Let’s say you were a teen girl growing up in a working class section of Wrexham in 1981. Your dad’s on the dole and beats your mum while drunk, the country is in a recession, overall not a lot good going on for you. Royalty in your country has always been these stodgy weird looking people. Then comes a young (relatively) pretty woman who is now your princess, and maybe you feel better about yourself and things, and maybe this gives you hope that you can have a future outside your neighborhood. A bit later on, she dies tragically, unncessarily. You feel devastated and your dreams maybe now are shot. So you have nothing else, and you cling to the tragedy surrounding this death.
Logical or sensible to most- no- me either. But its certainly understandable. JFK’s death had a similar effect on many in U S and A, are speculation about him still pops up 40 years later.
I think I may see some daylight here. I think you mean that you didn’t know the people who died in 9/11 or 7/ etc, so that while the EVENT may have far reaching repercussions, the actual people involved (and their lives) do not. It is the opposite with Diana: while the EVENT of her death is nothing (whoever said upthread, drunk driving + no seatbelt=death is absolutely correct), since she was so well known,* her actual death has far reaching repercussions for those who admired her.* Note I do NOT say that her death has far reaching repercussions of global proportions. (although, given her celebrity-which was unprecedented-she may well have been able to influence policy for many years to come).
I think there is some talking at cross purposes here. I don’t think Bairn is saying that 9/11 was LESS important in world affairs than Diana’s death. I think he means that the people who died, while missed terribly by those who loved them, and also remembered for the tragic deaths-those falling bodies I won’t forget in a hurry–the individuals who did die in 9/11 had less influence than Diana. That does NOT make their deaths less important. It makes the “public grief” for those lost more inexplicable. We just had a thread about the discomfort felt by some for the same ceremony to be held each year to honor the dead of 9/11. It is also time for that aspect of 9/11 to move on.
But I think that Bairn is confusing something. When those here state that 9/11 is obviously more important that Diana’s death, they mean the political, military and global impact that single event had. Compared to that, Diana’s death is a mere blip. There is NO comparison.
But for those who still grieve for Diana, her death seems to be more a personal loss (whether they knew her or not). The world lost an icon that day-whether you cared for her or couldn’t stand her–and what is most important here: another has not yet risen to take her place. My money is on the poor woman who says “yes” to Prince William. Whoever that is, she will be immediately compared to Diana and the “games” will begin anew.
IMO, I think that we should allow Diana to rest in peace-this coverage is both morbid and disgusting. The concert for charity this summer most likely stirred up most of this. I admire Diana for her charity work-she not only held AIDS babies, but she touched lepers and visited the sick in many countries.
She was a complicated woman thrown into an impossible situation and role-who could measure up? She was not an intellectual by any stretch of the term, and she could be at times a media/attention whore. IOW, she was human. I think people vilify her because she was so ordinary. That’s fine, but I think also that those who truly do mourn her (I am not one), should be allowed to do so. What I don’t understand is the picking over of the corpse–one would think that those who can’t get enough of Diana would (by now) realize that it’s the same story, again and again.
Oh, and FYI, Wee Bairn–people wear the T shirts to express solidarity and a sense of community. I think humans also have some degree of superstition and it is natural to think to oneself: this is the exact corner where that woman was raped-creepy. (or whatever-just an example). Afterall, tourism is built on just such a feeling: to stand where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake; to stand on the battlefield of Gettysburg or Ardenne–places where tragedies happen do tend to evoke emotions even in those with no connection to them.
eleanorigby, yes, you pretty much get what I’m going for, and I get your views as well. The one point I don’t agree on is that the majority of people who still go on about 9/11, I do not believe do so becasue of the global ramifications of it- I doubt many could tell you what the ramifications even are. Most IMO do so for the sympathy bit- “give me sympathy, I was 30 blocks from 9/11, I saw smoke and it smelled bad. I was THERE, man, you have no idea what I went through that day, having to walk 6 miles back home to Oakland Gardens cause the LIRR wasn’t running that day.”
I was in Atlanta some years ago and could not believe the amount of construction going on. I mentioned it to a local and he said to me: “Didn’t you hear? Sherman burned Atlanta…”
An extremely wealthy and priveledged woman marries someone who’s even more priveledged and wealthy, and that’s supposed to give a bunch of dolists hope? That’s the sort of “reasoning” that makes one look back fondly on Bolshevism.
I have not experienced anything like that. I have seen people, when 9/11 has been mocked (there was a Doper Pitted here not long ago about this very subject), react by telling their stories of where they were that day. My parents can do the same for when Pearl Harbor was attacked, as they can for when Kennedy was shot (I was 5 months old). I think everyone over the age of 7 will be able to say where they were and what was going on when 9/11 happened. That’s just the way it is.
Using 9/11 for sympathy? This I’ve never heard of. I hope I never do.
