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I personally believe it's more important to know what happened then where. Sure just for generality's sake it's always good to know your way around a globe, but it doesn't seem like pertinent information to always have in the back of your mind.
Why does distance take away from our ability to empathize? Would you feel the same if my grand mother died as when your grand mother died? Doubtful, but it's the same thing happening. You'd recognize that it sucks, yeah, but you wouldn't have the same feelings. You don't even know my grandmother, so the only reason you would feel sad is because that's how you're supposed to feel when some one's grandmother died, not always necessarily because you feel a deep sense of sorrow that the person whose grandmother died.
I think that same idea applies to what happens 200 miles from you and what happens 10,000 miles from you. When a place you've been takes terrible damage, and it's your family and friends that are dying or in danger, it matters more to you than to a person who's never been there, is thousands of miles from there, and doesn't know anyone there. Aside from reading the news and seeing it, you can't in all honesty expect them to have the same reaction you would have.
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I got in a fight one time with a really big guy, and he said, "I'm going to mop the floor with your face." I said, "You'll be sorry." He said, "Oh, yeah? Why?" I said, "Well, you won't be able to get into the corners very well."
Emo Philips
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