I completely understand when a person secretly (or maybe not so secretly) cheers for their enemies to fail. Makes perfect sense. In the competition for limited resources, like an elected office or possession of an undivideable object, sometimes somebody has to lose, for you to win.
However.
What's with the latest form of "spectator doom cheering" our society has evolved?
Like environmentalists cheering for a warm winter or a super hot summer? I know it must be annoying for environmentalists to have to argue with "global warming is a conspiracy" Luddites, but hoping that a lack of winter rains and snows with warm temperatures on the East Coast of the US and Europe, simply to help you make your case, IS SICK!
Or what about the H1N1 outbreak last year? Crazy conspiracy guys and gals lamented endlessly about how the purported and upcoming outbreak never happened. Some of my medical field friends actually complained that they were concerned that people weren't going to take future warnings seriously, and said things like "I wish more people had gotten H1N1". These are people in the medical profession, people who are supposed to care about other humans. Even more sick(yes that is a pun).
And of course, we have the Republicans. Not only do the Congressional Republicans openly hope that our economy sinks into a "double dip", by continuing obstructionists behavior they actually are helping to make it happen. It's like the suicide victim; "I'll show you how miserable I am. BANG!" I think this actually might be mental illness, as well as sick.
So what am I saying here?
Stop it.
Human misery is bad enough, without us losing our humanity to feel the suffering of others.
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Though comparisons to Hitler are alarmingly prevalent these days and of course rediculously hyperbolic, leave it to the Germans to coin a term for this all-too-human tendency: schadenfreude. It was Mel Brooks, I believe, who defined the difference between comedy and tragedy thus: "comedy is when a man falls into an open manhole; tragedy is when that man is you." Part of the condition stems from small thinkers who, in their effort to appear smart, confuse critical thinking with BEING critical. It leaves everyone arguing instead of genuinely considering, elaborating on and advancing interesting ideas - which can ruin an otherwise lovely dinner party.
ReplyDeletestop being smart on my crappy blog. You'll make the rent go up.
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