SALON

Friday, Apr 19, 2013 12:00 AM UTC

How to honor the victims of a national tragedy

After catastrophes like Newtown and Boston, we can't let ourselves get swept up in the media circuses that follow

By

Topics: Boston Marathon, Boston Bombings, Disaster Porn, Newtown, Boston, Sandy Hook Shootings

How to honor the victims of a national tragedyA Boston police officer wheels in injured boy down Boylston Street as medical workers carry an injured runner following an explosion during the 2013 Boston Marathon. (Credit: AP/Charles Krupa)

Can you hear yourself think? Can you manage more than bursts of confusion and anger? Can you feel your own humanity anymore? I’ll admit it: I’ve had trouble this week, too. After an explosion like the one in Boston, it is indeed hard to hear one’s own internal monologue, much less meditate on such horrific events. Polluting that sacred quiet of the mind is both the haunting boom of the bombs themselves and even worse, the noisy coda that we’ve become so accustomed to.

Sensory overload, of course, is the deafening effect of the Catastrophe Aftermath, one of the last unifying and consistent rituals in our atomized nation. Yes, regardless of whether the tragedy is a school shooting or a terrorist attack, the epilogues of these now-constant mass casualty events have become prepackaged productions that seem less like reality than scripted television dramas.

You know how it goes. Cable outlets blare breaking news chyrons. Twitter explodes with declarations that we are “all from (insert city name) today.” Websites post videos of viscera and other disaster porn. Pundits wildly speculate about perpetrators. The president promises justice. Law enforcement press conferences review body counts. Municipal officials insist the community will “stand united.” Funerals commence. A media icon says something outrageous. Other media carnival barkers then react to the bombast. Ultimately, the whole episode becomes another excuse to limit civil liberties and is forgotten by all but those personally affected.

In submitting to this automated formula, a screen-addicted nation has created a distracting defense mechanism, one that further dehumanizes events, which are already, by definition, an assault on our humanity. In the process, we make it more difficult to muster the soul’s ability — and, perhaps, desire — for genuine reflection.

At this point in a column published during the official Catastrophe Aftermath, a writer is supposed to authoritatively offer solutions. But I have none. And you know what? That’s OK because it is entirely human to lack answers right now. All I can offer up are thoughts that shouldn’t be drowned out by the noise.

One is about context. The images from Boston are not merely of mayhem and heroism. With the attack occurring on the day our taxes are due, they should remind a tax-hostile country of the value of public investment — in this case, in first responders who miraculously limited the casualties. They should also generate a sense of sympathy for those in places like Iraq and Syria who face terrorism-related carnage every day.

Another thought is about fear. At one level, it is appropriate. With our country’s wars increasing the possibility of retributive blowback, with the Department of Homeland Security recognizing the threat of domestic anti-government terrorism, and with a heavily armed society not addressing its mental health crisis, we should (unfortunately) expect periodic massacres. But at another level, fear shouldn’t consume us; after all, terrorism is still on the decline worldwide.

Still another thought is about people. The Boston bomber reminds us of the cliché that people suck. But the many who ran toward the blast to save lives remind us that most people do not suck.

One final thought: I arrived at these not-so-profound revelations only when I shut off the screen and opted for introspection instead of the false comfort of flashing pixels. I did this because, as security expert Bruce Schneier suggests, terrorism “is a crime against the mind,” and therefore one way to combat it is to immerse the mind in a bit of silence. Doing so denies the terrorists their desired glory, allows for the consideration of unanswerable questions and, thus, lets one remember what it means to be truly alive.

That may be the best — if not the only — way to honor the dead and find meaning in such a senseless atrocity.

David Sirota

David Sirota is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and the best-selling author of the books "Hostile Takeover," "The Uprising" and "Back to Our Future." E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com. More David Sirota.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • This photo. President Barack Obama has a laugh during the unveiling of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Tx., Thursday. Former first lady Barbara Bush, who candidly admitted this week we've had enough Bushes in the White House, is unamused.
    Reuters/Jason Reed

  • Rescue workers converge Wednesday in Savar, Bangladesh, where the collapse of a garment building killed more than 300. Factory owners had ignored police orders to vacate the work site the day before.
    AP/A.M. Ahad

  • Police gather Wednesday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to honor campus officer Sean Collier, who was allegedly killed in a shootout with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects last week.
    AP/Elise Amendola

  • Police tape closes the site of a car bomb that targeted the French embassy in Libya Tuesday. The explosion wounded two French guards and caused extensive damage to Tripoli's upscale al-Andalus neighborhood.
    AP/Abdul Majeed Forjani

  • Protestors rage outside the residence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday following the rape of a 5-year-old girl in New Delhi. The girl was allegedly kidnapped and tortured before being abandoned in a locked room for two days.
    AP/Manish Swarup

  • Clarksville, Mo., residents sit in a life boat Monday after a Mississippi River flooding, the 13th worst on record.
    AP/Jeff Roberson

  • Workers pause Wednesday for a memorial service at the site of the West, Tx., fertilizer plant explosion, which killed 14 people and left a crater more than 90 feet wide.
    AP/The San Antonio Express-News, Tom Reel

  • Aerial footage of the devastation following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in China's Sichuan province last Saturday. At least 180 people were killed and as many as 11,000 injured in the quake.
    AP/Liu Yinghua

  • On Wednesday, Hazmat-suited federal authorities search a martial arts studio in Tupelo, Miss., once operated by Everett Dutschke, the newest lead in the increasingly twisty ricin case. Last week, President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker, R.-Miss., and a Mississippi judge were each sent letters laced with the deadly poison.
    AP/Rogelio V. Solis

  • The lighting of Freedom Hall at the George W. Bush Presidential Center Thursday is celebrated with (what else but) red, white and blue fireworks.
    AP/David J. Phillip

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 94 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Would we give up burgers to stop climate change? New study suggests if we reduce our intake of animal products by 25%, we can halt climate change
644 points645 points | 272 comments
vote
Facebook has been used to find ex-lovers, childhood BFFs or the one who got away. He used it to find the guy who, without his consent, made him his drug mule.
237 points238 points | 22 comments
vote
“This could be a career ender for Michele Bachmann”
147 points148 points | 62 comments
vote
Poll: 3 in 10 voters say “armed revolution might be necessary” - 29% say they believe they'll have to act "in order to protect our liberties" in the next few years
46 points47 points | 16 comments
vote
Capitalism, not feminism, killed home cooking–and fixing our broken food system is gonna take a lot more than some privileged women embracing “new domesticity”
32 points33 points | 19 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "The Shelter Cycle": Raised in a cult

Recommendations