| “For decades, we have held in contempt those who...

“For decades, we have held in contempt those who actively celebrate death. But in the years since 9/11, we have begun vaguely mimicking those we say we despise, sometimes celebrating bloodshed against those we see as Bad Guys just as vigorously as our enemies celebrate bloodshed against innocent Americans they (wrongly) deem as Bad Guys. Indeed, an America that once carefully refrained from flaunting gruesome pictures of our victims for fear of engaging in ugly death euphoria now ogles pictures of Uday and Qusay’s corpses, rejoices over images of Saddam Hussein’s hanging and throws a party at news that bin Laden was shot in the head.”

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This is bin Laden’s lamentable victory: He has changed America’s psyche from one that saw violence as a regrettable-if-sometimes-necessary act into one that finds orgasmic euphoria in news of bloodshed. In other words, he’s helped drag us down into his sick nihilism by making us like too many other bellicose societies in history — the ones that aggressively cheer on killing, as long as it is the Bad Guy that is being killed.

Read more from David Sirota on why Bin Laden’s death is a great relief, but by cheering it we’re mimicking our worst enemies.

One of the best parts of being linked to so many social networking sites to me, is the way you get such a wide variety of people’s opinions on different subjects. As bad as it may sound, it’s realistically the most effective way to spread news. I found out about Bin Laden’s shooting via Twitter, and had it confirmed via Facebook. I missed a lot of the Tumblr hype, but watching the Youtube videos of America’s celebrations’ has been a strange experience. It’s hard to know how I feel about this, but this article interested me.

I know the Mark Twain quote is being used quite frequently to describe a lot of people’s views:

“I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.”

I find it hard to be happy that someone else’s life has been taken away - and studying ethics makes me wonder if it could have been classed as just payment for the devastation the man helped cause, but I do believe it will have gone some way to having some sense of closure for those that lost loved ones in 9/11. I cannot imagine the pain they were caused.

R.I.P.

(via fastcompany)