The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #115862 Message #2486866
Posted By: McGrath of Harlow
06-Nov-08 - 04:08 PM
Thread Name: BS: Teenager stoned: A Story, which beggars belief
Subject: RE: BS: A Story, which beggars belief
I agree with George that people who think themselves "impervious to all this and above such behaviour in all circumstances, are simply fooling themselves".
We have no right to assume that somehow we will be among the brave minority that stands out against this kind of thing, and that ought to be reflected in the way we react. In what is in this case the sadly appropriate language of the Gospels, we shouldn't feel entitled to cast the first stone. That doesn't in any way mean we shouldn't feel and express our detestation of what has been done. But when we see those photos of lynch-mobs, or cheering Nazis, for example, or read a story like this one, we should recognise ourselves as possible members of the crowd.
But nor should we ever forget that there are people who do stand out against the descent into inhumanity, even in the most desperate circumstances, as seems to have been the case here as well.
It occurs me that I'd like to know more about whether there are common factors in the previous lives of the people who make up that "saving minority" in the times when the community goes insane. Any pointers to studies about that kind of thing?
I think that one of the ways in which we risk reducing the hope that we might be such a person, if we find ourselves in this kind of situation, is when we go in for the kind of fantasy violence and hate that Carol quoted there - "turn the country into a parking lot", and "nuke them back into the stone age".