How tragic is a tragedy.

Listening to the radio, about the inquest into that mall collapse. First witness will be the engineer. The hope is to find out what happened and prevent it from ever happening again.

What on earth makes us think it is possible or even desireable to prevent tragedy? This seems a queer affliction of our society, that every unfortunate event must be dissected, scrutinized, someone must be found at fault, blame assigned, then a great hullabaloo over how we will Never Allow This To Happen Again! (trumpets blare and people march in circles)

Where there is overt and extreme negligence causing harm, fine, root out the problem. But we all know that this is not the case. Every bit of bad luck is used as the flagship for people who think we can live in a risk free world. It is a jumping off point for people who think tragedy and suffering is for other people in other countries with other governments. There is a whole bunch of us who believe that
bad things should never happen here because we pay taxes and play hockey. We white Westerners have, for the most part, a serious inability to accept that life is hard, bad things happen, no one is at fault, get the hell over it. No, we fall apart and lobby our MPs for change so that what happened to us will never happen to anyone else. But guess what, it will!

Is this a condition of our times? I think 100 years ago people lived with a much larger acceptance of the risks of life. Of disease. Of starvation. Of natural disaster. Communities were often bonded together most tightly when disaster struck. There was a sense that 'we are in this together' and people supported each other in real and caring ways. But it's not the same now. We are not like we were 100 years ago. Sometimes communities come together...but we also want the govt to swoop in from outside with troops, money and other help. In fact, we want the govt to prevent anything bad in the first place.

I think we have lost touch with reality and also lost touch with each other.

For those people who lost loved ones in that mall collapse, for them this is a huge tragedy. But on a bigger scale it is also just 'one of those things' and I grow weary of the drum beating and chest pounding that goes on over what is purely and simply, often a case of rotten, rotten luck. Not a fault, just an accident, pure and simple. Tragically and horribly, but it's one of those times when bad things happen for no known reason. But we have lost that ability to accept these truths, that bad things happen. And by making a crusade and cause out of each tragic event, we duck the task of suporting each other onto being busy and feeling important rallying for change.

We will never get rid of all the unfortuante and unseen agony that visits us in this life. But when it happens close to home are you going to show up and do what you can in real time, or send a letter to your MLA demanding change and inquest? I think more of the former and less of the later will build a feeling that we are all in this together. Because we are.

amen.
the saddest part, i believe, about us trying to live risk free lives is the impact it has on self esteem. Self esteem is developed, in part, through self responsibility and self reliance. I think this is why we are seeing such an increase in high risk behaviours and extreme sports and stupid jackass videos, we need risk in our lives. We learn from it, we grow stronger from surviving it. This is why we need less government, our government is reflecting the concept of zero risk being the goal in life, and we are seeing the degredation of our society and the diminishing worth of humans (in real terms, not the illusion of narcisism). So I say go ahead and eat a raw hot dog, then again that might just fall in the realm of stupidity, forget the hot dog.

If it's the mall collapse I read about some time back (how many are there?) it may very well be negligence. Seemed like repairs were recommended, quotes acquired and then just patch jobs done.

I hate that statement "to make sure it never happens again". Obviously we don't want it to happen again. we didn't want it to happen this time.

As was mentioned what they most likely want to see if someone didn't follow recommendations or took short cuts .That something like this happened can be most likely blamed on humen error ,and that is normally caused by greed ,don't do what is needed ,save the money !To prevent this from happening again ? well it needs to be said to assure everyone that something is being looked at ,not a reassurance of it never happening again .As long as there is a way of getting away with things there will be people / owners who will push the limits as far as they can. A few years ago a three or four story mall collapsed in a Eastern Country and when they "" Investagated "" they found out that the contractor along with the owner had decided to cut some corners and made some changes .It cost a lot of people there lives and they are now in prison ! and it all came down to saveing a few bucks again ! I think if you knew of someone dear to you ,or a family member that had died in this , well I would think you would also demand to know how this could happen .

Yes, investigating for negligence makes sense. But that is still different from turning everything into a crusade for change. We do have building rules and inspectors and as a society have taken precautions against catastrophic building failures. Like Fowler said, we already work to the very best of our ability to avoid needless tragedy.

But despite our best efforts, sometimes bad things happen and it's no one's fault! But we still hear people who simply cannot accept this truth, that life is often random. We are very bad at accepting that we will never have all the answers. I for one am especially bad at that! I want to understand the 'why' of everything, but you eventually learn that sometimes there is no good explanaition. Sometimes bad things happen and going on a campaign to make sure it never happens again will not do a bit of good.

Society is filled with control freaks. Much better to learn to go with the flow, and recognize the only one I can control in any given situation is myself.