I have hesitated to post anything about the VT shootings. Whenever one of these freak things happens, the gun nuts and wing nuts never fail to amaze me with their inane "reasoning," the anti-gun nuts never fail to sadden me with their inability to accept reality, and the photo-op hungry politicos … well, here I go, just adding to the noise.
But Rosa Brooks's op-ed is a rare gem, and no matter how sick you are of the coverage, you should read it. Hers are the thoughts I've been trying to compose.
Hat tip for the referral: Kevin Drum.
4 comments:
I'm not ready to be a curmudgeon about Va.Tech. Maybe it's because I'm preparing my first child for college or because I teach at a university, but I was sad and questioning. As I was, too, when the lone gunman invaded NASA yesterday. As I am each morning when I awake to the Iraqi body count.
As the poet says, "Each man's death diminishes me for I am involved in Mankind."
A good comeback, and I'll not try to argue with it, especially as you have not lost sight of other horrors in the meantime.
Brooks makes a good point. It's by no means a uniquely American phenomenon either. I'm reminded of the Diana funeral where the public display of self-indulgent mass hysteria was quite sickening, and still echoes years later.
Francis Wheen devotes a chapter to this incident and similar others in his book "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World", highly recommended.
Thanks for the recommendation, Alastair. I don't know if I'll read it -- sounds like the kind of book that will only reinforce my gloomy perspective of humanity whenever we act en masse. But if I come across it in a different mood, I'll probably pick it up.
I see what you're saying about Princess Di, but I don't think it's quite the same thing. In her case, we had the loss of an icon, and while I don't think she merited the sense of loss of, say, Kurt Vonnegut, who's to say how someone should qualify as one's hero(ine)? So, I am less irritated by that kind of grief than I am by the kind that gets spewed whenever some random psycho acts out.
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