I will and do rejoice in the end of violence against any other human being or any animal or creature. Surely, though, it's impossible for any thinking/feeling person to rejoice in the death of any other part of humanity - no matter how violently that person has lived - without compromising our own humanity.
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
(John Donne)
Grand Duchess Elizabeth & Other Stories
Is this an allusion to Bin Laden?
ReplyDeleteDear Matterhorn, perhaps on some level it is, but not specifically. The violent death of any person - how ever great their crimes - cannot add to the beauty of humanity, can it?
ReplyDeleteI find the reported celebrations - no matter how justified they might seem - so repugnant. If we are disgusted by the slaughter of innocent people going about their daily work (as in 9/11 or the London bombings), we show ourselves to be human. If we then rejoice like savages in the death of a murderer, we are no longer behaving as civilised, Christian or sane human beings...we have sunk to the depths of the depravity that we condemn in others....