Posted by alexandra_k on September 14, 2013, at 21:22:36
In reply to Re: Patriot Day - please never forget » Partlycloudy, posted by 10derheart on September 11, 2013, at 20:46:36
> One of the most disconcerting parts for me is that I am - every year - more furious than sad. Still after 12 years when I hear the stories and look at pics again I want to do violence myself. I think of those 19 "men" and want to do terrible things....don't know to whom,,,,but I feel downright murderous myself that any humans would plan and do this to innocents....and for what idk....
> Which is of course, prob normal, natural and irrational and "wrong" all at the same time.> What a sickening, crap day that was.
Yes, it was a sickening, crap day.
I don't know if you want to hear this, so ignore it if it doesn't help (for real).
I feel a lot more sad and a lot less angry when I consider things from the other perspective.
Focusing on how one might feel if one heard about a wedding party being bombed, for instance.
This isn't at all to take anything away from the awful pain and horror experienced by those who suffered. But to place it more in the context of awful pain and horror and suffering experienced by people all around the globe through different points in history.
There is work that has been done on the idea of a 'culture of honor'. How you get conflicts that persist through the generations... And there isn't a common understanding of who started doing what to whom, just retaliation after retaliation after retailiation. Hurting people do have this urge to lash out. So do dogs. So do the chimps. One of the things that is so very distinctive about human beings is that our better developed frontal lobes allow us to have increased impulse control. To prevent our killing things even when we are (often rightly enough) sorely tempted.
OTOH our impulse control also enables us to devise ever more sophisticated and planned out ways of inflicting pain and suffering on others. Sigh. The world sucks an awful lot of the time. It is true.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1050476
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20130914/msgs/1050680.html