[Aaron Novick]

never mind

[Richard Meyer]

Here's something I read long ago:

“…any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

John Donne
from Meditation XVII

[Erik Olson]

The death of anyone, whether good or bad, from saint to malefactor, might be universally lamentable if solely in one distinct and limited respect : that the death of any human, whoever it be, reflects the selfsame fate to befall the rest. But surely other dimensions are to be considered after this, these accounting for why those from the streets to the rooftops to celebrate the death of Hitler were not in the wrong. The type of lament equally applicable to the best as to the worst is of a nature to do with the private reflections on death itself, what, with the vilest and most virtuous partaking of the same mortality. But the fact of it does not equate to a necessity to adjust our public expressions toward all who have died without discretion; nor to any obligation to give deference to all dead leaders of the State, however undeserved. It does not imply that one is wrong who dare counteract lies of a deceased head of State emblazoned statewide. On the contrary, if accolades should shower thick on the legacy of one undeserving, we have then the obligation to counter the hollow tenor of encomium with nothing but the solid truth; lest we should suffer the real transgressions of a faux benefactor to get swept under the rug. That much is owed to victims of the man, that much to candor, to veracity.

P.S. Oh, I grant him in his senility and wheelchair cut a pitiable figure. But we are to reflect of the former president who lived nearly a century that this image of age taking its natural course should not diminish our estimation of his culpability for past transgressions, those from when he had all the power in the world to do otherwise yet chose to do ill.

[Orwn Acra]

A bell did not toll, Richard, because there was no angel to get its wings.

[Julie Steiner]

Originally Posted by David Rosenthal

Also, the notion that propriety entails deference to surviving mourners should indeed be weighed against deference to surviving sufferers. The outpouring of "shallow conventional pieties" is harmful to the to the latter at least as much (if not more so) than honest criticisms are to the mourners.

Excellent points, David.

Orwn and Aaron, I was, indeed, being callously simplistic, and was mischaracterizing what was actually happening in the thread. I'm sorry.

I am, as charged, woefully deficient in the empathy department. That's a well-documented fact.

I do try to get better at it. One of the ways I do this is by listening to people who explain why I've gotten it wrong. Thanks.

[David Rosenthal]

Originally Posted by Richard Meyer

Here's something I read long ago:

“…any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

John Donne
from Meditation XVII

1. I wish GHWB had taken that sentiment to heart when he was CIA director and supporting and covering for horrible stuff in Chile and Central America; or when he escalated the War on Drugs to help expand mass incarceration and prison slavery; or when he ignored the pleas of HIV/AIDS activists to do something/anything; or when he rolled troops into Iraq and other places to protect his and his peers' moneyed interests, etc., etc.

2. The quote is not the whole of the calculus. Here's an extreme case to make the point clearly: a mass-murderer's death diminishes mine less than the death of his many past and future victims. This is not meant to justify killing said mass murder, but to say that his death is not as diminishing to humankind as his acts while alive.

3. Refusing to praise a dead person who doesn't deserve it, or indeed calling out their massive faults, does not add to any diminishing of humanity their death may caused.

4. Donne starts off that meditation talking about how the The Church, being "Catholic" connects people to the church through baptism. I prefer to think our connection to one another is more catholic than that.

David R.

[Aaron Novick]

Julie, thank you. For my part, I am sorry. I should have been more polite in my responses—both deleted and undeleted.

[Richard Meyer]

Originally Posted by Orwn Acra

A bell did not toll, Richard, because there was no angel to get its wings.

Walter:

I posted Donne’s famous passage about death as a poetic or philosophical observation, not to suggest that effusive and hyperbolic obsequies should be extended to the deceased being discussed.

David:

I have no quarrel with your points. See my response to Walter.

Richard

[Roger Slater]

The bell tolling stuff would have more poignance if he had been struck down in his prime, or at least before his time, but since he lived an exceptionally long life characterized by a large and loving family, prosperity, and success in his own eyes and the eyes of the people he cared about, I don't think I need to spend much time bemoaning his mortality. Since few of us have met him, and we only encounter him as an historic figure, I think it's fitting that we discuss his place in history rather than just using him to muse on the nature of death as part of the human condition.

David, I agree with your points about the ADA. But he could have not signed it. I give him credit for signing. I don't say it makes up for all the bad he did. I simply acknowledge it as something good he did.

[Jim Moonan]

I do remember just a short time ago him getting caught grabbing ass. Dirty old man. The Me Toos cut him some slack. Oddly, he's something of a sympathetic figure to me.

Walter, your comment, "...One of the advantages of the sea change currently happening in this country--as we watch marginalized groups gain power--is that we no longer have to be nice to people who don't deserve it..." reminds me that I should shut up and listen.

Empathy is beside the point. I am disheartened by it all.
x