2 ms·
> gun tragedy I'm uncomfortable about that phrase being used to refer to a guy with an assault rifle deliberately murdering a bunch of people he doesn't know.
by denton-scratch 2y ago
> gun tragedy
I'm uncomfortable about that phrase being used to refer to a guy with an assault rifle deliberately murdering a bunch of people he doesn't know. A "tragedy" generally involves some kind of mistake or accident caused by a character flaw, or by some circumstance that isn't obviously going to cause misfortunes. I don't think it's right to refer to something as a tragedy, if the misfortunes or deaths were exactly what the perpetrator intended.
- pjc50 2y agoThe death remains a tragedy, even if it's also a murder or terrorism. > or by some circumstance that isn't obviously going to cause misfortunes I feel that in the older sense of tragedy, Shakesperian or Homerian, the inevitability of fortune is part of the tragedy - we, the audience, can see it in retrospect, but those involved find themselves unable to see or avert it. But this is after all just language.
- germinalphrase 2y agoWhich is only apt if we consider the victim of the tragedy to be our collective society suffering as a result of our hubris and other failings (and falls apart completely if we recognize that the individual human victims are essentially random).
- mrighele 2y ago> A "tragedy" generally involves some kind of mistake or accident caused by a character flaw No it doesn't. Anyway, just going to school and being shot by a random person count as "some circumstance that isn't obviously going to cause misfortunes."