In today's The New York Times I read an article titled "A Plea to Deny Gunmen Their Quest for Infamy." It touched on the efforts by families of mass shootings (New Town, Columbine, Arapahoe, etc.) to prevent the mention of the killers' identities to deny them the "recognition" they sought. Their efforts are timely-we need to deny the spread of the killers' cyberfame and notoriety via the media. It is inevitable that one killer will look on the shooting spree of another and extract "inspiration" from the rampage. You can never reason with killers; all we can do, since they take the cowardly way out by committing suicide, is deny them more media attention.
I am reminded of a memorable passage from a short story written by Jerzy Kosinski (from his book Steps). He wrote, "Almost all of us on the jury were able to discuss and imagine how he had committed the crime and what had impelled him to it. To clarify certain aspects of his case, some of the jurors acted out the role of the accused in an attempt to make the rest of us understand his motives. After the trial, however, I realized that there was very little speculation in the jury room about the victim of the murder. Many of us could easily visualize ourselves in the act of killing, but few of us could project ourselves into the act of being killed in any manner. We did our best to understand the murder: the murderer was a part of our lives; not so the victim."
Kosinksi wrote those hauntingly prescient words in 1968. Why, then, has it taken us so long to "get it?" Claire Davis is in our collective short-term memory for the moment, but for how much longer? We need to ensure that the memories of the victims, who they were, what they did, etc. are not buried beneath the avalanche of attention that is directed toward the perpetrator of a school shooting, etc.
I am reminded of a memorable passage from a short story written by Jerzy Kosinski (from his book Steps). He wrote, "Almost all of us on the jury were able to discuss and imagine how he had committed the crime and what had impelled him to it. To clarify certain aspects of his case, some of the jurors acted out the role of the accused in an attempt to make the rest of us understand his motives. After the trial, however, I realized that there was very little speculation in the jury room about the victim of the murder. Many of us could easily visualize ourselves in the act of killing, but few of us could project ourselves into the act of being killed in any manner. We did our best to understand the murder: the murderer was a part of our lives; not so the victim."
Kosinksi wrote those hauntingly prescient words in 1968. Why, then, has it taken us so long to "get it?" Claire Davis is in our collective short-term memory for the moment, but for how much longer? We need to ensure that the memories of the victims, who they were, what they did, etc. are not buried beneath the avalanche of attention that is directed toward the perpetrator of a school shooting, etc.
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