It's Nobel Stupdity Week. (aka comparing tragedies)

[mimartin]

Subjectively, I would agree. Objectively, I disagree.

I agree with your statement. Doris Lessing stated her subjective opinion the IRA attacks in England were worst and I subjective disagree that September 11 was worst, but objectively there have been a lot more tragic events then either of them.

 

Good point SilentScope001. I don’t like the fact that financial consideration make an event more or less tragic, but that is the way of things.

 

I agree with jmac7142, to me time is a irrelevant factor.

[lukeiamyourdad]

I agree with jmac7142, to me time is a irrelevant factor.

 

 

If it's more or less tragic, I don't know, but if time can change the impact on people, yes.

 

Pavlos explained how the state of paranoia can be. You can look at the Israel/Palestine situation too. It's been an ongoing war and kids have been brought up in the middle of it. They've been born to hate each other. The impact on the societies involved is much greater. After all, relations between Muslims and Americans or IRA and the British aren't at that level.

 

 

 

Why should it matter if people are killed over the course of several years compared to a day? Suppose the the 3000 people killed in 9/11 were killed over the course of a week. Can you honestly say that the extra 6 days it takes for those 3000 people to be killed will significantly change the impact their deaths will have on the world?

 

 

You speak of years vs. one day, then present an example of one day vs. one week. Huh?

 

The impact might not change much if it was one week vs. one day. It wouldn't change much if it was two events, killing 1500 with 30 years between them. However, if they, the terrorists, can maintain a state of terror, killing 3-4, injuring many others, every month, for 30 years, the psychological impact on the people is very different. Of course, I'm talking about the locals, on the world as a whole, I hardly think that the conflict between the IRA and Britain greatly affected the lives of the people living in Vladivostok.

 

What's the point? Time is a relevant factor, but not on its own.

 

Still, every single event is unique and playing which one is the bigger one, my wing-wing is better then yours, is totally stupid. Besides, what is worse? On what scale do we judge what event is worse then the other? Number of heads who died? The long-term impact? The effect on the world? Too many factors, too many variables involved. A waste of time trying to figure it out. It's better to consider every event as its own and analyze it as such, not vs. any other.

 

 

EDIT: In terms of world politics, there's probably no denial that 9/11 does have a bigger impact, but only in terms of world politics. As far as I know, there's no great ethnic hate between American Muslims and the other Americans.

[Web Rider]

Ok, thats taking it a little too far and if you are going to quote me do it right instead of putting in what you want to hear. I will report you next time you do it. You have been warned. But you brought up a good enough point that I'll still debate with you for the time being.

if that is what you must do.

 

Yes, human suffering sucks. But, unfortunately, there are different levels of human suffering. Yes, it is horrible for a mother to have lost her child in 9/11. It will scar you for life and many never, ever get over it. But they still have a chance to move onto the next day and carry that one fear and one loss in their heart. Another mother in another country may have seen her child raped and killed in front of her while her husband lay bleeding in the corner from a bullet to the head, followed by her being pulled off to an internment camp. Both are terrible loses, but I'd still put my money on the second woman suffering more than the first. Both children are loses, and in the mothers eyes equal loses but there are degrees of suffering that follow. One can visit the site of her sons grave, mourn, and then go to the comfort of her home while the other cries in a corner over her child with the thought of possible not making it out alive herself by morning.

 

Besides, think about it. It may be a loss for them but how big of a loss is it for you? You don't know either of them and it is only when you are thinking about it that you probably really care about both of those children dying. While 9/11 was happening, people were already dying in sudan. Were you thinking about them, or the attacks on the twin towers on September 11th?

 

A death is a death. You are absolutely right. But some deaths have more effect on an individual society than they do across the world as a whole. They are still dead, and that is still tragic, but there are people that still care about an American dying than an Iraqi.

 

Another example:

I shoot the president.

I shoot a poor homeless child in an African slum.

 

Which one do you think the world is going to care about more? will the African child be all over the news or the death of the President? By some morals, they are equal. By the media and modern day society, the president matters more.

