Gingerbread Man on 22/9/2007 at 02:43
I think you're grossly overstating things. The World Trade Center attack was as much an international tragedy as most trans-Atlantic air crashes are.
demagogue on 22/9/2007 at 03:54
Quote Posted by Gingerbread Man
I'm pretty sure the weeping kinda cheapens it for the people who were directly affected.
Not only that, but the next time 1/3 of a million people are in danger of something awful ... I'm sure they'll be infinitely more appreciative of the few people that dispassionately worked on all the technical aspects of mitigating the risk in advance than the hordes of people lamenting past tragedies.
Quote:
Shit, has anyone here even thought in the past week of the tsunami that happened three years ago?
Since this thread started, I thought about it almost every time I saw the key words "recent tragedy". Actually, I think numbers do matter. Not that we lessen 9/11's significance per se, but if 9/11 deserves any care and attention, the tsunami really deserves proportionally 10^5 more of it. I felt the same way when Katrina overshadowed the tsunami, when Diana overshadowed Mother Theresa, when
everything overshadows Africa, stuff like that always strikes me. Then again, I'm doing public interest law stuff, so it's never far from mind. I'm sure if I were a few blocks away on Wall Street, I'd be thinking what they were all thinking on 9/11: "hot diggity damn, time to exploit the market on this one, boys!" (... so the interviews say.)
Anyway, the whole 9/11 thing is special for me for its own reasons ... living in lower Manhattan throughout 9/11 and the aftermath, it was pretty personal.
Quote Posted by Gingerbread Man
I think you're grossly overstating things. The World Trade Center attack was as much an international tragedy as most trans-Atlantic air crashes are.
Just with the footnote that, because it was so symbolic, the political repercussions were so much bigger ... and that can allow the right people to do a lot of good things in its wake, or the wrong people to do stupid things ... but I think it would have been a mistake to neglect the opportunity entirely.
BEAR on 22/9/2007 at 04:19
Quote Posted by StealthThief
Stuff.
Stealth Thief
Oh god.
Louis Cypher on 22/9/2007 at 04:44
Quote Posted by Kaleid
It's not idiotic.
"95 percent of Americans questioned in the poll do remember the month and the day of the attacks, according to Wednesday's edition of the Washington Post. But when asked about the year, 30 percent could not give a correct answer." (
http://kutv.com/topstories/local_story_221191929.html)
There you go. United states of Amnesia..
This isn't a surprise, nor should it be. People have a tendency to only remember what they consider prominent or important about things like that. In that case, the month and day. The year? It's not brought up much and not necessary, thus...
Dia on 22/9/2007 at 11:26
Quote Posted by Gingerbread Man
I think you're grossly overstating things. The World Trade Center attack was as much an international tragedy as most trans-Atlantic air crashes are.
Quote Posted by Dia
I was referring to
c(at)b(arf)'s implication that 9/11 was a tragedy to the US alone.
In case you were referring to my post; if not, nevermind.
*Zaccheus* on 22/9/2007 at 13:01
Quote Posted by Gingerbread Man
I mean, I think that what goes on in Sierra Leone and Sudan and several other exceptionally-grim areas of Africa is just gut-wrenching. I've heard first-hand tales that made me feel very ill. But in the end, if we're being honest here, it doesn't affect me much after the initial visceral contemplation. It becomes academic. It becomes removed and abstract. And it becomes, by virtue of getting hammered over the head with it for years and years, utterly boring. Holocaust, WTC, Khmer Rouge... at some point doesn't it all get put in the same mental bucket as Masada, Herculaneum, and the Russian front of WW2?
I completely agree, though I'd suggest that it is perhaps a defense mechanism of our brains:
If we actually FELT anguish about all the hurt and pain and suffering that we know about we'd be immobilized by grief. There are just too many 'bad things' going on in the world.
Also, global media is relatively new for our minds. A few hundred years ago most people only saw what was happening in their own village (
waves at demagogue).
catbarf on 22/9/2007 at 20:47
Quote Posted by Dia
In case you were referring to my post; if not, nevermind.
It doesn't matter, his point is valid. The attack was a national tragedy, no more. Perhaps other countries were sympathetic, but I sure didn't see them mobilizing for war until Bush pressed them into it.
Aja on 22/9/2007 at 22:06
Quote Posted by Gingerbread Man
Are people honestly and genuinely and deeply distressed by the suffering (however long or brief) of complete strangers in places that are either so distant or so abstract?
It's almost as though there's a contest to see who can grieve the most. Living up here I can't help but feel detached from these major crises; I mean, I
want to be concerned and upset because it seems like the decent, human thing to be, but deep deep down these victims are little more to me than people who live thousands of miles away and have no direct bearing on me or anything close to me. I suppose that's why so many college students go off on relief missions, there's nothing like experiencing it first hand, they say.
But then I get accosted on the street by a homeless man with obvious physical and mental problems, and I start to think about who should get priority over whom. I gave the guy what little money I had and felt rotten for the rest of the day. It's impossible to be as empathetic as some people claim to be. In end it's just a well-intentioned form of showboating.
Meanwhile, my guinea pig just died and I miss him :(
Ko0K on 22/9/2007 at 22:28
I use my imagination to approximate, but I think it's pointless, since I can't honestly bring myself to believe that I've invested emotionally into the event enough to have any sort of sincerity. In fact, I've been more concerned about the after-effect it had on us than the pain and suffering. Sometimes I wonder if I am a cold-hearted person, but then again it seems that people reach their own conclusions based on their stupid little stereotypes anyway, so I am who I am, I suppose. I do, however, realize that I would have a completely different perspective on this if I were to have been directly affected by the event.
jay pettitt on 22/9/2007 at 23:36
Quote Posted by *Zaccheus*
(
waves at demagogue).
Why? It's not his birthday or nuffin.
