Against “tragedy.”
By Paul J Cella Posted in Breaking News — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
When a man contrives to systematically slaughter unarmed strangers, and then remove himself from the reach of our human approximations of justice by suicide, the word “tragedy” is singularly inappropriate. The misapplication of it, which we hear inevitably, lessens the depravity of the act by replacing wickedness as its impetus with a kind of unthinkable randomness, like the whims of natural calamity.
Read on.
As our language has gradually been evacuated of the sort of idiom by which serious men have approached good and evil in ages past, it is hardly surprising that we would reach for these pitiful substitutes, of which tragedy is the most common. It is a poverty of sophistication.
Another substitute, yet more pitiful still, is the idiom of mental illness. A “disturbed” young man conspires to massacre; a “troubled” student fell upon his fellows, reloading a weapon half a dozen times and chaining the doors to prevent escape for his victims — the shallowness of this narrative is staggering. Really what it amounts to is obscurantism.
I hesitate to venture as to what it may obscure, but I have often wondered how the detachment of history will judge us. Our “scientific” detachment has hardly been tender with earlier ages of men, and nary has a great man, however virtuous, escaped the acid of debunking. We late moderns, in many ways a very self-congratulatory people, have made a tradition of school-shootings; and at the same time we have grown extraordinarily enamored of what we call “progress.” How historians will treat of this former, terrible fact, especially in light of this latter enthusiasm, is difficult to say; but I do not guess that it will be with much tenderness.
Some men will blame the weapons used in these massacres, quite as if the evil of slavery could be laid at the feet of the manufacturers of chains. More thoughtful men will look deeper, and it is very likely they will find that the poverty of our language is indeed obscuring a more profound rottenness: a wickedness that is no mere tragedy.
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Against “tragedy.” 9 Comments (0 topical, 9 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
The word "tragedy" really is misapplied in context of the VT shootings. "Tragedies" remind me of those unintended events in which there is a loss of life (e.g., Sago Mine tragedy). Here, a more apt word is "atrocity," or an intended event in which there is a loss of life.
"My mind is aglow with whirling transient nodes of thought, careening through a cosmic vapor of invention." -- Hedley Lamar
I understand and agree with your point. Words mean things. This was a planned act of unmitigated evil.
However, I would say that if you look at this event from the angle of the victims and their families, the word "tragedy" does apply. To them, the killer was as unexpected and unstoppable a force as a tornado bearing down on that building. They were innocent, mostly young and full of potential. That their lives ended so unexpectedly at the whim of an evil man is a tragedy. But looked at in terms of the "big picture," your point holds. It was a massacre, a mass murder, an atrocity, rampant evil--not a "tragedy" perpetrated by a "disturbed" young man. That's like saying that the Holocaust was an "unfortunate misunderstanding" brought about by Hitler's "troubled youth."
A further point: by debasing the word and concept of "tragedy," by using it as a mere synonym for "a really sad thing," our culture is impoverished. "Tragedy," in the classical sense, instructs and ennobles those witnessing it; as we deny ourselves a word reserved for the experience of a great or noble human caught in the grip of inexorable fate, we reduce our own opportunity to reflect on the experience, and gain from the humility and pity true tragedy was meant to awaken. That is, tragedy will occur whether we have a name for it, or not, but retaining a distinct term for it increases the likelihood we'll recognize it when we see it, and absorb its import. A mass shooting, like a school bus going into a lake, may have many policy implications, but they are not those of classical tragedy; not necessarily any the less portentious, just different.
Well said.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Ah.
Well, in that case, I too misinterpreted/misused the word "tragedy" in my comment above. Based on what you say, the closest this event comes to meeting the classical definition of a tragedy is the story of the Jewish professor, Liviu Librescu, who survived the Holocaust, survived oppression in Ceaucescu's Romania, then died saving his students in yesterday's shooting. The loss of this man is a tragedy. We can learn from his struggles and his sacrifice. His story gives me a true sense of humility.
Do I have it right?
I'd say close, but no cigar. The professor's death, if events have been described accurately, is unquestionably heroic, and no doubt there's irony in a man surviving those travails only to perish violently on what should have been a peaceful retreat, but the element that's missing, that true tragedy requires, is the sense that this fine man engineered his own doom, not through his heroics, but through what would have been seen as a flaw in his character--overwheening pride, for example, or challenging the gods.
I hasten to add that I'm not suggesting that there is necessarily more, or less, virtue in a tragic death (or life) than there is in the many other ways our fates unfold, and I certainly don't mean to lessen in any way the awe, sorrow and anger we should feel about the murders at VT, or the pride we should feel that there are men such as, apparently, Prof. Librescu, whose manner of death, if confirmed, should inspire us all.
by debasing the word and concept of "tragedy," by using it as a mere synonym for "a really sad thing," our culture is impoverished.
True enough, and probably most people never knew the classical meaning of the word..it irritates me no end, like calling 9/11 a "disaster."
But I would add, the use of the word "sad" by the students at VT is pretty telling too. Yesterday I heard things like "I looked in the classroom and it was very sad." Huh? Like when your puppy dies? People just don't have language anymore.
We all should pray for the victims of this tragedy, so that the families may be comforted.
With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see right.