 

There are deaths going on right now and I can honestly say I do not care about them until they are someone of importance. If I think really hard, I realize people die every second of every minute. If I concentrated on every single one of those deaths and mourned equally for all of them... my mind would cave in on itself and I'd be looking for the nearest gun to jam in my mouth.

 

I don't know about you. You may have the ability to feel for every human that dies every single day. I, personally, could never handle that so I applaud you on your infinitely large heart and wish that more people like you could live day by day.

 

*Gives you a standing ovation.*

No, I don't have the ability to care for all those people, my only point was is that you can't dismiss any given kind of suffering, even if it's not as great as some other suffering. Suffering is part of being human, and when you dismiss one person's suffering, you are essentially saying that person doesn't matter.

 

Yes, there are horrible things going on in Africa, horrible things I can do nothing about. And while I feel bad for those people, I feel worse for people closer to me, even if they're on the other side of my country. I don't think it's right to put some country, horrible situation it may be in and all, ahead of caring for your own country. It's part of why I don't like cultural relativism and a number of other modern liberal concepts.

 

Who is important is dependent on the person you are asking. My mother is more important to me than the president. In fact my cousin who I barely know is more important to me than every elected official in the country. Someone else may say just the opposite. All I'm saying is that even if you feel that X suffering is more important than Y suffering, you can't dismiss it as irrelevant.

 

Do I need to restate my belief that time is irrelevant factor?

no, because you are wrong.

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

You speak of years vs. one day, then present an example of one day vs. one week. Huh?

I can edit it to a time frame of your choice if you'd like.

 

 

no, because you are wrong.

oh ok.

[lukeiamyourdad]

I can edit it to a time frame of your choice if you'd like.

 

 

It's only a question of comparing what's comparable.

 

In fact, as I pointed in an earlier post, editing the time would change something.

 

You have not refuted any arguments against yours, you're just there, saying your point is flawless, adding nothing more, not even trying to defend it.

 

EDIT: Frankly, this is it, I won't reply to anything related to time being relevant or irrelevant unless it contains some kind of more serious argumentation.

[Corinthian]

Are you seriously having a debate about which tragedy is the worst? World War II. 62,000,000 dead, approximately, uncountable numbers wounded, massive devastation across almost all of Europe and Asia. And if you want 'By Day', WW2 probably still tops the list with, on average, 28000 dead per day.

[mimartin]

If it's more or less tragic, I don't know, but if time can change the impact on people, yes.

I stand corrected time can make a difference in how people perceive an event (include as I posted earlier the time the victims have been alive). I was speaking more to the point that time does not make one victim more important or less important than the next.

 

I can see where time would make a difference, but it does not in my opinion make preventable and unnecessary deaths any less tragic. Example: Person A is inject with an incurable disease and will die in the future. Person B is shot in the head. Person C is raped repeatedly before being stabbed to death over a 10 day period. Person D is a three year old starves to death?

 

Which is more tragic? Is person A cursed or lucky to get a chance to say goodbye to their loved ones, but has to live with the fact that he/she will die? Is person B lucky that it was over quickly? Person C had a chance to live ten days longer than B, is that person lucky? Does the fact that D only lived a short time make it more tragic?

 

So I will agree with you that time can make a difference, but to me it is not an important component in judging a tragedy. I feel familiarity and circumstance are more important than time. The only time I look at is the age of the victims.

 

By the way I’m not debating which is more tragic. I’m saying it is up to each individual to decide which is more tragic to them. To me there is no wrong answer as every real example on this page is tragic.

[Point Man]

I would ask Doris Lessing to say that to the families of those who died. As mimartin pointed out, when the loss is close to you, it is devastating.

