Titular Comparatives
“...Everything is repeated, in a circle. History is a master because it teaches us that it doesn't exist. It's the permutations that matter.” - from Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco.
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What happened just over two years ago in New York City was, in the most sincerely unfortunate terms, not a new thing. In fact, it was perhaps the oldest story in the world. Or the only story in the world, from a particular point of view.
But if I am to take Umberto Eco at his literal word, which I am often inclined to do for no other reason than Eco is often inclined to literally (and literarily) describe in exhaustive detail the abstractions and symbols with which humanity conducts its own history, the destruction of the Twin Towers and the resulting loss of life has happened countless times. Only the names, places and dates are specific.
So as I read the visceral vicissitudes of some of my blogging compatriots, the dogmatical bleatings of others, the syncretic imagery of those who have used remembrance of the 9-11 Tragedy (11-9 Tragedy for you non-Americans) as a sort of Zazen Wall, I am left to wonder: why is it that racial, cultural, political profiling so comes into play almost universally among all those commentators? The unspoken presentiment among them is simply this: American lives matter more.
None of the remembrances I have read actually come out and say this, of course, preferring instead to fly the sentiment under the banner of Innocence. Innocent Victims. Loss of Innocent Life. In a very intense way, I take offense to anyone who is alive and who participates in the world being described as an Innocent. None of us is an Innocent. All of us participate. All of us are accountable, either for our outright offenses or our indirect passivity, in the matters of the world. What we rail on about is the application of Effect only to a few, when Cause comes from all of us.
Innocence, in the context here hides its offensiveness by parading around in its uncapitalized (uncapitalised, for you non-American English-speakers) form, hiding its Essence in Accident and flying dogma in under the radar.
I do not grieve for the dead I did not know, do not know. I cannot bring myself to reduce the death of another to an apposite display of my own supposed depths. But while I do not grieve (as grief is an intensely personal matter), I do lament. Such lamentations are so profound and consuming, I'm often left feeling soul-scorched.
However, I lament in equal measure the callousness of destructive acts in general, and the seeming inability of humans to stop the swinging back and forth of a pendulum that rather resembles a mace.
We do not live in a vacuum, so the pendulum must be subject to some friction. And being subject to friction, energy must be added to the system to maintain its eternal periodicity.
We humans supply that energy, matching violence with violence, using the death of Innocents (when really, we simply resent the ongoing absence of Innocence) as an excuse for Extraordinary Behavior. We don't call it vengeance, because much as we thrill to the cinematic seductiveness of war, much as we bask in the soul-palliative glow of righteous indignation, to admit we are vengeful is to admit our own immaturity.
Long past are the days of eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth. No, today we require not even a smoking gun, only the suggestion thereof. Today it's eye-and-a-tooth-for-an-eye, because we just know they'd get around to taking a tooth “if you let 'em”. Which hands any of “Them” yet another Excuse for Extraordinary Behavior. Ad infinitum, ad nauseum, ad libido.
I know I will have offended some, but there are forms of personal violence far worse than being offended. And remember that I have been offended by you. And in knowing that, which would you choose: call me out on my offensiveness as a means of restoring balance, or expend that energy instead understanding how you have offended me? Have I given you an Excuse for Extraordinary Behavior?