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| Brad Blog Dec. 6, 2007 |
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| Thursday, 06 December 2007 | |
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Forget Parades, It’s Massacres We Love
Posted by Brad Hirschfield in reaction to the recent murders of 8 people in an Omaha mall
Apparently it's true, because after a man murdered eight innocent people yesterday in an Omaha, Nebraska mall before taking his own life, we seem to care more about the grizzly details of his actions than about those whose lives he took. We get hours of TV coverage, headline articles, and all of it focuses on the weapons he used, the barricades behind which the survivors hid, and the positions in which the crumpled bodies of the dead were found. We are so interested in the murder that we forget to mourn the murdered. Or perhaps “forget” is too benign a term.
Could it be that we love the gory details? You're damn right we do! And that’s pretty disturbing, or is it? I am really torn about this one. I hate that so many of us slow down to gape at car wrecks, pour over endless stories focusing on the horrible minutiae of events like yesterday in that mall, and rarely take the time to really connect to the actual loss that real people have experienced. It’s all to reminiscent of ancient Rome and it’s gladiatorial circuses, only now we don’t even need to go to the Coliseum because it’s brought by cable and the delivery boy right into our living rooms and our front doors. On the other hand, I know that in rehashing the details of what has happened to others, we reaffirm that it didn’t happen to us, that we have escaped the seemingly random harm and hurt that are so much a part of life. We watch what happens to others, not only because it distracts us from what is actually happening to us, but because it often reminds us that whatever is happening to us, is not as bad as what has happened to those people in the news. In the way, it really is a modern Roman Circus, or revitalized ritual of religious sacrifice, if you prefer. So if this phenomenon is both repugnant and endemic to the human condition, what are we to do? We have three options: embrace it’s naturalness and keep on watching (which strikes me as less than noble), admit that we are all deeply flawed and live with that pain (which is entirely unnecessary), or find ways to remind ourselves of that which is good in our lives just a bit more often than we use the misery of others to do that. If we did that, we would be less obsessed with the details of other people’s suffering, more able to help them in their time of need, and genuinely more aware of the blessings in our own lives, which are always there if we are ready to see them. Too preachy? Perhaps, but it’s the holiday season and I am ready for more than endless analysis of how many guns were used and how often they were reloaded. |
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