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Empathy, Sympathy, and a Moment for Grace…Even For Alec Baldwin
Alec Baldwin is not a good man.
We can go through his long personal, political, and professional history and document all the ways in which Baldwin has acted in disgusting, horrible fashions. It would take about 50 seconds on Google to come up with enough information to write a 2,000-word piece on the subject.
But this moment is not about Alec Baldwin.
In a horrible incident in New Mexico, on the set of the movie “Rust”, Baldwin apparently fired a prop gun, and some kind of projectile of unknown type was ejected, with horrible consequences: Director of photography Halyna Hutchins, 42, was transported to the hospital via helicopter and pronounced dead by medical personnel at University of New Mexico Hospital, according to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office.
Director Joel Souza, 48, was transported to Christus St. Vincent’s Regional Medical Center by ambulance for care. Details on his condition were not released.
The scope of the tragedy is hard to comprehend for the Hollywood community. Hutchins was a well-known cinematographer, and the grieving throughout the industry was seen all over social media. Souza is expected to make a full recovery, and is lucky not to have been more seriously injured.
Baldwin expressed his shock and sadness regarding the tragic events on social media. “There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother, and deeply admired colleague of ours.”
As those closest involved with the incident deal with the repercussions of this tragedy, the public spectacle is one we are all familiar with. Those that despise Baldwin have often been almost gleeful at what has befallen him. Others are simply using the moment to point out the many times Baldwin has failed to show sympathy or empathy to those he dislikes, most famously former Vice President Dick Cheney. Baldwin famously ridiculed Cheney after the Vice President accidentally shot and wounded a friend on a hunting trip (the man survived with minor injuries).
None of this speaks well of civil society in America today. These are the moments that define what type of nation we want to have, and want to aspire to. Our nation remains engulfed in a divisive culture war, with all sides treating Americans they view as the enemy as a ‘foreign’ force that must be politically destroyed and excluded from public life.
Baldwin is clearly not a sympathetic character in this regard. Few have done more to worsen our civil discourse. He has had long-running feuds with numerous conservatives, and his despise for former Presidents Donald Trump and George W. Bush is public and well known.
This is however when the concept of empathy, sympathy, and grace become most important. When things are well, and people are content, it is far easier to express sympathy to those we not only dislike, but fail to understand. But in times like these, when we are polarized and divided, it becomes extremely difficult to rise above the rancor and anger.
I’ve written about the concepts of empathy and sympathy many times, and especially in regards to our failure to promote these concepts for the greater good of civility in American society. Here is an excerpt from 2018:
When someone tries to display sympathy for another person’s hardships and anguish, it is simply an acknowledgment that we understand what that person is going through, and we simply hope for their quick recovery. In traditional society, the quickest and most common way to demonstrate that heartfelt belief was to send prayers to those that were suffering. Sharing sympathetic thoughts is one significant way in which we experience a greater sense of shared similarities together, and allows for a more profound personal engagement than one would generally have with people under normal situations.
Empathy, on the other hand, is the ability to put one’s self into the shoes of another, and to truly understand their point of view. It allows us to come to terms with how others came to make the decision they chose to make, without allowing our own biases to cloud that judgment. So the uniqueness of empathy is that, unlike sympathy, it allows for people to join together and at least attempt to have a shared experience. First and foremost, it involves seeing someone else’s situation from their perspective, and second, sharing their emotions, including their distress.
Most of us cannot truly understand the grief that Halyna Hutchins’ family is going through, nor can we comprehend that devastation and despair that Alec Baldwin is feeling. But we can attempt to be empathetic in trying to understand the devastation caused by this tragic incident.
Baldwin may not be a generous or open-hearted person to those he politically disagrees with, but he is a human with human emotions. And this is a moment in which our common humanity should rise above the anger, rhetoric, and divisiveness that Baldwin, and many of us, have contributed to over the years.
And this is why the concept of grace is so critical to a civil society. Grace, ultimately, is the generous, free and totally unexpected and undeserved understanding of one to another. It is a concept unencumbered by the concept of just deserts, which demands we take ‘an eye for an eye’ as a just punishment for prior injustices.
Grace requires that our sympathetic, empathetic and graceful nature rise above the bad behavior of others. Baldwin probably is undeserving of our empathy. He failed to be graceful when his enemies were in a similar position. But grace requires us to elevate our spirit above and beyond what we would expect of others. Grace requires us to do what we believe is right, even if those we bestow that gift on would not do the same for us.
