Isn't it partly due to a failure of imagination? We tend to feel most sympathy for the people who are most like us, because we can up to a point put ourselves in their shoes. So things done to people from other countries/other classes/ other genders / other time periods seem less real. Of course some people can get worked up over things done to folks who are quite unlike them, and some people you'd expect to sympathise don't give a toss. But there's a general unconscious tendency at work.
Sometimes the genealogy shows confront someone with a tragedy which befell one of their ancestors, someone whom they never knew and perhaps never even heard of. The blood link kicks in and they start to blub. It's only natural.
Sometimes the genealogy shows confront someone with a tragedy which befell one of their ancestors, someone whom they never knew and perhaps never even heard of. The blood link kicks in and they start to blub. It's only natural.
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