A matter more hidden.
People are rarely so calculating as when acting out of passion. The jealous lover invents elaborate schemes to gain revenge. The infuriated victim enacts procedures of the utmost complexity and elaboration, so long as fury holds the controls. Suicide bombers need and use logical deceptions and carefully co-ordinated plans in order to reach their target, after which senseless destruction occurs. In the aftermath, sophistry rules, and impregnable rationalizations are shouted as in-your-face defenses against criticism of even the most extreme acts. There is little room for compassion when passion rules.
The cliché is to recognize and denounce the “cold, calculating act.” The act is indeed cold, it is calculating too. But it is driven by passion; frustrated passion. Why else would we drain calculations of empathy? And when the calculations and stratagems fail, the passion and fury are often revealed – revealed as quite unconnected to logic and calculation, often ugly, irrelevant to any plans that could ever deserve a place in matters worthy of being planned. People act in what seem like bizarre, self-serving, and self-destructive ways when passion drives them. The original passions may not be evil, but once they dangle from their own rationalizations, chaos creeps in under their feet.
The common element is that the passion, the real fuel of the actions, is hidden. So the explanations and justifications offered will mislead us if we are trying to grasp the motive.
What am I talking about? Terri Schiavo. Or rather, not Terri Schiavo at all, but what is happening as a halo around her. Are congressmen acting honestly, or cynically, in passing ad hoc laws that flout the constitution? Is Bush suddenly quiet because his rating has dropped 9%, or because there is no more to be done?
There are at least three areas of questions in this case. The first is the issue of life and death, which is a real issue, and which, along with the merits of the case, I set aside. I have nothing to offer on these.
The second is the way this case seems to be being exploited by politicians, grandstanders, television pundits, religious zealots, etc. That too is a real spectacle that is being closely watched and about which I have nothing.
The third question, which does give me pause, is this: why are people behaving the way they do, when so many thousands of other people are now, or have been in the recent past, in the same plight as Mrs. Schiavo? Are any of us in a position to accurately identify the true motives of any of the parties – Terri’s husband and family, the doctors, the lawyers, the judges, the politicians, the media? I think it is a great deal more difficult than we might at first think. Who expected this case, - almost banal in its lack of difference from untold thousands of similar tragedies, - to become such a cause célèbre? Can just the media do that? Are the politicians merely scheming and exploiting? If so, why pick on this case above all? Have we all suddenly awoken to the dilemmas posed by medicine? What triggered this?
I do not know the answer, but I see a mechanism. People are acting and speaking out of passion, and everyone involved is frustrated, as there is no possible good outcome for Terri herself. There may be some short-term cynical gains to be made at her expense; there might even be longer-term historical benefits to be gleaned in a way that is not yet clear. But some people are acting out of frustrated passion, so the extremity of views cannot be taken as either indicating the source of that intensity, nor as any guide as to what view should prevail.
Sophistry is rampant, and opponents have taken up positions from which backing down is impossible, unless they are happy to appear as hypocrites. The "rule of law" evolved precisely to deal with such situations. Will people throw over public order – not in order to win, but merely in order not to lose? The recent past has shown legislatures and the executive branches of government becoming increasingly frustrated by their lack of absolute power. Most judges and doctors and nurses seem to be doing their honest best. But can such matters be left to disengaged professionals? Will the elected mob stop at the ramparts? What was her name again?
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The cliché is to recognize and denounce the “cold, calculating act.” The act is indeed cold, it is calculating too. But it is driven by passion; frustrated passion. Why else would we drain calculations of empathy? And when the calculations and stratagems fail, the passion and fury are often revealed – revealed as quite unconnected to logic and calculation, often ugly, irrelevant to any plans that could ever deserve a place in matters worthy of being planned. People act in what seem like bizarre, self-serving, and self-destructive ways when passion drives them. The original passions may not be evil, but once they dangle from their own rationalizations, chaos creeps in under their feet.
The common element is that the passion, the real fuel of the actions, is hidden. So the explanations and justifications offered will mislead us if we are trying to grasp the motive.
What am I talking about? Terri Schiavo. Or rather, not Terri Schiavo at all, but what is happening as a halo around her. Are congressmen acting honestly, or cynically, in passing ad hoc laws that flout the constitution? Is Bush suddenly quiet because his rating has dropped 9%, or because there is no more to be done?
There are at least three areas of questions in this case. The first is the issue of life and death, which is a real issue, and which, along with the merits of the case, I set aside. I have nothing to offer on these.
The second is the way this case seems to be being exploited by politicians, grandstanders, television pundits, religious zealots, etc. That too is a real spectacle that is being closely watched and about which I have nothing.
The third question, which does give me pause, is this: why are people behaving the way they do, when so many thousands of other people are now, or have been in the recent past, in the same plight as Mrs. Schiavo? Are any of us in a position to accurately identify the true motives of any of the parties – Terri’s husband and family, the doctors, the lawyers, the judges, the politicians, the media? I think it is a great deal more difficult than we might at first think. Who expected this case, - almost banal in its lack of difference from untold thousands of similar tragedies, - to become such a cause célèbre? Can just the media do that? Are the politicians merely scheming and exploiting? If so, why pick on this case above all? Have we all suddenly awoken to the dilemmas posed by medicine? What triggered this?
I do not know the answer, but I see a mechanism. People are acting and speaking out of passion, and everyone involved is frustrated, as there is no possible good outcome for Terri herself. There may be some short-term cynical gains to be made at her expense; there might even be longer-term historical benefits to be gleaned in a way that is not yet clear. But some people are acting out of frustrated passion, so the extremity of views cannot be taken as either indicating the source of that intensity, nor as any guide as to what view should prevail.
Sophistry is rampant, and opponents have taken up positions from which backing down is impossible, unless they are happy to appear as hypocrites. The "rule of law" evolved precisely to deal with such situations. Will people throw over public order – not in order to win, but merely in order not to lose? The recent past has shown legislatures and the executive branches of government becoming increasingly frustrated by their lack of absolute power. Most judges and doctors and nurses seem to be doing their honest best. But can such matters be left to disengaged professionals? Will the elected mob stop at the ramparts? What was her name again?
posted by Andrew Massey | Thursday, March 24, 2005
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