Our “just world” fantasy is shattered
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Absorbing all this terrible news on a daily basis doesn’t change the fact that many of us see the world as a better place than it actually is. We put on our rose-colored glasses and practice a bit of willful ignorance.
So when we come across a particularly disturbing report like a mother murdering her small child, it fractures our illusion that the world is a just place. We need reassurance that this mother isn’t like us, and so we crave details. Through reading this painful story, we make ourselves feel more secure that a monster such as this is unlike us.
There also exists a knee-jerk reaction that victims of some crimes must have done something to provoke or deserve the treatment. We seek to find how the victims differ from us, in order to convince ourselves that we won’t befall a similar fate.
