esrosedotblog

DISASTER PORN

At first I, understandably, wanted to see what had happened.

The tsunami. The aftermath of the earthquake.

Then, I found that I was looking at the same footage on various web sites, again and again.

I couldn't get enough cars rolling over end to end. Buildings floating and crashing into other buildings. Water pouring over dikes. The power of it all.

It was similar to the films we saw of the tsunami of a few years ago but much, much bigger.

I felt the same fascination that I used to have as a kid when I would build sand castles and let them be enveloped by the sea. Or go down to the stream below our house and watch objects float to their "destruction".

Then, I saw the people. Not only the people who were still, foolishly perhaps, filming and spectating but bodies. Real people floating by. In the cars, in the houses, in the water.

Suddenly there was a new dimension. This was not so attractive. These people were dying. I was watching it happen.

I recoiled.

The attraction to keep watching was undeniably strong.

And I broke off.

I could see myself looking for worse, more dramatic, closer in views.

Disaster porn.

Yesterday, I saw a video labeled something like "the plight of Japan's animals" with a photo of a dog sitting waiting for a master who would not come back.

That did it.

Done. Over. Finished.

Now, the living and bereaved would be in the next wave of vid-hunting. No. I won't go there.

And I haven't.

Today, the NYTimes did have a feature on the shelters and the readiness of Japan for events like this. Very prepared.

But not for this much. Not for the nuclear. In fact they are unprepared for the final blow and understating the threat.

There are no videos for radiation. It is just there and it will have its effect and we don't know when or how so far.

There is a decency involved here. The voyeurism, maybe that is it more than anything, doesn't reach as far fs there is no visible suffering.

So I am on a moratorium. I have not sent my contribution. Where? No one can say, yet, where and how the money will be used. If I give to the Red Cross they still would not say that it is going to Japan. It is the old Red Cross trick. "Give for events like the Japan quake and flood and so on. Into the RC coffers is more like it. The Red Cross is a near racket.

How to respond. If not with morbid curiosity, how?

Just be a witness. Read. Be careful about looking. Meditate and pray. Learn from it. The power of nature. The weakness and arrogances of man.

Labels: nature