A Comparison of 3 Deaths
Molly Ivins. Pinochet. Anna Nicole Smith.
Three very different people, all recently deceased. I mention them to raise the question, Why and how do we view and mourn different people in different ways? I link the names to the appropriate MeFi threads to give a comparison.
I'm about as anti-death-penalty as you can get, but I didn't give a damn about Pinochet's death. In fact, I toasted to it. Molly Ivins was extremely influential to me since about age twelve, and just today I received a package from my mother of the Houston Chronicle's obituary of her. I never cared about Anna Nicole one way or another, aside from seeing her as a self-indulgent walking punchline, but I still feel a sense of loss at her passing. And now I'm curious as to why, exactly.
Is human respect something we earn? Is it something we're born with intrinsically, but lose if we've done enough to lose it? Do some people simply fall into the public consciousness as being undeserving of life? Do we instinctively mourn the passing of those we feel are "too young"? Or do we pass judgment on "celebrities" post-mortem?
I want your opinions.
Three very different people, all recently deceased. I mention them to raise the question, Why and how do we view and mourn different people in different ways? I link the names to the appropriate MeFi threads to give a comparison.
I'm about as anti-death-penalty as you can get, but I didn't give a damn about Pinochet's death. In fact, I toasted to it. Molly Ivins was extremely influential to me since about age twelve, and just today I received a package from my mother of the Houston Chronicle's obituary of her. I never cared about Anna Nicole one way or another, aside from seeing her as a self-indulgent walking punchline, but I still feel a sense of loss at her passing. And now I'm curious as to why, exactly.
Is human respect something we earn? Is it something we're born with intrinsically, but lose if we've done enough to lose it? Do some people simply fall into the public consciousness as being undeserving of life? Do we instinctively mourn the passing of those we feel are "too young"? Or do we pass judgment on "celebrities" post-mortem?
I want your opinions.
posted by Pascals Bookie @ 12:19 AM
1 Comments:
On a somewhat unrelated note, I only discovered Molly Ivins after her death, and have read a lot of her articles, as well as seen her interviewed for a documentary about anti-sex toy laws in Texas. I wish I had discovered her ten years ago, for she is amazing.
Also, the thing I find interesting about the deaths of famous people is the way newspapers and magazines will go out of their way to not speak ill of the dead. Pinochet was mentioned as a 'controversial dictator,' and his patriotism was always put in the paragraph before the... well, the part about him torturing and killing his countrymen.
I find it more interesting when someone who has been the butt of jokes for a long time, like Anna Nicole, dies and gets glowing tributes in the same magazines that only days earlier were trashing her.
No suggestions here, just observations is all. Seriously, read Molly Ivins. She's amazing.
Post a Comment
<< Home