Domestic war indeed

[days_unfolding]

patricks just posted an entry about a Sikh gas station owner who was shot and killed.

Am I the only one who's completely demoralized by incidents such as that? Well, judging by some of the entries of people on my friends' list, others are too. Somehow the fact that the people harassing and attacking people are from the U.S. makes it harder to bear than the initial attack.

Can society break down that fast? Some sociologists (Durkheim in particular) say that society will break down when the society is under stress, and people are largely anonymous to each other. It's a lot easier to depersonalize people whom we don't know.

On the other hand, a lot of people are condemning such acts, and the people committing them are largely on the fringes of society.

Anyway, I need to get a lot of stuff done today regardless of what's going on outside.

Comments

[days-unfolding.livejournal.com]

Mid-day on Wednesday, the traffic in Silicon Valley was the sanest and politest that I've ever seen it (at least for a long time). By Wednesday night, some of the self-important idiots had come back out of the woodwork again.

However, overall I think that you're right. People seemed especially nice when I was running errands yesterday.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Keep in mind that one of the consequences of terrorist acts is to provoke the kind of truly senseless acts as, in this case, the shooting of the Sikh.

I suspect, however, that folks in this country will do "better" in this department than has traditionally been done.

Cheers...