Who's snuffed it now?'

[jayohaitchenn]

Yeah good post Lumps.

[RedRag]

Agreed, a thoughtful, succinct post, Dalumpi

[stand back and wait for the counterblast - DMR has been quiet?]

[Flashheart]

I wish I wrote that

[herthab]

Agreed, a thoughtful, succinct post, Dalumpi

[stand back and wait for the counterblast - DMR has been quiet?]

Great post from Lumps. Think your definition of succint differs ftom mine though RR!

[otanswell]

Not in the slightest, I've checked. Grief tourism is fucking embarrassing. Guess what, I don't give a flying fuck about kids in Africa either. WHAT A MONSTER

[DMR]

Agreed, a thoughtful, succinct post, Dalumpi

[stand back and wait for the counterblast - DMR has been quiet?]

Don't know what you're expecting from me but I am pretty ambivalent towards the whole Peaches debate.

I'd have smashed the fuck out of her though

[Nomoreheroes]

There's much more to life than Peaches..........There's Always The Sun, Skin Deep ,Golden Brown, No More Heoroes, 5 Minutes, Duchess, Nuclear Device, Nice 'n' Sleazy and lots more from the Stranglers in the last 40 years!

[4D]

Those stranglers titles could be matched to some on here 

[PetsWinPrizes]

It was a very good post, and though Flashheart wishes he wrote it, I don't actually think it comes down on either side. What kicked this off, was HonkyTonks original 'boo hoo' post, personally I still think it's possible to object to that and not be labelled a grief tourist, but others disagree. Anyway this has , for me, gone on far too long.

I shall bow out

[Batch]

Here's some music to cheer us up

[4D]

Lumps post is logical,  we know people die on a very regular basis and most of the time this doesn't impact on us personally. The clash here was the unnecessary comment. Some comments can and should be kept to yourself. I wouldn't mock the death of my worst enemy.

[Barry Scott]

Here's some music to cheer us up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV14jq2n-jg&feature=kp

Fucking LOVE that tune. Some great memories.

[sonicyouth]

...too soon?

[RedRag]

Don't know what you're expecting from me but I am pretty ambivalent towards the whole Peaches debate.

I'd have smashed the fuck out of her though

I was expecting the unexpected - with hindsight, exactly that sort of comment

[BruceChatwin]

Over 6,000 people I don't know die every hour. Nearly 1000 of them will be children, most in the developing world.

Whilst intellectually we might all agree that the death of all those young people is tragic, we don't, actually can't, go through any sort of emotional engagement or grief for those people. Human beings, quite sensibly, are programmed to care most about those closest to us, children, partners, immediate family, wider family and social network, tribe, local community etc.

We couldn't function if we felt the same way about the death of someone we never met as the death of a friend or family member, because it's happening all the time.

The variance in how people respond to the death of a celebrity, is not about how emotionally cold or engaged they are, it's about the extent to which they have accepted the concept, consciously or subconsciously, that because they've heard of this person, know all about them, are regularly given updates on what they are doing, that this means they have some sort of relationship.

When I hear about a death like this my thoughts tend to be not much more than "what a shame" but I don't FEEL anything much. I found it very difficult to take seriously the outpouring of grief around Diana Spencer's death for precisely these reasons. I couldn't understand people being so emotionally engaged with someone they'd only experienced through the media. It feels either:

- Childish - the equivalent of those young girls that are bawling in the street and needing counselling when some boy band splits up; or
- False - like people were misappropriating the grief of the woman's family and friends for effect

But I sort of had to accept that for a lot of them the feelings were genuine. There are people, and seemingly a hell of a lot of them, that are capable of forming an attachment to people they'd never met, never spoken to, who had never heard of them, and probably would never want to.

However, I'm pretty sure that no-one on here REALLY feels much of an emotional response to the death of the Geldof girl. What you're really arguing about is propriety. Some of you feel it's bad form to say anything negative about someone that's just died, or even to state that you don't care about that death.

Although many of those involved on that side of the debate don't seem to have much of a problem saying what the hell they like about people when they're alive. Odd?

Anyway, I don't think the two sides of this debate are actually that different. Your problem isn't feelings it's language and tone, which is difficult to get right in writing of this kind.

Those of you that are accusing others of being unfeeling need to honestly ask themselves this question:
"Do you really FEEL sad about this death? Or do you just THINK that this death is sad?"

I'm willing to bet for the most of you it's the later. You think the circumstance is sad, you think you should feel sad about it. But you don't actually feel any more than I do.

Maybe some of you don't know the difference, but one day you'll sit holding the hand of someone you love as they die and it'll become pretty clear.

You're quite eloquent when not floundering under a tempest of your own impotent rage.