After revealing that she hadn’t fully transitioned to womanhood, a woman from Portland was forced to remove her dating profiles. Some bullying stories are not heard until the victim is dead. Health epidemics are often ignored by people because they are too far away. The world has become very self-centered. Everyone is obsessed with their own wants and needs. The news is full of stories about discrimination and death.
In Jose Saramago’s novel Blindness about a town that is hit with an epidemic “white blindness”, which spares no one at all, everything and everybody are described as nameless. Blind people, abandoned asylums, and guards are all described as they are. Readers are not told the name of the city. This common pattern in the book led me to the conclusion that people are only interested in being informed about a social or health epidemic that is happening somewhere else, and not something that directly or personally affects them. It is further proof that people would care if they gave them names, rather than just describing their appearance. It shows that the people do not care unless there is a serious incident. The blind epidemic, city and asylum name are all unnamed. The city is not named in the novel and even when you do research on it, the title is “unnamed”.
I believe it is not named because it’s how it would appear if we were watching the news and it wasn’t fiction. If the story were to be broadcast on the television, you wouldn’t get key details like the names, or even the location, of the victims. Again I will mention that people don’t care about the details, and it is hard to find people who are willing to spend their time to investigate it.
The city of New York is also taking precautions in order to protect its citizens. It is only because of this that the other cities did not do anything to make their city safer. This is a real-world example. I compare it to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, in 2014. The world only started to take Ebola seriously after it was confirmed that the disease had been found in Africa. People began to take the situation seriously when it became apparent that Ebola could be spreading to America. They took more safety precautions. All the support before that was hashtags urging people to pray and for Ebola patients. This again shows that only when something is directly affecting them and their loved ones do people take it seriously. It is difficult for them to accept the fact that they have no idea about the victims and doctors.
Quote: “After experiencing Ebola first hand, I now understand what to do when a family member becomes ill.” The World Health Organization’s website about the Ebola outbreak quotes: “I can recognize the symptoms, and I will immediately take them to the hospital.” If you are not doing extensive research, which I’ve already mentioned is unlikely, then you won’t be able to see their name or where they come from in West Africa. This also relates to the social problem of bullying.
People only cared about Amanda Todd’s suicide when it happened, not when it was her crying for help. This is similar to the book because it shows that no one outside the city takes the matter seriously or is willing to take action in order to solve the problem. It is clear that in the real-world, when an issue is going around, people are not interested unless they or their friends and family could be affected.
Jose Saramago’s novel Blindness tells the story of a city that has been hit by a “white-blindness” epidemic. No one is spared. The blind are kept in an abandoned mental hospital by the authorities, where the criminals take food rations, assault women and commit other crimes. It shows that the world, people and the city have no names. This pattern confirms my theory. People are too self-absorbed to be concerned about anything they do not personally or physically affect.
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