[Totenkopf]

At the objective level there are obvious traits that serve to make some events more tragic than others. These would include things like the time factor, circumstances that surround the event and the scope of death and destruction. So while a single family member's death may have greater impact on you personally than what happens across the globe (wars/famines/tsunamis), it doesn't make your loss a great tragedy, just a personal one (as painful as it might be). If someone exploded an H-Bomb over Tokyo tomorrow, I'm sure it would be considered far more tragic and catastrophic than the sum of all deaths/injuries/destroyed property in the 30 years of IRA terror cited by Lessing (or for that matter so far in the "war on terror"), even though it occurred in the span of a lazy afternoon.

[Corinthian]

True. But that makes sense. If someone nuked Tokyo, it'd result in the deaths of millions, cripple further millions, and put Japan's economy into the hole. As devastating as Terrorism can be, it wouldn't even scratch the surface of that.

[El Sitherino]

What's the point? Time is a relevant factor, but not on its own.

 

 

The point people are missing is time has no impact on the tragedy of an event, simply the terror. A death is a tragedy, many deaths is a terrifying tragedy. The lingering feeling of death on the horizon is traumatizing, a tragic state but no tragedy itself.

 

And if you want to bring up the lingering feeling of death, then many people feel that no matter where they grow up. Be it Sudan or some ghetto in "civilized" US.

 

Globally neither makes any difference. Single events are the attention getters. And to counter one single event of a rather consistent ideological war with another is a foolish arguement. It's personal emotional rubbish.

 

"My sister's boyfriend beating her is more disturbing than yours because *..."

 

Not to pick you out of the lot LIAYD, your's was simply the first post I came across to bring up this point.

 

I personally do not see how anything can be debated in this topic.

[True_Avery]

The point people are missing is time has no impact on the tragedy of an event, simply the terror. A death is a tragedy, many deaths is a terrifying tragedy. The lingering feeling of death on the horizon is traumatizing, a tragic state but no tragedy itself.

I think thats the best summary of my feelings on this so far.

[tk102]

I personally do not see how anything can be debated in this topic.

Yet we love to jibber jabber. I've updated the thread title to better reflect the topic. It's kind of different topic-- whether tragedy is objective or subjective in nature, how time-intensive or extensive a tragedy is, etc.

[Web Rider]

I personally do not see how anything can be debated in this topic.

 

too often we get caught up in looking for some kind of end-all answer when a topic comes up. Sometimes it's nice to just express your opinion and hear what other people think of a given subject. You might learn something, you might not, that's life.

[lukeiamyourdad]

(1)The point people are missing is time has no impact on the tragedy of an event, simply the terror. A death is a tragedy, many deaths is a terrifying tragedy. The lingering feeling of death on the horizon is traumatizing, a tragic state but no tragedy itself.

 

(2)And if you want to bring up the lingering feeling of death, then many people feel that no matter where they grow up. Be it Sudan or some ghetto in "civilized" US.

 

(3)Globally neither makes any difference. Single events are the attention getters. And to counter one single event of a rather consistent ideological war with another is a foolish arguement. It's personal emotional rubbish.

 

"My sister's boyfriend beating her is more disturbing than yours because *..."

 

Not to pick you out of the lot LIAYD, your's was simply the first post I came across to bring up this point.

 

I personally do not see how anything can be debated in this topic.

 

1- Well, the post I was responding too, spoke of the impact on the world and time not being a factor. Time can change the impact, it makes it a whole different event or global situation. I agree that whether it makes something more tragic or not, it changes nothing simply because, as I've stated, you can't judge how tragic an event is. It's entirely subjective and we agree on this.

 

2- Ghetto violence everywhere around the world is very different then terrorism which is what the two situations being compare have in common, the only thing they have in common as a matter of facts. The poor, unfortunately, live with this fear and can somehow survive in it. Against terrorist fear, it's a different situation. I guess the only way I can elaborate on this before I think more about it is how ghetto violence doesn't cause as much collateral damage as terrorism does, knowing that a terror bombing actually wants to get as many as possible. I guess the randomness, the idea of dying without any kind of warning whatsoever makes it more powerful to the people.

 

 

3- We absolutely agree on this. It's pointless, it's a question of personal subjectivity. There's no wrong answer when it comes to opinions.

