PeonForHer
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Joined: 9/27/2008
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quote:
ORIGINAL: JeffBC
quote:
ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
Every time there's been a mass killing by gun and anyone has posted an anti-gun-sounding comment, pro-gunners have leaped in to bemoan the tasteless 'making of political points' at a time when we should be feeling sad about the deaths, offering our condolences to the grieving families, etc. That usually happens in the first few posts. Just saying.
... and i have to admit I find that whole dynamic just plain freakin weird. Maybe I'm a defective human being but honestly I just can't get all that worked up about a tiny tragedy far away from me. Sure, I feel for the people but honestly I'm more interested in whether there's anything to learn from it and if so, what that might be. I suspect we all know that if we were actually concerned about human suffering there's some bigger fish to fry.
Jeff, to be honest, I've been utterly gobsmacked by it in the past. It was the one issue, in all my years using this forum, that led to my being put on suspension (by one moderator, though revoked by Alpha as soon as she found out).
I do not get it. As far as I'm concerned, and as Igor pointed out, the families of the victims aren't ever going to hear about how much various people on CM sympathise with them. Frankly, even if they did, I doubt that they'd care all that much. For me, the correct policy is: leave those to grieve who can't do much else *but* grieve. That's their job. Our job - the rest of us, who are distanced from it - is to work on the practical stuff. And the practical stuff, in the longer term, very much involves politics.
At another level, whenever I see that comment, 'you anti-gun types are only using this tragedy to score political points' - I think, 'Eh? I hate to hear of people being killed. Why the fuck else do you think I've said something on this thread? Do you think I would give a toss about gun control if people weren't being killed because of what I see as the lack of it? And if I think a political solution is the only real, long term solution, why should I stay silent about what I think?'
Even more basic than that: it's seemed to me, for a long while now, that there's been a change of values that has gone too far. People began to snort at the Victorians for lack of feelings many decades ago. I think they were correct to do this: there was a *lot* about the Victorian suppression of feelings that was bad. But, by the present day, it frequently seems to me that feelings - expressing of emotions - wailing, getting angry, laughing, crying, whatever - has become more important than anything else, including the, sober, careful, *rational* process of solving the problems that led to such emotionality in the first place.
It's a nutty irony. Victorians showed no feeling at all; they frequently didn't even register feelings even to themselves. But they knew how to solve problems in their societies, should they recognise them as problems. By god did they pioneer radical social and political change. Nowadays, people recognise problems, get furious or tearful, grieve about them, blubber or rant . . . and then do precisely sod all to solve them. Everything goes back to normal, after enough rants have been ranted and enough buckets of tears have been shed . . . until the next godawful tragedy.
That's my ranting and tearfulness over for tonight. ;-)
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