The self righteous and strange attempt at making us feel guilty for mourning Steve Jobs.

I was recently tagged in a photo on Facebook. The photo was of Steve Jobs in black and white with the title “1 person dies and 100 million cry”. This photo was accompanied by an image of undernourished children with their arms reaching out, under the title “1 million die and nobody cares”. The tagline underneath was: “PLEASE SHARE ON YOUR PAGE OR WITH YOUR FRIENDS IF U THINK THIS IS TRUE!!!!”. The photo had been shared over 27,000 times, liked over 23,00 times and had 8,000 plus comments from people frequently citing their outrage that people were mourning Steve Jobs.

So whose death matters the most, Steve Jobs or a dying African child? Well, Steve Jobs designed the IPad, so forty points on the ‘Important Death’ scale goes to him. But hundreds of children have just died of malnourishment, so that’s fifty points to them. Hang on, Steve Jobs didn’t set up a charity, so he loses twenty points! It is, of course, a silly comparison to make in the first place. As much as it would be intriguing to see a ‘mourn off’ between Princess Diana and Mother Theresa admirers, you do not go through life comparing the deaths of people in such a way. Both my parents have died before I turn 22 in November, and I didn’t react to their deaths by saying “ah yes, but 100 people have just died from Malaria, so no mourning for me today, thanks”. What the photo that circulated Facebook seems to imply is that it is disrespectful and selfish for the world to mourn Steve Jobs and not to cry over the deaths of starving children. This somehow results in a strange competition of who we’re supposed to care about and who we’re not. The question I suppose then is, why did we mourn Job’s so much and not for those who needlessly die everyday?

A reason for it could be because people respond to death differently depending on whether you knew the person firsthand or if you had a connection to them of some sort. Indeed, not many of us knew Steve Jobs directly or cried at his death, but we were very familiar with his work and certainly responded to the news of his death with sadness. Perhaps the reasoning for the strong reaction to his death is realised in a recent study which found that we often overlook statistics due to ‘statistical numbing’ and focus on the person or people behind it. The report suggests that “as heartless as it seems to care more about the one than the many, it makes perfect sense in terms of human psychology. You are a person, not a number. You don’t see digits in the mirror, you see a face. And you don’t see a crowd. You see an individual”.

But should we be mourning Steve Jobs? Well, I’m aware of the abuses committed by Apple in China, but by mourning Steve Jobs, I am not choosing to ignore these human rights violations, much like I’m not pretending the dying children in Africa do not exist. These issues of course exist and need to be fought against. However, what I do resent is people dictating to others who they should and should not mourn. Steve Jobs didn’t claim to save the world: he was a designer and inventor, and we cannot expect everyone to be heroes. But we can appreciate the good contributions people make to the world. Quite often, people mourn those they admire or people who have shaped their lives, and if our emotions or ethics don’t abide by a self righteous photo that circulates on Facebook, we shouldn’t feel too guilty for that.