this fucking violent world
ever had the urge to resist the urge to write? does that sound contradictory. so be it. the itch to write is the there but i'm afraid my response to this world is inadequate for my lame language. you know what i mean, i hope. you've heard the news from arizona. this fucking violent world. what is the better response, outright condemnation, an attempt at level-headed reportage, anger, despair, throw-up-your-hands-in-the-air? all of the above? more? i sure as shit don't know. i've gone to a few favorite blogs and sites tonight for answers and all i've found are what i've expected, anger, confusion, the need to press on. and then what?
and then what?!
no fucking agit-prop, please. perhaps there are no answers. of the kind that can be expressed immediately after the fact. long soul-searching is in order, perhaps. but also what might be called forth is a re-validation on the necessities of our human condition.
ponder that for a while, what that might mean to you.
as for me, it was a lovely pre-spring day today. we worked in the garden. i listened to music. read some favorite blogs. read the first 20 plus pages of a memoir by an old punk rocker cum buddhist teacher. attempted to anchor myself, again, in our wild world.
2 Comments:
Richard,
a) humans wouldn't spend trillions on advertising if rhetoric had no effect on people.
b) paranoid schizophrenics get their ideas from somewhere, even if only the zeitgeist. There is no reason to think they are immune to public rhetoric.
c) since every single person in the US thought instantly of tea-party rhetoric, Palin's gunsight map, etc, it seems silly to assume that the shooter was the only person in the country for whom these bits of rhetoric were not present to mind. especially when his pronouncements are pretty typical far right libertarian.
d) rhetoric in the real world leads to action in the real world. See point a.
e) anyone who wants to blame Palin and her ilk for this shooting is trying to simplify things. I mean, easy access to guns and stigmatization of and lack of easily affordable treatment for paranoid schizophrenia also come into play.
f) People who want to let Palin and her ilk - or anyone of any political persuasion who engages in seriously violent rhetoric - off the hook are just plain wrong. They engage in hate speech.
g) Not that there hasn't always been violence, but this particular crime has nothing to do with some generalized human condition and everything to do with life under our current social/economic etc conditions.
yes!
thank you, john
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