![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"'There are plenty of good reasons for fighting,' I said, 'but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive.
'It's that part of an imbecile,' I said, 'that punishes and vilifies and makes war gladly.'"
--Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night
As of 8:55PM, I have officially avoided all things 9/11. I've boycotted television and avoided people wearing cheery patriotic teeshirts, and I'm sitting at home typing this instead of attending what will undoubtedly be a very moving candlelight vigil on the Diag (although to be perfectly honest, the major reason I'm here rather than there is that I couldn't find anyone to go with me; one of my favorite profs is speaking tonight, and I wouldn't at all mind hearing what he has to say). The only 9/11 commentary I've heard at all was playing on a radio at the store where I bought my new Converse All-Stars today.
I have very mixed feelings about this. I understand that I'm a hypocrite, that we're all hypocrites in one way or another, but the massive hypocrisy of our nation's outrage, the insane number of innocent lives taken in the name of vengeance... it's just too much. I cannot with good conscience take part in the collective mourning, because it seems to me more like a celebration of Us against Them, Good against Evil, and embracing such a monochramatic viewpoint opens the way for more innocent lives taken, more bloody vengeance, more self-righteousness on the part of a country I am often ashamed to call my own.
The bombing that took the lives of 5,000 people last year was a tragedy, I agree, but I don't see any candlelight vigils held for the thousands and thousands of people we've killed since then in the name of vengeance and justice. I don't see mainstream outrage on behalf of the people indirectly killed by sanctions imposed so we can have cheaper gas. It bothers me that the great majority of people in this country seem to think that American lives are the only lives that matter.
So I'm staying home, updating LJ and doing homework instead of mourning with what I suspect will be a sizable fraction of the University community. The TV will stay off, and I will continue in my quest to abstain from self-righteousness. Later, I'll smoke pot with Shoshana and pretend to be just another disaffected college student. Maybe I even will be. It's a pathetic protest, I know, but it's the only protest I know how to make.
'It's that part of an imbecile,' I said, 'that punishes and vilifies and makes war gladly.'"
--Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night
As of 8:55PM, I have officially avoided all things 9/11. I've boycotted television and avoided people wearing cheery patriotic teeshirts, and I'm sitting at home typing this instead of attending what will undoubtedly be a very moving candlelight vigil on the Diag (although to be perfectly honest, the major reason I'm here rather than there is that I couldn't find anyone to go with me; one of my favorite profs is speaking tonight, and I wouldn't at all mind hearing what he has to say). The only 9/11 commentary I've heard at all was playing on a radio at the store where I bought my new Converse All-Stars today.
I have very mixed feelings about this. I understand that I'm a hypocrite, that we're all hypocrites in one way or another, but the massive hypocrisy of our nation's outrage, the insane number of innocent lives taken in the name of vengeance... it's just too much. I cannot with good conscience take part in the collective mourning, because it seems to me more like a celebration of Us against Them, Good against Evil, and embracing such a monochramatic viewpoint opens the way for more innocent lives taken, more bloody vengeance, more self-righteousness on the part of a country I am often ashamed to call my own.
The bombing that took the lives of 5,000 people last year was a tragedy, I agree, but I don't see any candlelight vigils held for the thousands and thousands of people we've killed since then in the name of vengeance and justice. I don't see mainstream outrage on behalf of the people indirectly killed by sanctions imposed so we can have cheaper gas. It bothers me that the great majority of people in this country seem to think that American lives are the only lives that matter.
So I'm staying home, updating LJ and doing homework instead of mourning with what I suspect will be a sizable fraction of the University community. The TV will stay off, and I will continue in my quest to abstain from self-righteousness. Later, I'll smoke pot with Shoshana and pretend to be just another disaffected college student. Maybe I even will be. It's a pathetic protest, I know, but it's the only protest I know how to make.
