Musings —05.31.2012 11:03 AM
—This world
Don’t open the links, like I did. But most of you will, I expect.
This and this [DELETED AT THE WISE SUGGESTION OF MS. KIRBIE AND MS. DALY] have reminded me that of my conviction that the world is, essentially, evil and beyond redemption. That’s what I’ve written for the Sun papers this weekend, too.
Springsteen had it right, here, in that extraordinary final line. Me, I’m going for a walk.
Too late….I had a look.
I think the pictures pretty much lay waste to our petty squabbles here in Canada. I think it’s time people stop complaining so much and consider how good we really have it here in Canada.
To be sure, people who can do that to children will NOT listen to reason. There is only one thing that REGIME’s like that understand…and that is FORCE.
It doesn’t matter if you talk to Syria’s ally, Russia, it doesn’t matter what the Canadian Foreign minister says, and it doesn’t matter what arguments you present to someone like Assad.
Intentional murder of children and women has only one sufficient punishment. The people who did this need to be eliminated…using whatever means are necessary.
Kinda makes the protest in Montreal seem even more petty than it actually is.
I’m sickened.
But I maintain the world is not essentially evil and beyond redemption. I will concede that some of us Humans act that way.
Whatever Evil there is in this world is caused by us. Fate can be capricious but she is not evil.
I’m teaching Lord of the Flies to a grade 10 class “maybe there is a beast…maybe it’s only us”.
I also love Rorshach … “God didn’t kill that little girl. Fate didn’t butcher her and destiny didn’t feed her to those dogs. If God saw what any of us did that night he didn’t seem to mind. From then on I knew… God doesn’t make the world this way. We do.”
And because I am into quotes today:
Viktor Frankl : Man’s search for Meaning
“We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in numbers but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
I learnt my lesson back in ’04, when those videos of Iraq beheadings of Western hostages were posted.
Didn’t stream properly, so I didn’t see it all, but the sound of the screams that were on it will haunt me to the end of my days.
So no, not clicking on those links. Some things don’t need to be seen. (Tho’ I wouldn’t ban them, either.)
Wow…. that’s almost word for word what my comment was going to be; particularly regarding the screams. Not even morbid curiosity is going to get me making that mistake again.
Ditto. Believe it or not, I had to sit through those videos as part of what I was doing at the time. I will never do it again. It convinced me of exactly what Warren has elaborated. Responsibiity to Protect, my ass.
Strike that, I would ban snuff videos. (And Canadian law does.) Not banning them is nuts.
But once it’s a news story, the photos and video will get out there, and there’s a public interest in some people — some poor reporters, anyway — seeing them and describing to the rest of us what’s on them.
Wouldn’t want that job.
I have a 21-month old, and seeing how wonderful and happy and healthy he is fills me with love and terror for him. I can’t imagine what would have been going on in these poor kids minds, but it breaks my fucking heart.
F this world, man. I envy my dog.
Yes my friend, there is a meanness in this world. But there is far more good than evil. You know that. You have stood toe-to-toe with it.
You are allowed a weak moment. Now pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep kicking asses.
As for me, I will never stop trying to make this world a better place. Maybe we are beyond redemption, but we are not beyond confronting evil. You know that too.
I agree.
Turning away gives the dictator your consent.
“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”
Martin Luther King.
I have written strongly worded emails (yeah, I’m that angry), to both the Toronto Star and the CBC for splashing photos of the alleged murderer from Montreal ‘Luka’, all over their homepages. I don’t want to see his face when I log on to check the news. Put it behind a link so if I want to I can see it.
Like Warren just did here.
Many people, more intelligent than I, have written volumes on the human condition. The fact remains, that there are people capable of such evil, and nothing is new under the sun. It’s not the internet’s fault. It’s been going on for our entire history. It still shocks most of us though.
One thing the internet has done has made it more difficult to make such sweeping declarations. I think there have always been acts of depravity equal to or much greater than what we’re seeing now, it’s just that distance and transmission speed spared us the details. Now, with instant communication around the world and so many people connected to each other all that’s happening is we’re seeing more of what’s always been out there.
And just as there are some very sick people out there who’s deaths would actually be a benefit to humanity as a whole, there are some genuinely funny people out there, and some very talented people out there and there are examples of human kindness and generosity that, without the internet, we would not have been aware of either. (there have to be websites dedicated to aggregating these kinds of stories somewhere). There is good out there, like the kid who bartered up to a free trip to Disneyland and then just gave the trip to a the family of a US serviceman who had been killed.
…and LOLcats, always LOLcats.
I checked the URL’s and took a pass on viewing.
I don’t need to be reminded, again, on just how few steps we are from the caves and jungles as a species.
If what we know is true, then the porno star wannabe is one seriously narcissistic and messed up dude.
Reminds me of that guy –no need to mention his name -who shot Versace, loser pretty boy craving attention and determined to be famous by proxy, either via a celebrity, or in this case the internet.
The sooner he’s caught the better so his “fame” can fade away.
“Dachau. Why does it still stand? Why do we keep it standing?”
Rod Serling: “There is an answer to the doctor’s question. All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzes – all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers. Something to dwell on and to remember, not only in the Twilight Zone but wherever men walk God’s Earth.”
– “Deaths-Head Revisited” [Season 3; Episode 9 of The Twilight Zone]
I try to keep this quote utmost in mind whenever confronted by true atrocities.
Completely agree Jon, good post.
I’m not clicking on those links. The horrible truth about the lives we live here in North America is that we are the exceptions to the rule of human existence. We are largely spared the horror of violence and the unvarnished heart of human cruelty that most endure with regularly. The most unsettling thing of all about evil is its capacity to look itself in the mirror and not see evil at all, but rather a perverse sense of self righteousness.
To paraphrase Gramsci:
“Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.”
And so we carry on.
I will not look at the videos.
We are so damn lucky here. We live in the best country in the world and when we complain, we are complaining about first world problems.
Warren, as I look around the world I see much suffering, pain and misery. Man is capable of the most horrific atrocities. Sometimes I think it would be for the best if nature simply hit the reset button and started over. This world got along just fine before we showed up. Then, I’m reminded that there is also a lot of good in this world and a lot of good people. Is it too late for us as a species? I don’t know.
Man is basically evil isn’t that a central tenant of conservative thought? Warren say it ain’t so!
I think the fact that most people are shocked by such images actually tells a great story: that most people have a built-in decency and goodness. In the course of my work I sometimes take part in investigations, and sometimes have seen things that make me speechless. The fact that I am still shocked and disgusted by those things is kind of reassuring to me.