From time to time, I am simply floored by a disgusting newspaper article. I had such a reaction when reading Matthew Parris in the Times last Saturday. Ruminating on the tsunami catastrophe, he put forward the view that the world would be a duller place without such cataclysms, and that we would all agree that -- were we to have the power -- we would not wish to prevent such events from taking place. This was shocking enough. But it was as nothing compared to what then followed. For he wrote that the disaster had given him 'a thrill':

'The thought is expressed in the word (and the punctuation) "Wow!" A small, insistent voice in the back of my head says: "Isn’t this amazing!" A minor but insuppressible part of me has almost relished — yes, relished — those huge numbers. As the newspaper headlines spoke greedily of the numbers of dead "approaching" twenty, then fifty, then eighty, then a hundred thousand, something undeniable twitched in the back of my brain. It was a sort of excitement as the figures mounted; as though some great auctioneer of calamity were taking bids from the media floor, and I was willing the bidding to carry on upwards. When will it reach a hundred thousand? Could it reach a quarter of a million? Was this a record? How did it stand in the history of these disasters? That high! Wow!'

To make sure we got the point, he went on:

'I watched the TV pictures of the surge of ocean coming ashore, saw the buildings in its path, and had to stifle an inward "Yes! Sweep them away! Show us how small is Man! Show us how easily this Universe can make matchwood of our dreams!" And no, you do not need to remind me that they were somebody else’s dreams, not mine. "Show us," I thought, "how lives and livelihoods can be snuffed out in the twinkling of an eye."

He concluded that, since if he had been at the site of the disaster he would have worked like everyone else to save people, he could not be accused of callousness or indifference. Something similar could be said of those who get a thrill from watching people being tortured or murdered. In other words, this is nothing other than sick voyeurism -- real life as a snuff movie. It is nihilistic exhibitionism. It speaks of a piece of ice where the heart should be; it speaks of a very deep moral and spiritual vacuum; it is just plain weird.

So far, the Times has printed only one brief letter of protest. One wonders how many it has received.

Two questions. What kind of society produces people who think like this? And what kind of newspaper prints it?

Posted by melanie at January 4, 2005