This is a sacrifice for many of us. It is easy to be mean-spirited and spiteful to those that have behaved that way toward us. Ultimately, however, such a society only damages us all. The true spirit of a truly peaceful and accepting society is one where we forgive, and try to rise above the anger and rancor. And only by acting in this manner can we hope to become a more civil society.
Published in Culture
Exactly! I was thinking of commenting along those lines but thought better of it.
Yep that’s what I was going to say too. Airlift to a high-end trauma facility.
Sounds at least like ammunition – sorry – for a civil lawsuit of wrongful death if nothing else.
Yes. Good memory!
Maybe he does deserve jail time.
I didn’t.
When you consider how many cop films, war movies and horse operas have been made Hollywood actually has a pretty enviable record in regards to gun safety. The tragedies always seem to involve some idiot actor.
If Derek Chauvin, who was acting on the authority conferred on him and within the protocols of the police department while discharging his duty in detaining a criminal is in jail indefinitely (I’d be very surprised if he makes it out alive, and what kind of life would it be?), then Alec Baldwin deserves jail time, too. No question. He’s more culpable, imo, than Chauvin. You simply don’t get to kill someone with a firearm — even accidentally — without legal consequences. That is, if we have any kind of a “justice” system left.
Clearly this was not a “prop” gun. It discharged a round of something. I’m a shooting amateur, but even I can’t imagine pointing a gun at someone under any circumstances unless I was intending to kill. It’s simply unthinkable. As Hinderaker said, even if you had a reason (still unthinkable) to point a gun at someone on a movie set, you’d want to personally check several times to make sure the chamber was empty.
I don’t delight in Baldwin’s suffering, but he simply must be held responsible. Life as he’s known it should be over, as it is for Hutchins.
Wow, I didn’t know that.
Horrible events.
It’s human nature to find blame, if for no other reason that to assure ourselves that “that wouldn’t happen to me”. Having had to explain many a stitch and broken bone of my sons, I witnessed it as the immediate “go to” for most parents. Except my mother, who would just yell at me for 30 seconds before becoming supportive.
My family has had the misfortune to be on both sides of tragic accidents; an older brother, while on his bicycle, was hit by a truck and died three days later. It was not the driver’s fault, as my brother couldn’t reach the brakes on the bicycle and blew through a stop sign. 25 years later, a younger brother hit a motorcyclist who died at the scene. Again, it was not the driver’s fault.
Seeing what it did to my brother, and the pain he’s had to live with for 20 + years makes me grateful that my parents treated the truck driver who killed their oldest boy with such grace and dignity.
I have no love for Alec Baldwin. But I wouldn’t wish what he’s going through on anyone. I pray for the family of the victim, and for Alec Baldwin to survive this horrible incident and hopefully come out the other side a better man.
It’s days like this I wish someone would set Twitter on fire.
Do you really believe the actors all these western movies examine the props before they film a scene? That’s the responsibility of the prop men.
For the record, I’ve been handling firearms since I was 10, and I’m now 83 and an Army veteran. I do not need lessons on firearms safety from someone on the internet. Sheesh!
Wow! Wonder why none of that made it on the news. MSM doing their usual sterling job.
We’ll just disagree about that.
The cinematographer was not IN the show, and there was absolutely no reason for anyone to point even a “prop” gun in her direction.
Sounds like negligent manslaughter at minimum.
I was in a play once where the lead was shot with a pistol night after night. The lead, who had himself been shot in the chest once, proclaimed it a “creampuff”. And still the prop man, the director and the lead actor who was going to be shot, checked the pistol out personally every night. I think that actors really think that guns are a toy and a PR prop for cultural agitation and name advancement, see the world as a fantasy place. Where nothing except their “being in the moment” and exploring the “truth” that they imagine, is real.
Real guns? There a creampuff. They’re not real.
Added 10/23: Just to be clear, my point was that the guy who’d actually been shot thought the blanks were “creampuff”, but the actors who’re never really practiced with guns think that all guns are props and creampuffs.
That seems like a big dose of cognitive dissonance since they blame guns for crime, not criminals.
For big-time professional actors sure. But for small-time starters who’d been gangsters? They knew guns and what they’d do. Opening night the crucial moment when the lead was shot, the whole audience could hear a young child calling out: “[Name] got shot! [Name] got shot again. [Name] got shot again, Mommy. [Name] got shot again!”
