An Exercise In Bad (or Immoral) Taste

I'm afraid I can't actually see what's wrong with the Telegraph reporting of this incident. Please consider that something might be lost in translation here but we won't know how it is that we (British users of English) are offending nor how to correct it if you don't explain what you think the Telegraph is saying.

Obama = wanker

Tell me about it.

"I'm afraid I can't actually see what's wrong with the Telegraph reporting of this incident."
Other than the cheap sensationalism, the mixing of sex and violence, the opening line that implies the first victim as somehow partially responsible ("THIS is the face of the girl who may have sparked the worst school shooting in US history"), or the exploitation of said victim's memory, I don't see what's wrong either.
Come on, stop being a dunce. We all know that journalism is vouyerism to varying degrees, but journalists should at least try to be somewhat professional about it.
Bad taste, indeed.

Once again, sorry, don't see what you're seeing. 'Cheap sensationalism' or a searching for a motive? 'Mixing of sex and violence' or reporting that the gender of the first victim might have had some bearing on the case? I can see why you might take the first line to imply that Emily Hilscher is partially responsible but I do urge you to consider that it is very unlikely that the Telegraph intended such an implication. They report that it is American readers who are reading that implication, not British so, unless we are all also crass and insensitive you could give the Telegraph the benefit of the doubt about its professionalism.

Josiah,

Acknowledging that we don't share the same predilictions, I don't see what is so offensive about Obama's speech. To be sure, the talking points at the end were irritating, and it would have been far better to leave that stuff out of it. But the blogger you linked to made, I think, a common mistake: assuming that talking about moral categories is equal to talking abstractly or with a lack of specificity. Obama is explicit: dying of a treatable disease is violence, making it impossible for someone to feed their family is violence, etc. Perhaps one would disagree the moral judgment ("no, outsourcing is not violent"), but you can't say that he isn't talking concretely.
Nor does he fail to point to the cause (a failure to recognize the other). Causes aren't the same as policies, but I think that what he means by fixing "broken politics" is to consider them both together. This allows him to make what might be the most politically dangerous yet (for me) compelling statement in the speech: "maybe we couldn't have prevented this." A healthy dose of the honest and the tragic enables one to move forward in ways that standard conservative ("Nothing is wrong here!") or liberal ("We can fix everything!") talking points don't allow.
Wow, I meant to just ask a simple question, not try to convince you that you should like the speech. So feel free to ignore what I just said, but I am curious as to your thinking.

Paul, Obama may not have been talking in the most abstract of moral categories ("evil", "good" or to a lesser degree "murder" or "theft"), but he's still spoke abstractly: "denying someone a job" or "not treating a disease". VT is a concrete situation.

I find it distasteful that he's trying to make some kind of abstract point at all, with implicit political ramifications. I'm almost inclined to say, due to my severe distrust of "them", that politicians ought never to be allowed to speak post-tragedy.

To be fair, Obama can't be concrete with his examples. To say "Hey, those 33 people were just killed, lets not forget Joe Smith in Country X who can't feed his family" is only going to come off as wildly insensitive. And really, its pointless, which bugs me even moreso. Really, what good does it serve for Obama to make those "points"?

There's nothing valuable in doing so other than to be heard.

As any journalist knows, the opening line sets the tone for the story. If the British didn't take that line to be sensationalist, it's only because the British are inured to sensational journalism. John, you and I both know that British newspapers are notorious for "yellow journalism." That is acceptable for an op ed piece or a tabloid rag. But this wasn't a story about the Queen farting at high tea, it was a tragedy.
To be fair, after the initial paragraph, the article was well-written, but it was ruined by some pretty poor wording at the beginning that set the tone for the entire article.

I think that for me, what is particularly distasteful about Obama's remarks is that he's politicizing tragedy while pretending that he's not doing so. Politicizing these sorts of things are bad enough, but pretending that you're being high minded (and expecting people to buy it) when you're doing what every other politician does, well, that just adds insult to injury.

Nick,
Far be it from me to defend British journalism as a whole, the standard does need lifting and even to say, 'But this is the Daily Telegraph!' ought not to be sufficient here to combat your allegation of an inured readership.

But, come on, Joshua saw that opening line as being so bad that to it the 'soul-less, heartless, and conscience-less trash journalism' of America 'still doesn't hold a candle.' As a whole, both the intended readership and British critics of journalistic standards did not see it that way.

It is not unusual for us to be two peoples divided by the one language. The nub of this particular case is that the Telegraph says that it did not intend to blame Emily Hilscher for the tragedy and many Americans took it for granted that that was the intent of the form of words used. Believe me / don't believe me if the intent had been to blame her then the form of words would have been different. Poor standards in British journalism and an inured-to-sensationalism British public do not explain the differences in reaction to this story.