Because it doesn’t matter if I knew them or not. They died a horrible, senseless, tragic death because of some religious maniacs who are still out there, wanting to try again.
How can you compare the death of ONE PERSON, to that of many. No, they weren’t famous. But they were people just like you, or me.
(And how did Diana’s death affect anyone? Perhaps I knew people who died on 9/11.)
Diana is ONE friggin person. How about Tsar Nicholas and his family? How about Charles’s uncle, Lord Mountbatten? Or Alexander I of Yugoslavia? Archduke Ferdinand. Hell, the last one started a goddamned WORLD WAR. You act like Diana is the first royal to have been killed in a senseless, violent way.
Oh, HER.
I had mercifully expunged her from my memory, but I think she’s mentally ill. The OP is referring to (I think) Dopers and people he runs across in daily life. That’s what I meant.
May I say I found your “allow me to crush…” funny? Thanks for the funny line.
You can copy and paste it from where someone else used it, or you can find it on the character map (start -> all programs -> accessories -> system tools -> character map).
There is something else about the victims of 9/11. They are representative of all of us. Any one of us could have been in the World Trade Center that morning. I’ve never been closer to NYC that the George Washington Bridge. But my daughter-in-law was at the WTC the week before. And my granddaughter was at the top of one of the towers the spring before.
The people who worked there were ordinary women and men like you and me. They had families in the Midwest, dreams for the future, children at home, theater tickets, a Little Black Book, thoughts of retirement, a grandchild on the way, a wedding to plan. And then, they were up there dying horrible deaths. When it was over, there was nothing left of so many of them. Nothing. They were smoke or vapor. Or they were ground to particles in the air and on the ground.
Sympathy is having tender feelings for another person’s sadness. Empathy is having the sadness yourself because someone else is hurting.
I think that most people who heard about 9/11 had some feelings about it. I can’t read about anyone’s suffering without some feelings of compassion. Most people are like that I think.
That’s why when things get really bad for someone, a newscaster will do a story about it. Giving the person a face and a name makes a difference. People want to help when they know where they are needed.
Diana will be remembered in history books 500 years from now because she was famous and much loved and was part of the royal family… The individuals at the WTC won’t be remembered. But as a group they will be. The incident itself will be in the history books. And in the long run, that day will have longer lasting effects on more people.
I mean, I get the point you’re trying to make, and I realize that the Pit is the place for hyperbole, but Jesus Christ!
Thousands of people dying as a result of a terrorist attack is in no way comparable to the death of some aging wealthy celebutante and her rich foreign boyfriend. in a car accident.
I don’t really have a dog in this fight (Americans & Aussies are just as guilty of perpetuating the fascination), but that statement is utterly ridiculous.
Jesus… People were seriously affected by Diana’s death? Aside from her family, that would be only really pathetic people.
She had a glorious public persona, while in real life she seems to have been a manipulative bitch with a keen eye for good publicity. Why people tend to worship her is beyond me, unless they are people who consider Cinderella their favorite piece of literature. :rolleyes:
We have a similar lameness here with JFK. Public persona was of a young, handsome, principled visionary, while behind closed doors he was an asshole. No matter- people who should know better continue to worship the guy. Hell, my mother-in-law cried her eyes out when JFK Jr. killed his fiance and himself, because she is still so hung up on his dad…
Maybe dying tragically and relatively young saved these people from the public scorn, ridicule or disdain they would have eventually faced.
287 thousand people died in the 2004 tusnami. 231 thousand people died in a senseless pointless flood in China in 1975. A lot more than 3000. A cyclone in Bangladesh in 1970 killed 500 thousand people in Bangladesh. 250 thousand more in Bangladesh in 1991. People just like you and me. And that weather is still out there, ready to strike again. If volume is one of your factors for sympathy, this should put 3000 in perspective. My guess is none of these survivors or relatives are still prattling on about these events like 9/11. If you’re just so concerned about humanity, there’s are a lot worse tragedies out there- the Sudan perhaps? And fuck you right back.
And if you knew someone who died on 9/11, I said in more than one post that’s obviously a different story.
I wasn’t comparing the two events as being similar, I meant I feel both events have been run in the ground and shouldn’t still be discussed or metioned as often as they are years later.
I bet you the survivors and relatives of all those events you mentioned are still “prattling” on about them, for the very reason you seem to think people should. Where is the inquest to point out the fucking obvious for the victims of the tsumami?
Di is dead. She can’t get any more or less dead then she already is. It’s been 10 fucking years (and yes I remember exactly what I was doing when I heard the news…It was an extremely memorable moment for many people) what is the point in an inquest now?
Must I see pictures of her and Dodi on the news EVERY FUCKING DAY! I know the answer to that question is “NO, don’t watch the news” but I live in hope that stupid dead Di won’t be the headlines tomorrow. Really how is seeing them leave their hotel MILLIONS of times adding to anyones life?
