10/16/12

Liberal Guilt

So the other day I heard someone say, with the impression that it would be illustrative and moving, that in the wake of a recent natural disaster that killed hundreds she canceled a planned trip to Europe.

This strikes me as an excellent model for assuaging one’s survivor guilt more generally, but it would benefit from some nuance. For instance many things happen that don’t quite arrive to the level of canceling a vacation; upon hearing about the deaths of a few people in, say, Norway, in a train accident, you might refuse to put sauce on your pasta for that evening’s dinner; or upon reading that some ridiculous percentage of Americans are planning to vote for Mitt Romney (a tragedy in multiple dimensions), you could forgo your morning coffee. It’s not wearing a chalice, but hey, it’s a start.