You will have plenty of examples of sensationalism in the British press to contend with before the day is done, should you choose to go there but that the Telegraph started it with, 'Blame Emily'? No.

I am not trying to be condescending as I recognize myself as the ultimate blog bickerer but I don't see much of a difference between Obama saying "How can I win votes out of this situation" and people with blogs saying "How can I use Obama's tasteless speech about the tragedy to get in my point to prove about hte tragedy".

It's hard to watch anyone turn the tragedy into a gun control issue or a video games issue or a South Korea relations issue or a bipartisan issue or any kind of issue. What happened was just plain messed up and it transcends any political speech of any accusation against said political speech.

Really John, no difference?

I'm almost inclined to say, due to my severe distrust of "them", that politicians ought never to be allowed to speak post-tragedy.

you're kidding, right josiah? if you really believe that you must be against the whole bush administration (and the giuliani's campaign too) since they never stop mentioning 9/11...

according to downset, poverty is the worst form of violence.

Josiah,

I can understand your desire for a post-tragedy gag-order. I disagree that people not being able to get jobs or dying of treatable disease is somehow more "abstract" than what happened at VT. If we had the will, we could dig up their portraits and post them on the NYTimes.

But where I disagree most is that by accusing politicos like Obama for making an "abstract" point about a concrete tragedy is that you end up making "TRAGEDY" itself an idealized abstraction. In other words, you end up sanctifying it, make it untouchable; in John T's phrase, "transcedent." Once you do that, ANY attempt to say something is symptomatic or part of a larger problem becomes "bad taste."

So what does it serve to make statements like Obama's? It can change the way we think about such situations, which in turn will change the way we respond to them. It is undeniable that the Bush Administration made, for example, a very particular post-911 climate and response. But other climates/responses/policies would have been possible. And that's what collective life--cultural, social, political--is all about.

Anna (and Paul), I'm against the Bush administration for what I hope are careful and thoughtful reasons. But don't dwell on that; I think it's more interesting all around if you consider me some kind of die-hard conservative for unthoughtful reasons i.e. "we don't share the same predilections" or "Josiah wont talk like us about politics".

Paul, it's more abstract by definition. I'm not saying concrete examples of the other don't exist (nor did I say that). But that's not the point.

Further, I'm not looking for absolute, abstract maxims, i.e. "politicians shouldn't talk about tragedy" (nor did I say that). My issue is that they (politicians) consistently (but not always) abuse and hijack tragedy to make cheap political points, and I thought Obama was doing that.

I don't think it makes tragedy untouchable either. I can see how it might, but I don't think it has and don't think it will. Like you said, it is possible to not selfishly abuse tragedy while making broader cultural points (nor have I ever said otherwise).

Josiah, I didn't say "no difference".

Josiah,

So if he would have said "It is also violent when Little Suzy Jones [a real person] died of treatable aesthma because she didn't have health insurence," you would have been ok with that? I guess I was reading the blogger's use of "abstract" as in "generality," as if it were somehow less real than a concrete particular. And my point was simply that no, it IS a concrete particular--these ARE acts of violence that really do occur every day. I grant your "more abstract by definition," but if that's all you were saying, I don't have a problem with it. What bugged me was the apparent dismissal (on the part of the blogger) of "_mere_ abstraction."

I have no desire to drag this out, and I'm not all that invested in it, but I'll take "it is possible to not selfishly abuse tragedy while making broader cultural points (nor have I ever said otherwise)" and say that is all I was trying to say. Moreover, it seems to me that was what Obama was doing (in part, not perfectly, and there was some selfish abuse in the speech as well). Clearly, that is a very arguable point. But I don't have the time to argue it more than I have.

Paul, I think that's fair. Given my lack of faith concerning the "good" intentions of politicians combined with Obama's fine sounding ruminations on general problems sans concrete solutions, I found his speech distasteful. I can respect that you didn't.

Now, Obama is still the frontrunner in my good-orator lovin' heart. As long as he doesn't quit smoking.

For some reason I find Joe Biden's myspace more tasteless.

myspace.com/bidenforpresident

He's sooooo dreamy and popular.

Little Suzy Jones... died of treatable aesthma because she didn't have health insurance=an act of violence?

In what way "violent"? How an "act"?

Matt, I was using the sentence mostly to clarify what we meant by abstract vs. concrete, not "violence." The latter is a far more difficult thing to define. But I would say that when a person is denied available aid, and, as a result, they suffer harm, that type of neglect qualifies as a type of violence.

Perhaps my use of "act" was misplaced, as clearly it is a far different thing to actively harm someone (as with a gun) and to passively neglect them, thereby allowing them to be harmed. But I would argue that it is a far too limited definition if we restrict violence to only "personal," ie, individual, actions. By doing so, we eliminate our ability to talk about structural or systemic violence.

Again, a complex problem, which I'd rather not get into on this forum. But I hope this clarifies what I was saying.