 

And yes, history books will record attention grabbers more then other events.

 

 

 

 

I think there was some confusion, perhaps on my part, on what tragedy is considered here. I guess I was trying to simply analyze the event based on the impact it had on the societies involved. The impact of an event is something that can be observed but the "tragic level" is something that, in my views and I have seen nothing to make me believe otherwise, cannot be measured objectively.

 

Why do I speak of societies involved? The people in Vladivostok weren't affected by the IRA-England war, neither were they affected by the Tsunami. As cold as it sounds, regular Russian guy doesn't give a rat's ass. He might have heard of it in the news, but beyond that, he can't really cry for the deaths, unless he has friends or family involved. So trying to put this on a global level is not very possible.

[El Sitherino]

2- Ghetto violence everywhere around the world is very different then terrorism which is what the two situations being compare have in common, the only thing they have in common as a matter of facts. The poor, unfortunately, live with this fear and can somehow survive in it. Against terrorist fear, it's a different situation. I guess the only way I can elaborate on this before I think more about it is how ghetto violence doesn't cause as much collateral damage as terrorism does, knowing that a terror bombing actually wants to get as many as possible. I guess the randomness, the idea of dying without any kind of warning whatsoever makes it more powerful to the people.

 

Gang war is in fact no different than "terrorist" attacks. They're one in the same, people spreading fear to a group of people. Gangs in ghettos are basically urban terrorists. Drive-bys may not be a bombing but they're a very random and destructive event. Many times the intended target isn't even the most damaged. Anyone that's ever been in a drive-by is always alert for the possibility that at any given moment someone in a car may decide to suddenly unleash a barrage of ammunition at anything standing in it's way.

People ignore these things because it's just a bunch of "dumb niggers and spics, etc." shooting eachother up. But the truth of the matters is it's no different than a bunch of "micks and abs" bombing some building.

 

People die, people get hurt, and most often in large amounts.

[lukeiamyourdad]

Gang war is in fact no different than "terrorist" attacks. They're one in the same, people spreading fear to a group of people. Gangs in ghettos are basically urban terrorists. Drive-bys may not be a bombing but they're a very random and destructive event. Many times the intended target isn't even the most damaged. Anyone that's ever been in a drive-by is always alert for the possibility that at any given moment someone in a car may decide to suddenly unleash a barrage of ammunition at anything standing in it's way.

People ignore these things because it's just a bunch of "dumb niggers and spics, etc." shooting eachother up.

 

 

I know this is a bit late, but I wanted to take some time to reflect on the matter and I still consider the two events very different.

 

I admit that I didn't think about drive-bys but even so, there are key differences between a terrorist bombing and gang war event. One has a goal of maximizing collateral while the drive-by might not.

 

I also wanted to mention how terrorism affects anyone regardless of social status. Although it is a particularity of western countries and not a worldwide absolute. Terrorism does target the middle and rich classes of society while gang violence might never affect those people.

 

 

But the truth of the matters is it's no different than a bunch of "micks and abs" bombing some building.

 

People die, people get hurt, and most often in large amounts.

 

If you strip something down to its basic, any comparison can be made. Another great difference is the inclusion of an ideological and/or national conflict. There's no real conflict of ideas in gang violence. Whether there's an actual conflict between, in this case, Islam and Liberal democracy, I don't think so, but it is used and a radical idea of Islam does help recruit and motivate terrorists. In the case of the IRA, there's also conflicting ideologies involved. As such, fear generated by terrorism is as much physical one as an intellectual one. That gives it more weight on people's psyche.

 

It also attacks symbols and there's a emotional attachment from the people to these symbols which gives it yet another layer of effect.

 

 

Again, I'm not saying that one is a bigger tragedy then another, just that the impact of one is far greater on the general populace then the other. I think that gang violence is a much more important matter to deal with in the United States simply because it has claimed much more innocent lives and it underlines great social inequities in the country, but a terrorist attack seems to have affected America at a much greater level.