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11
Feb
2018
Years ago, someone invented the term “compassion fatigue” -- loosely defined as “indifference to charitable appeals on behalf of those who are suffering, experienced as a result of the frequency or number of such appeals.”
It has also been called Secondary Traumatic Stress -- a kind of trauma resulting from recurring exposure to scenes of misery and suffering, which leads to emotional withdrawal, to a gradual lessening of compassion.
Lately, I’ve been suffering a slightly different kind of fatigue -- petition fatigue.
Every day, my email inbox contains a batch of on-line petitions. They come from Avaaz, Leadnow, SomeOfUs, Freedom United, Change.org -- the list goes on and on.
The petitions urge me to click, to add my name to the thousands, perhaps millions, who plead with authorities. To free a political prisoner in Afghanistan. To prevent a young boy from being deported to Syria. To prosecute a man who raped and dismembered a young girl in Pakistan. To ban fish farms in B.C. To abolish slavery. To protect tropical rain forests.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: Sarahah, Google Play, App Store, software, cyberbullying