Winter is upon us. With the sun setting at 4pm and rain continuously reminding us of climate change, what else is there to do but indulge in coziness? Hot teas, chocolate, and ambient TV. Perhaps consuming cozy media is exactly what the doctor ordered for seasonal depression, but could this escapism be unethical? As humans, do we have any moral obligation to consume news?
This could seem like a bizarre notion. For one, the term “moral obligation” seems like it was established by a few guys with white beards centuries ago, so it’s unlikely to involve reading present-day Twitter. Damn it, X. So let me set the scene.
Back in February 2022 I was living in Barcelona. On February 24th I was in class and on my phone — while there are many bad consequences of looking at your phone in class, I didn’t anticipate that finding out about an invasion on a country just 100 kilometres from my hometown to be one of them. I was scared and shocked but mostly I just didn’t know what to do with myself. Over the next few days, I found out that while everyone back in Poland was freaking out and involved into helping the war refugees, no one around me was sharing those fears.
I think the lowest point reached me when I started wearing a small Ukrainian flag on my coat and got congratulated (multiple times) on supporting the Catalonian independence movement. It was a tough thought to swallow: no matter how globalised we are in terms of behaviour, clothing, culture, if you go far enough, you will find out that most people won’t pay attention to your “local” business.
This experience made me wonder: have I ever made other people feel this lonely with their suffering? Have I, in my ignorance, been unaware of sources of deep suffering for nationalities other than mine? If so, does that make me a bad person?
Under some interpreters of Christian morality (Peter Abelard), presumably I was not doing anything wrong in the past: my intentions alone determine the moral worth of an action. Hence, if I don’t realize my ignorance might bring suffering, my decision not to stay up to date with news cannot be morally wrong. Now, I am aware that by continuously choosing lighter pieces of media, I may be missing something that is important for others. So maybe now I can be subject to judgement. And if it’s too late for me, it’s too late for you too, reader. I am deeply sorry to have gotten you into this mess.
This moral judgement could be delivered from various perspectives. Kant’s categorical imperative states that we should never act in such a way that we treat humanity, whether in ourselves or in others, as a means only but always as an end in itself. This moral law demands us to show respect to others. Hence, from the Kantian perspective, one could argue that by ignoring certain events, for the purose of emotional self-preservation, we fail to give recognition respect to those who suffer in the process of these events. To be a good person thus requires living as though other people matter to us and showing that we believe their lives have equal value to ours. For the billions of people who will forever remain strangers to me, the only way for me to do that, is to spare a thought for them by reading about them in the news.
A sceptic could however drive this to the extreme. How can we possibly show respect to all humans on the planet in this way? In the contemporary world, we would be obliged to read an infinite amount of news. Thus, in order to remain sane, we need to pick and choose. But by paying more attention to one tragedy among others, are we not favouriting some human lives then others?
Let us try to narrow down the scope then. Celebrity gossip? Feel free to skip. Political horseraces? Sport coverage? Cool hobbies, but not an exercise of respect for others. What we should focus on is personal stories that make us hear new voices and perspective. This also includes documentaries, scholarly papers, nonfiction books. I think we will know an opportunity for fulfilling this new-found duty when we see it.
Being a good person can be exhausting.
To that end, Simone Weil would perhaps argue that directing attention to others is not a “muscular effort” but a “negative effort”, involving a release of egoistic projects and desires, and a growing receptivity of the mind. To her, attention is less an action and more a postion we take towards the world. If we don’t familiarize ourselves with the news, we may not be able to ask a newly-met person from Jamaica about a recent hurricane.
Perhaps it’s for the best – it would be intrusive to ask a total stratenger what they’re struggling with most right now. But if we stay attentive, we may be careful enough to not make things worse. I cannot make clear recommendiations on which approach is better. For myself, I accepted the attentive human-focused news-reading as a duty. But then again, I am just the girl on the phone in class.
Anna Halewska
Sources:
Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy:
“Is there a Duty to Read the News?”, Amy Berg, Journal of Moral Philosphy
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