Tragedy is something our society tries to escape and ignore. As Americans we believe we are impervious to disaster. We too often ignore misfortune as a part of reality.
We erroneously believe that human suffering happens only in the third world. No tsunamis here; our government will protect us, right? It can't happen here, television says so and helps us to ignore. Disaster is deemed to lie beyond modern American experience.
But it is a part of our experience. Too often adversity strikes from a simple plan orchestrated with uncomplicated means, or it is directly caused by nature. When catastrophe does come crashing into our homes and every day lives, we become shocked and disillusioned.
Instead of coping, we place blame to escape. We turn sadness into anger.
We have trouble believing that only one man might have actually assassinated the President by simply shooting him from a window. It must be the result of a vast conspiracy.
If a devastating hurricane destroys a city established in a swamp that lies below sea level, many blame the federal government for the resulting disaster. Spike Lee's recent "documentary" shows some people who implicitly suggest that the levees were deliberately dynamited. There is no way to hold back nature, there never was and there never will be. This does not mitigate the horrible human disaster, but it is all right to grieve those lost and attempt to lessen future disasters.
It is not all right to place blame where it does not belong.
We fallaciously convince ourselves that terror does not come in simple doses, but is a result of complex scheming and unseen forces. Every time calamity strikes, we create conspiracy theories to cover the unknown facts. These elaborate stories root themselves more often than not in the federal government.
Recently, ABC aired a mini-series sketching the history of the Sept. 11 attacks. The story shows that both the Clinton and Bush administrations made mistakes that allowed the attacks to transpire. An unflattering depiction of Clinton made the poor guy really gloomy. He and others were so unhappy that they asked ABC to pull the series because it was Bush's fault, remember? Michael Moore told us so two years ago.
Hindsight bias gives some the luxury of placing blame on individuals that do not deserve to have it. The attacks on the morning of Sept. 11 were not the consequence of Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan, Carter or any other president. They were the result of a simple plan carried out by a handful of wicked men following a nefarious ideology. This malevolent dogma may have been developed as a response to Western dealings, but is not a direct result of these actions.
Some will say that the current administration has used 9/11 as a pretext for military action abroad. Essentially I agree with both with the aforementioned belief and with foreign intervention.
Here is why:
Bad teachers think that vomiting information on students is the best way for them to learn (think multiple choice tests). Like throwing seeds at cement, growth will not happen on unfertile ground. The best teachers create an environment for students to learn and then provide them raw materials to do this (think essay tests).
Education is an individual responsibility.
Extremist ideology is the result of corrupt governments and philosophies that use natural anger, derived from impoverished conditions, to achieve an end. Foreign intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan is an attempt to make the ground fertile for democracy and growth. It is not the American policy to destroy civilians abroad - just their malicious leaders and components. However, killing civilians was the intent of the hijackers. Remember that this week.
Chris Flook is a graduate student and writes 'Just Listen' for the Daily News. His views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper.
Write to Chris at caflook@bsu.edu.
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