Unless there is some deep insight in the article, I feel like the person's identity is not something we need to know.
It was a terrible situation. What benefit comes from knowing? Are we supposed to judge that person for not wanting to suffer slowly instead of taking a faster route? Or are we supposed to commend his bravery or sacrifice?
Agreed. It would humanize him to know who he was, what his interests were, who loved him
I judge no one there. They all endured a terrifying tragedy that I hope never to comprehend. I cannot imagine what I would do if my choice were to burn in a fire or plummet hundreds of meters, but whatever my choice would be, I would begrudge no one their choices
Especially these days when people are often so desensitized to violence, I think attaching identity does a good job of restoring our sense of humanity. When it's a distant person you know nothing of, their death may not be meaningful. When it's a husband, a father, a son, a daughter, the value of the life feels higher to us.
As someone who thinks our world could greatly benefit from a big dose of empathy, compassion, and caring, I'm glad people are trying to tell these stories.
> Are we supposed to judge that person for not wanting to suffer slowly instead of taking a faster route? Or are we supposed to commend his bravery or sacrifice?
What about none of these? Why the need to assign value judgement to decision that person had to make and that did not affected other people?
I'm always surprised that people chose to chastise and berate someone for trying to find facts and truth. The article talks about how trying to simply find out how many people jumped from the towers is met with disgust and condemnation, both in-person and online - with webpages dedicated to baiting people searching for it on google, and offering an offensive statement telling those people to get lost and that they should be ashamed of themselves for looking.
I don't know, maybe something in my brain doesn't work quite right, but I never understood it - knowledge is knowledge. When we search for something, the desire to find the answer should never be shamed, even if the answer is shameful in itself.
That's a....weird way of looking at it. The journalist is looking for the answers. The article they wrote is published on a website that runs ads. Yes, I suppose that technically the topic is used to make money since you wouldn't have visited the site otherwise. But it feels like saying that people are making money on Auschwitz, because there are ads along the way there - you wouldn't have seen them if you weren't going to Auschwitz, so clearly the holocaust is now selling you ads for cheap laptops, right?
No it sounds more like searching "how many people died in WW1" and having the first result on google be "you should be ashamed for looking this up you pervert"
So you ask for perspective on something you don't understand, get some, and then reject it? And insert your own. Okay. Alright. Go with your comparison.
The disgusting part isn't wanting to know who he is. It's tracking down the family, and when they refuse to talk, crashing the dead man's funeral to show his widow and daughters the picture of him moments before his death.
> All that remained was for Peter Cheney to confirm the identification with Norberto's wife and his three daughters. They did not want to talk to him, especially after Norberto's remains were found and identified by the stamp of his DNA—a torso, an arm. So he went to the funeral. He brought his print of Drew's photograph with him and showed it to Jacqueline Hernandez, the oldest of Norberto's three daughters. She looked briefly at the picture, then at Cheney, and ordered him to leave.
yeah, there's nothing inherently wrong about trying to figure out some fact. the problem arises in how you go about doing it. once you start asking questions that bring up painful memories, you have to consider whether the fact finding is actually worth bringing up all that pain. seems like this particular fact wasn't really worth it.
related but different: something can be an ironclad matter of fact and at the same time be entirely inappropriate to mention, depending on the venue.
I read this article when it first came out four years ago. I’m not generally someone who needs/heeds trigger warnings (though I’m cool with having them for people who do) but this is probably one of the few pieces of journalism I’ve read that really viscerally fucked me up. I think it’s the way the first few paragraphs vacuum away the politics and history and just isolate these moments of true existential horror, then make you imagine them over and over again from different angles... Yeah, it’s a lot.
I definitely recommend people read it. Read it because thinking about death is important. Read it because the questions about history and how we document it are important. Read it because it’s just damn good writing. But read it on a sunny afternoon with plans to do something fun later, because the headspace it puts you into isn’t somewhere you may want to stay too long. Your mileage may vary.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 63.3 ms ] threadIt was a terrible situation. What benefit comes from knowing? Are we supposed to judge that person for not wanting to suffer slowly instead of taking a faster route? Or are we supposed to commend his bravery or sacrifice?
Speak for yourself there.
As for me, identity makes him a person, a possessor of human qualities, something more than an increment operation on a counter.
What do you mean by this? OP's implication seems reasonably obvious. Are you saying it made more sense not to jump?
I judge no one there. They all endured a terrifying tragedy that I hope never to comprehend. I cannot imagine what I would do if my choice were to burn in a fire or plummet hundreds of meters, but whatever my choice would be, I would begrudge no one their choices
As someone who thinks our world could greatly benefit from a big dose of empathy, compassion, and caring, I'm glad people are trying to tell these stories.
What about none of these? Why the need to assign value judgement to decision that person had to make and that did not affected other people?
I don't know, maybe something in my brain doesn't work quite right, but I never understood it - knowledge is knowledge. When we search for something, the desire to find the answer should never be shamed, even if the answer is shameful in itself.
I hope photos of my death are never used to help sell cheap t-shirts and truck bed liners.
> All that remained was for Peter Cheney to confirm the identification with Norberto's wife and his three daughters. They did not want to talk to him, especially after Norberto's remains were found and identified by the stamp of his DNA—a torso, an arm. So he went to the funeral. He brought his print of Drew's photograph with him and showed it to Jacqueline Hernandez, the oldest of Norberto's three daughters. She looked briefly at the picture, then at Cheney, and ordered him to leave.
related but different: something can be an ironclad matter of fact and at the same time be entirely inappropriate to mention, depending on the venue.
I definitely recommend people read it. Read it because thinking about death is important. Read it because the questions about history and how we document it are important. Read it because it’s just damn good writing. But read it on a sunny afternoon with plans to do something fun later, because the headspace it puts you into isn’t somewhere you may want to stay too long. Your mileage may vary.