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Aswad -> RE: Sleeping man decapitated on Greyhound Bus (8/3/2008 2:59:16 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ygraine
I think the "tragedy" part is not that one person died, but that he died utterly without defense or provocation.
Which is the norm. Except it's normally carried out by disease, hunger, fire or somesuch. Not that it's uncommon for humans to be the active agents of death, either. No matter how you turn it, the fact is that one anonymous stranger died in a manner that involved seconds to minutes of fear and pain. In response, the media makes a show and turns that into a profit, against a backdrop of anonymous strangers dying every day in manners that involve any amount of pain and fear from seconds to a lifetime... except those stay anonymous.
Why do we care?
It's not his death, or its manner.
It's because it was shoved in our face in the name of profit.
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I think there is something hardwired into us to react with special fear and revulsion about this kind of event. It is unpredictable, it is terrifying because of that.
Hardwired? Not at all. It is taught. We are given illusions about safety that have no basis in reality. We try to put a lot of effort into hiding and covering up reality, and counteracting our hardwiring in order to maintain this illusion. Then, every once in a while, somebody shows us the truth. And that, more than anything else, it what horrifies us. Both because we, as humans, are ill prepared for truth, and because we, as modern "citizens," are horribly ill prepared to face reality, like children that have been coddled too much.
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What that person did was insane, and it was way out of the realm of human behavior.
Hardly. In some human societies, it has been sport. Maybe he lost it, or maybe he was crazy. But to say that it was out of the realm of human behavior is to reduce "human" to "familiar." Quite a different thing. Certainly, I mind that it happens. But it is in us, and to deny that is dangerous at best. Hell, I've had a crazy guy attack me with a knife, too. Being aware of how thin that veneer seperating us from other apes really is... that is helpful. Watching one's personal space and anyone in it, is helpful. Sticking one's head in the sand and pretending it is something alien to us, rather than something we keep at a struggling arm's length by a major concerted effort, is not helpful.
Did the guy with the knife step out of the bounds of society when he came at me? Yes.
Was he insane? Didn't really seem like it at the time.
Had he lost it? Yes, as far as I could tell.
Maybe he found that lost marble the next day after the police took him away, I dunno. I hope so, for his sake. For my part, I just dealt with him, took stock, smiled at my exceptionally good luck not to have been injured or killed, called for someone to pick him up, and then I simply got on with my day once the adrenaline went back to normal. Because it's not "out there," and it's not alien, or even all that disturbing. It's just human, sans make-up. And it happens sometimes, as it always will.
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That was the creepiest thing I have heard about or read about in a long time (thank goodness).
Perhaps I missed something, but it's not the creepiest thing I have heard about or read about today.
Health,
al-Aswad.
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