Puzzled by that apathy, a psychologist named Paul Slovic began conducting experiments to better understand people’s reaction to mass suffering and death. (The Washington Post)With the coronavirus — the death toll substantially exceeding 300,000 in the United States — many of our strongest impulses are working against us, experts say. Amid the silent void, the patients’ dying breaths become magnified. The tweets are an attempt to publicly mourn the dead and show the pandemic death toll in human terms instead of in numbers, said Alex Goldstein, who runs the account with a handful of volunteers. “You have to imagine yourself in the role of others.”Since his father’s death, Klindt has struggled to reconcile his anger and grief with the apathy he encountered in the small Iowa town where he grew up.

Source: Washington Post December 21, 2020 17:40 UTC