1. Stevens Assasination
2. Hookup Culture
1. Stevens, Romney, Dehumanization
Bilocation wasn’t meant for politics, rather for my attempted clever observations on the Maya and 2012 end-of-the-world armageddon cults. I won’t rationalize except to say that the real world has a way of grabbing the attention of the escapist and drawing them in.
With all the political games being played around it, the Stevens assationation was dehumanized before most of us even knew it happened. Romney’s early response to it is clearly the most to blame for this as has been noted in other places on the web — had he stayed silent the media could have focused on the things that really mattered. The assasination of Stevens and his colleagues is a small example of the mayhem in that region. It’s easy to miss the gravity of these things that are happening so far away. One photo hit it home for me. It’s one I’ve only seen in foreign media.
It’s a photo supposedly of Stevens, (link below) battered and unconscious, possibly already dead, with men struggling to carry him somewhere, chaos swirling around them. From that photo I was transported into the scene for a moment – blasts, gunfire, people running here and there.
And a man’s life — ended. A man who went to work like you and I, who was excited to see his family, who had favorite foods, who looked forward to retirement but feared getting older. Now we just have a hole where he was.
I can’t make a judgment on the situation in turbulent places like this but I do think it would the world a bit of good to reflect on the reality of the thousands such lives we are losing. Perhaps if we connect the ends of others to our own eventual ends, we’ll have less of a stomach for all of this.
link to Stevens photo – warning: graphic
2. RE: Andrew Sullivan’s blog on the hookup culture
Many commenters seem keen to point out the benefits of sex when speaking of a committed relationship while denouncing drawbacks when speaking of the hookup culture. As we all know, monogamous relationships have the monopoly on interpersonal connection, and the hookup culture has the monopoly on birth control.
As was pointed out today in Sully’s blog, we rationalize our reasoning to fit our beliefs.
To illustrate my point, from the comments posted later on: the Mormon decrying ‘sexual compatibilty’ because the sex that all their virgin marriages preceeded was fine. I, for one, am simply shocked that this is something they’ve never heard of! Inspired by that comment I decided to then find some student drivers to advise me on highway etiquitte.
Perhaps marriage is traditionally ‘normal’ in our recent history, but are social norms always the best way to do things? Can we agree to encourage each other’s freedom to make different choices rather than wasting our time defending harsh and ignorant ‘death’ comments?
I’m absolutely sure that the commenter who was happy his daughter was exploring sex was simply happy that she was discovering herself. In any facet of life, particularly the very human aspects, exploration and experimentatino, I believe, are the surest path to making ourselves better.
And then it all floods back. I was standing in a dusty supermarket, shadows of branches and leaves waving in the wind swept the floors. Everyone was dazed. I wouldn’t call it panic buying since no one knew what to panic about. The cashier asked me something but I was momentarily stunned as if I had just awoken from a nightmare bolted upright. I don’t know what’s going on in my head lately, all this confusion and cloudiness.