Folding the circus tents?

Marieke Hardy asks "where does the reporting stop and the media circus begin?" in this Melbourne Age article.

Part of what she says:

"I'm not addressing this from a place of cynicism. I too have pored over news reports and nightly bulletins, been awash with tears at the sort of survival stories that render you utterly numb with grief and reaching out to call your mother and tell her you love her. It's only when you're on your fourth or fifth day of coverage and you see a television journalist standing next to a car, hard up for content and prodding a grey-faced driver with the question: "Guess you've lost a lot of friends up on that mountain ... must feel pretty bad ... how would you describe how that feels exactly?" that you start to wonder whether you're beginning to be party to preying upon the raw grief of others and that perhaps it's time to put the goddamned cameras away."

Do we secretly love disasters?

In a different reaction to our collective reaction to the Victorian bushfires, the ever insightful Ross Gittens of the SMH says of the recent bushfires "...media coverage of this one's gone way over the top. And it's served to strengthen my suspicion that the community's reaction to natural disasters is exploitative, voyeuristic, unfair, self-gratifying and even pathological."

Read his article here

Is he right? What do you reckon? Maybe Ross Gittens says out loud what we are all afraid to admit? That we quite like disasters. As long as it doesn't happen to us of course.

The Need to Demonise

Ordinary people, including some I know, have poured extraordinary invective on an alleged Arsonist in the wake of the Victorian bushfires. Several Facebook Groups have started with titles like "B****** S****** needs to suffer. Burn the ####ing Dogg!" (sic) in which members describe in detail how they would like to burn this man's hands to a stump, or even burn his family.

Why do we have the need to demonise those accused of heinous crimes?

I think there are several reasons. Two reasons are:

1. We feel the need to distance ourselves from such obvious evil. The people who do such things are demoted in our minds to the rank of subhuman monster, in order to avoid any possibility that we might share the same fallen human nature. We need to be reassured that we are the good guys and people who do these things are on the dark side. Yet God's Word clearly indicts all of us as sinners in need of redemption and under the judgement of God.

2. We have a natural tendency to call down justice and retribution upon others, but mitigating circumstances or mercy upon ourselves. We operate with dual standards. When I lose my cool and throw a tanty, it's because I'm tired. Or some other reason. When someone else does it to me, they are entirely culpable. We ought to remember on top of everything else here, that we have seen no evidence yet for this man's guilt even. What if he is innocent? What if there were mitigating circumstances? We know nothing, and it is the job of the legal system to investigate, lay charges and prosecute. This is also of course, the view of the police.

Now I AM NOT SAYING that it doesn't matter if you light fires or that there should be no punishment for such actions. But there is a difference between judging actions as evil and judging ourselves so morally superior that we are able to demote others to the category of subhuman monster and call for their torture at our hands. There is a difference between society doing what God's Word says human authorities ought to do, namely restraining and punishing evil; and a lynch mob of self-righteous anarchists. What people who call for this man to be tortured are doing is every bit as morally reprehensible as what he is alleged to have done. Imagine what the world would be like if they had their way.

The words of Jesus are: "Judge not, lest you also be judged. For with the same measure you judge, so will it be measured out to you."

Bushfire Scams

[originally posted Tuesday, February 10, 2009 at 8:51am on facebook]

I think those who take advantage of the misery caused by natural disasters like these fires by posing as charities are more culpable even than those who light fires. In many cases pyromaniacs are suffering some kind of mental illness. But to take money fraudulently by playing on people's willingness to give towards the needs of those made homeless is a purely evil pre-meditated act of selfishness and contempt for human life.

Facing Up to It

Finally after all these years of avoiding it I've done the facebook thing. It is a potential time eater (which is why I've avoided it)! Some of the interface is non-intuitive and slow... or maybe that's me. Why does it take so long to scroll through pages and pages of people in a group or friends of a friend? Why can't it list them all at once?

But there are lots of good things about it. Hey I even got to chat with Gordo in real time.