Aristotle once observed that the plot of a tragedy should be so framed that, even without witnessing the events, simply hearing of them should fill one with “horror and pity”—even lead to insight and action. But the amphitheater of the 21st century has fallen into decay, scattered and fragmented into a multitude of media platforms. There are too many actors in too many theaters and their tragedies—overwhelming, lacking in context, incoherent, truncated or badly reported—have lost their grip on the human psyche.

    Studies about desensitization of the modern mind are aplenty, but the general consensus is that over-saturation of images and narratives of violence have resulted in a collective numbness. A profound act of public death cannot hope to sway a world in which horror itself has lost its power.



ButterflyEffect:

I feel like self-immolation is more successful when dealing with more internal struggles as opposed to the Tibet-China situation. Tunisia, for example, was likely already teetering on the edge and that action was literally the flame needed to set everything off.

Tibet, on the other hand, has been in conflict for quite some time now against a country much larger and powerful than itself and it's indigenous population. The rest of the world is not willing to take up arms and protests for Tibet, not against China, and thus these acts of self-immolation go largely wasted.


posted 3984 days ago