(no subject)

[commodorified]

So, seriously, when did it start to be socially acceptable and even normal to greet the news of someone's death by convening an inquiry on the spot to decide whether they "deserve" sympathy or not?

Ok, actually, forget that question. how do we make it stop?

Comments

[kindkit]

Hmmm, I think there's lot of difference between expressed lack of sympathy for someone who was personally harmless but died because of their own error (e.g. a climber or your example below of the person who had a plumbing accident) and for someone who did notable harm. I was disgusted at the outpouring of nil nisi bonum platitudes in the US when Richard Nixon died, for example, and I'm not sure that the death of a Pol Pot calls for anyone's sympathy. Similarly, to use a non-political example, I was a bit shocked when, after Michael Jackson's death, some people reacted with outrage to any mention of the child molestation accusations against him, on the grounds that he was dead now and you don't say mean things about dead people.

[aris_tgd]

Oh dear blessed typewriters, didn't she just ask you to stop?

[commodorified]

Merci, mon ami. Had I known you were coming, I'd have saved myself a longish comment.

[kindkit]

. . . I interpreted the post and subsequent comments as allowing for discussion.

commodorified, if I was wrong about that and have offended you, I apologize.

[commodorified]

1) I thought it was really really obvious that I was talking about a) not b).

2) More like 'arguably by their own fault' - the world is full of people who will cheerfully - literally - tell you all about deaths that take place in the course of activities they do not themselves understand.

3a) Had Nixon died in a horrible accident I wouldn't have mourned him, but I wouldn't have gone around announcing that anyone who does X activity deserves what they get, either.

3b) Actually, having cheerfully excoriated Nixon, frex, up one side and down the other for *years*, I was okay with taking a few days off so his friends and family could bury him. If someone is genuinely vile, there's relatively little chance they're gong to completely rehabilitate themselves by kicking the bucket. I don't much go for nil nisi bonum</>, but that ought properly to apply to serious evaluations of a person's legacy, not games of "let's make the mourners feel even WORSE."

[kindkit]

Sorry, I mistook your meaning and responded in a way that offended you. I apologize.

[commodorified]

Thank you for that and fwiw I wasn't offended and am not angry. Just really touchy about anyone Going There, you know?

ETA: Though do give some thought as to how and why you got from "why have people apparently completely forgotten how to act in the face of tragedy and death" to "But POL POT!" in one step?

Whataboutery is bad for the general discourse and for the blood pressure, both.