Tragedy

Tragedy is an interesting factor in how we make our arguments. When something fulminant occurs people are simultaneously much more easily manipulated, but also hostile towards ideas that don’t seem reactionary enough. People want a solution, an answer, anything to make them feel safe from the same thing happening to them when tragedy strikes. In the world of rhetoric this means people are much more significantly swayed by the use of pathos. This means there are two options when writing about a tragedy, especially soon after it occurs, there is the cynical approach where you paint your ideas as proactive and use the leverage of tragedy to move people and there is the restrained approach in which you step back and try understand the situation first in order to avoid making it worse. Unfortunately in the specific case of 9/11 many politicians elected to pursue the former approach.  As someone that was only around 4 when 9/11 occurred I don’t recall much of anything at all about the actual event and the atmosphere created by it, however I am acutely aware of the effect the disaster had thanks to the repercussions of the actions of individuals willing to use tragedy as a rhetorical tool by assuring people their actions were correct simply because they were action. The consequences of this can be seen in both the history of our involvement in the Middle East and the dragnet domestic surveillance programs that have been shoved down the country’s throat in the name of protecting it. Some of the greatest dangers inherit to tragedy are not just the damage caused by the event, but also the damage that we are prone to inflict upon ourselves in reaction to it. A writer can try to temper the emotions of their audience in order to pull their point into a vacuum where it can be viewed objectively, but in the end the onus is on the reader to decide how they are going to treat new ideas. This means when writing about tragedy you must essentially choose your audience between those who will be change their normal methods of evaluating new ideas in the face of tragedy and respond positively towards ideas focused on action, or you must write for the audience which wants to understand before doing. Whichever you choose will be based on your own moral compass, but it is almost certain the other will not look kindly upon your arguments.