"Je veux pisser, je veux pisser"
The Brazilian press didn't echo the news of Le Figaro
http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2011/08/17/97001-20110817FILWWW00263-gerard-depardieu-urine-dans-un-avion.php What called me attention on this news was not the constraining situation so much why passed the great French actor. They were the put comments the margin of the news.
In the Internet several times we saw texts criticizing the Brazilian readers' virtual behavior. Renato Janine Ribeiro text published recently
http://www.observatoriodaimprensa.com.br/news/view/a-internet-nao-e-tao-democratica it is eloquent example of this.
"It is not enough to react with the liver", it said with reason the Brazilian philosopher. The French reactions to the incident with Gérard Depardieu were not very different from the reactions that we see in Brazil. The problem, therefore, it is not local.
When reading the comments of French we noticed his exaggerating rigidity. The commentators seem to have forgotten her that the great actors are also human beings and that, as all of us, they are also subject to the inevitable, imponderable and dictatorial calls of the Nature. Compassion and empathy is something that missed the critics of Depardieu. Do they can them to have absolute certainty that they won't be screaming "Je veux pisser, je veux pisser" in the street, in a train or inside of bus?
Renato Janine Ribeiro identified the problem that was very well illustrated for Le Figaro. It lacks, however, to try to understand what motivates this type of behavior.
When we sat down in front of the connected computer in the Internet, a window for the world opens up. We are sat down comfortably installed in armchairs, chairs or sofas and our natural needs (thirst, hunger, will of urinating or of evacuating) they can usually be satisfied with easiness. Depending on the mobility and of the size of the equipment that we used, we can continue typing even seating in the toilet. The physical contact with the people with which we interacted, however, it doesn't exist. Maybe it is this inexistence of personal contact (and, therefore, of the possibility of a present speaker's immediate reaction) that eliminates the compassion need and impede the empathy.
Empathy, in fact, is "the vicarious affectionate answer to other people, in other words, an appropriate affectionate answer to another person's situation, and not to the own situation"
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empatia . In reason of depersonalizing the human interactions, the Internet certainly impedes or it hinders empathic reactions. An additional effort is necessary to humanize the reaction to a situation as announced her for Le Figaro.
Of my part, for love the discussion, I published to the margin of the text of Le Figaro the following comment:
"Nobody can avoid or to refuse the call of the nature, nor the great actors. Urinate as it is indispensable and where is necessary Mr. Gérard Depardieu."