A Nation of Voyeurs?
I find it ridiculous that the Heaven's gate site is overloaded. I find it even more ridiculous that Yahoo has mirrored it. This tragedy had little (if anything) to do with the Internet. It didn't touch the vast majority of people who are beating so hard on the site.How many of those now greedily lapping up every last bloody drop of information on this cult have ever lifted a finger, or spoken a word, in compassion to the sort of lonely, frustrated people involved in this group? Rather, how many have rejected the geeks, ignored the old people, resented the oddballs?
Yet now, we are oh! so interested. It's the biggest news story ever! CNN interviews psych[o] doctors who explain that this is all quite natural, and we should expect more.
NO!!!
It is not the least bit natural! It's obscene. It's sad. That people should feel so out of it, so desperate, so alone that they would fall into such traps and take such measures is merely an indicator of how sick our society has become.But the far bigger, far more disgusting indicator is the sheer volume of news being thrown to the masses, and being swallowed whole, backed by insatiable demands for more, in an orgy of voyeuristic, egoistical jostling to get the best view of the carnage.