LordEden

Here is the scene I watched the other day on a drive through my town. I was on a 5 lane road that leads to downtown and to the interstate. It's a 45 mph road and can be heavy on the traffic at times. On the right side of the road, walking along the sidewalk, was a group of kids (male & female) aged 9-13ish. They were joking and rough-housing on the side of the road. One of the boys jumped out in the street and did some kind of dance, pointing at another kid. A big truck (Ford 350 kind of big) was coming down the road on the right-hand lane but he slowed down when the kid jumped in the street. Right as he was passing the group a girl jumped out in the street to get away from another girl chasing her. The truck stops dead and the little girl throws her hands up in that "What are you going to do about it" childish pose. I have no idea if the driver in the truck said anything but he drove off a second later. As I passed them, they continued to mess around and push each other out into the street.

Here's what I was thinking, these kids were doing stupid things and could have gotten hurt or killed. Children dying is always news worthy articles for the local nightly news. It would make the 5 o'clock news and most likely have a reporter on the scene broadcasting. Maybe a parent would step on and say how much the child was loved/cared for/treasured blah blah blah. Either the on scene reporter or the anchorperson would say something like "... tragic accident involving a child".

That got me wondering, what was tragic about this? I know the death of a child is nothing to brush off, but how is an accident? A tragic accident is when a person loses control of a car and hits a child walking along the side of a road. Or a drunk driver killing someone who was doing nothing wrong but being in the wrong place at the wrong time. These kids had no care for the fact that they were doing something extremely dangerous, they were even laughing about it. They knew the drivers had to stop and would because they were kids. That doesn't seem tragic at all to me. When you do something stupid and irresponsible then get hurt by it, it's not tragic. If I were walking out in the middle of the street, taunting cars like the children were and I died, that wouldn't be tragic. That would be my own stupidity getting me hurt or killed.

My question is this; How many of these "tragic" events that we see on the news are not tragic at all? How many are people doing stupid things and getting hurt/killed? Should we really feel bad for them or should we write this off as morbid "survival of the fittest" kind of thing? I couldn't summon an ounce of remorse for a kid that was killed playing in street like the above story or for the parents who never taught the kids that playing the street is dangerous and stupid.

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Vice-President of the CinnamonGirl Fan Club - The Meat of the Zombiesquirrel and CinnamonGirl Sandwich

Glory's Sun

it's tragic because they didn't get to see out the rest of their lives. it's tragic because they wanted to test life and ended up fucking up.. some of us have the pleasure of living through our mistakes and doing things with our lives.. some don't.

it's tragic because no parent should ever outlive their child.

Baraka_Guru

What gives tragedy in art its power is our reaction to a shift in fortune. The most common (and arguably the most powerful) is a change from good to bad fortune, as it evokes strong feelings of pity and sympathy from the viewer.

The same can be said about real life.

Aristotle pointed out that the power of tragedy lies in the protagonist/victim having lost good fortune through some kind of mistake rather than a character flaw, i.e. the protagonist is generally a good/noble person but he or she makes a bad decision (or decisions).

Children do not have the same capacity for reason as adults. They do not fear as we do, for they do not fully understand the way the world works. They don't have the same experiences of pain and loss, suffering or recovery. They do not understand the inherent danger of the world because what's dangerous hasn't happened to them or anyone they know.

They are bold in their ignorance, but this is the nature of youth. This is not a character flaw, and so horsing around that leads to injury or death is tragic because the victims would have made bad decisions. The victims have gone from good fortune (vibrant, youthful life with a future ahead of them) to bad fortune (dead long before having experienced life for what good and bad it can offer).

That is tragic. The loss of a child is always tragic.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Reese

The other day while driving down a busy road there were some kids walking on the curb in and out of the road. There was no sidewalk. It was a 2 lane and with oncoming traffic I couldn't get over. I had to pretty much come to a dead stop (from 55mph) just so I didn't clip one of the stupid bastards with my mirror. One of them gave me one of those "wat ur problem!?" gestures. I felt like getting out and beating the shit out of them. I have no sympathy for stupidity.

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“It is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick” - Dave Barry

Glory's Sun

nobody has sympathy for stupidity until it's their own kid(s) who make a stupid decision.

genuinegirly

It's tragic when their families don't expect it.

When someone dies of a drug overdose, it's tragic. When someone jumps off a cliff, it's tragic. These kids doing something incredibly dangerous must not value their lives. Suicidal and laughing about it - their deaths would be tragic. Stupid? Most descriptors are subjective. It would not be tragic to you, while it would be to others.

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"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

LordEden

I would hope by the age that I let my kid wonder the streets without my supervision, that I would have drilled it into their head that playing in the street in front of a multi-ton truck is a BAD idea. One you might not walk away from. This isn't a "tried to cross the street at the wrong time" kind of stupid decision, this goes beyond just being plain stupid. It's borderline suicidal.

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Vice-President of the CinnamonGirl Fan Club - The Meat of the Zombiesquirrel and CinnamonGirl Sandwich

Glory's Sun

You can drill everything you want into a kids mind, but that doesn't mean they are going to follow that teaching. Kids are young and always pushing the envelope. They consistently try to see what they can get away with. Doesn't matter if they are two or 16.. they want to press the issue.

In our society of reset buttons, children have a much different view of mortality than we did as kids.

Flinx

What the real tragedy would have been was the driver of the truck living with the fact for the rest of his life that he killed a kid, even though it was the kid's fault. But do you think that the media will think or even report that fact? Probably not till it's too late an the driver has been branded a child killer.