When I was at university, there was a terrorist attack on something, somewhere in the world, and it dominated the conversation - instead of the subject matter. I tried to return the conversation (in class, which i was paying for!) to the topic at hand, and people just wouldn't.
As @riverflows says, its easy to be detached from from conflict and horror when the sun is shining and you're hungry and need to buy toilet paper and bring the clothes in before it starts raining.
But anyway, I steered the conversation (or rather, drove it off a bridge) when I said that - "If the Sydney Harbour Bridge" (probably one of the most famous bridges in the world) collapsed today - our lives in this classroom would not be materially changed.
We don't use it every day. The freight it carries isn't intended for us. But it would be a cultural scar. Some of those can be ignored, some of them are crimes, but ultimately, we have to endure and go on.
No matter how bad the tragedy, tomorrow still comes for those who remain. How we shape the tomorrow after is what makes us "more equal".