Emotional correctness, recreational mourning and the tyranny of grief
I mentioned this a while back but I think it bears repeating. Jack is a Diana figure: both are beautiful, both are emotionally troubled, both are apparently wronged by seemingly heartless men, both meet an early tragic death in which these men are felt to be responsible for in some way. Jack attracts the same kind of emotional/devotional response in death as Diana did. There are some who would still blame Prince Charles for what happened to Diana and who will never accept Camilla on that account. Similarly there are some who blame Ennis for Jack’s death and will never accept Ellery for the same reason.
“Emotional correctness” is a variation on political correctness, in which people feel that peer pressure demands they react in a certain way. What Mick Hume a writer with British think tank Civitas and others have to say about the phenomenon of “emotional correctness” and “recreational mourning” following the death of Diana might help us understand better the hugely exaggerated reaction to Jack’s death by some and the resulting antagonism towards The Laramie Saga. (Note: This analysis does not apply to those who felt a healthy and genuine grief over Jack's death and experience some continuing emotional pain over him as Ennis starts a new relationship and as they to move on with Ennis to recover some joy in life! I believe that it may very well apply to obsessives who have made a fetish out of Jack's relationship with Ennis and Jack's untimely demise.)
In an article on the “Cult of Diana”, Matt Cherry wrote: “Emotions-gone-religious seems to have taken place with the mass expression of grief at the death of Diana. Public reinforcement of emotions usually kept private seemed to encourage ever more hysterical declarations of adoration and loss. A secular event was made sacred. Death can let emotion gain control over all reason.”
Author of the report “Conspicuous Compassion” Patrick West says people were trying to feel better about themselves by taking part in manufactured emotion. “Extravagant public displays of grief for strangers are 'grief-lite' undertaken as an enjoyable event, much like going to a football match or the last night of the proms. Mourning sickness is a religion for the lonely crowd that no longer subscribes to orthodox churches. Its flowers and teddies are its rites, its collective minutes' silences its liturgy and mass.”
Writing soon after Diana’s death Mick Hume wrote: “Britons are feeding their own egos by indulging in 'recreational grief' for murdered children and dead celebrities they have never met. Mourning sickness is a substitute for religion. The media preachers of emotional correctness issued two commandments in the aftermath of Diana's death. First, thou shalt weep and wail. The word from the editorial offices was that everybody from the Queen downwards had to soften that stiff upper lip and show their emotions in public. The obligation was to hug strangers, wear a ribbon, light a candle so turning the world into one big Oprah studio where audience participation was obligatory. Second, thou shalt weep together to keep together. Only one kind of emotion was to be allowed, in order for the nation to be seen to be united on its collective knees. The clear message was that if you were not grieving the way the editorial-writers said we all were, then you should put on a front of ersatz emotion and play the part anyway. The end result was a 'tyranny of grief'.
“This coercive side of emotional correctness was never far behind the flowers and the touchy-feely stuff. In seeking to impose their code of emotional correctness from the top of society downwards, much of the media abandoned reporting in favour of preaching, replacing any notion of public debate with a demand for national unity. You do not have to be a fan of the House of Windsor to worry at the implications of the assumption of such moral authority by the media. On the morning of Diana's funeral, at least one man was reportedly beaten up outside his home for showing disrespect by daring to wash his car.”
Does any of this sound familiar?
Topic: Taking Chances, by E. L. Van Hine and L.H. Nicoll (Read 3506799 times)