It was never asked it this augmented the show or detracted from the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief.
That was my guess.
It was a tragic accident. Just as Colin Powell’s recent death was not, in my opinion, an occasion for giving vent to political differences, so too is this not a time to focus on politics or character deficiencies. Through what seems must be some gross negligence on the part of one or more people, an innocent person is dead. That’s a tragedy. Let the investigations play out; it will remain a tragedy.
I’d like to suggest that this perhaps paints too broadly. We are more than 300 million people. In any population that large, you will find as many saints and as many ghouls as you seek. Neither is a reflection on the character of our nation. Avoid reading anecdotes — and that’s what every ugly tweet and social media post is, an anecdote — as more than one of a quarter billion expressing an opinion.
I think this is one of the great misunderstood aspects of our country, this issue of large and small numbers.
We need more information, particularly on what precisely Alec was doing with the gun when he fired it. It is possible he was firing toward the camera as part of the shoot. Given what’s been reported, perhaps OSHA could take a break from playing COVID cop and investigate this workplace fatality.
I was always taught that the very first thing you do when you pick up a gun is check to see if it’s loaded.
I agree with the article, but I would like to make a simple point. A gun should always be treated as if it is loaded and ready to fire. That is what I was taught. I am sure this was an accident but wonder if it was wholly avoidable. Guns can be accidentally fired; however, they should not be pointed at anyone. Perhaps Hollywood knows this but failed in this case.
Very well said! The post helped me wrestle a bit with how to think about the public conversation that developed around how we should react to what happened on set. I realize, for me at least, this means not writing/talking too much about it. What happened was sad. As best I can tell, there are non-trivial reasons to think it could have been avoidable, but for me, showing grace is recognizing that it’s sad, my comments won’t change much about what happens next, so in the spirit of grace, I will try and move on with my life and not pile on.
Also, I’m a twitter lurker but I’ve truly enjoyed having Pradheep’s tweets come across my t/l. Great to see a post from him here.
Why would a movie use an actual, functional firearm?
Why would a movie have actual, functional rounds for such a firearm?
Someone could get shot.
Thank you! Appreciate it.
People who don’t handle guns can see this as a tragic accident. People who handle guns frequently see this as a human caused disaster. Whether it was the shooter being complete out of his depth handling firearms or an incredibly incompetent gun boss on the set, this gun didn’t kill someone by itself. The narrative is rapidly being shaped by the legacy media as a terrible accident but someone should go down for this.
How about don’t play with guns if you don’t know what you are doing?
Thank you! Pleasure to see you here and to get read your longer form thoughts!
On screen, guns most certainly should be pointed at people. All the comments about gun safety miss entirely the condition of firearms used as props. Not plastic “props,” real firearms prepared for use on a set.
I routinely pointed at, and fired at, other American soldiers. I did so with blanks and a special adapter that sent a laser pulse to trigger a hit signal on the opposing soldiers in military force-on-force exercises. I was using the very real selective fire military carbine assigned to me, and even used a .50 caliber machine gun the same way. Unlike a movie set, with division of labor, I was personally responsible for loading the blanks and checking the proper functioning of my assigned firearm.
Pointing in the direction of the camera, or some other direction where film crew are standing, may well be exactly what is called for. The actors are not qualified to load or check the load of blanks, I believe. There are fairly strong divisions of responsibility in the industry.
In the case of Alec Baldwin, it seems appropriate to hold him to his own standard, to judge him as he has judged others. He attacked a police officer for what may have been a fatal accidental shooting. That tweet is worth holding up against Baldwin’s current situation. From that, perhaps, he might learn to be a better man and express regret towards that powerless cop.
Want a good primer on the subject? Read this piece by a film set professional: Filming with Firearms
Henry, just as we should wait for the coroner and the DA to study the evidence before crying “murder”, we should await their reports before crying “tragic accident”.
Was the armorer stoned? Was Mr Baldwin being blackmailed by one of the victims? Did the prop guy want to ruin the film in a union dispute and figure that a (presumably non-lethal) live fire accident would do so and therefore slip a live round into the chamber? There are too many system failures here for me to accept accident or incompetence without seeing an expert evaluation of the evidence. Which, since the scene was being filmed, must be considerable.