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Strong Contender for Most Annoying and Vacuous Column of the Week
I know, the field is crowded. But this is it, I think. In Time. Some woman named Sarah Miller has figured out why she doesn’t like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and she wants to share:
At any given time, many people on the planet are enduring war and famine and violence. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say that in the last few weeks the news been especially awful. Around 2,000 Palestinians and 66 Israelis have died in Gaza since that conflict flared up. In our very own country, a police officer shot an unarmed 18-year-old boy, six times. This morning, Sudanese rebels shot down a U.N. helicopter.
She continues:
And here we are in America dumping ice water on our heads, which, I insist, is more than just harmless fun for a good cause. It is disrespectful to the literally millions of people in the world who are, as I type and you read, in actual physical pain.
Is the assumption here — it must be — that as long as there is someone on the planet, somewhere, who is in actual, physical pain, none of us should ever enjoy anything again? Going to be a long life for you, Sarah.
But that’s not the most annoying part, really. The most annoying part is the implicit view that the rest of the world is all alike, awful and violent and third-world, and no one ever does anything in it but suffer.
Yes, Sarah, that’s all that happens beyond American shores: suffering and dying like beasts, from dawn to dusk, from Amritsar to Caracas; it’s all a vale of tears where no one wakes up to the sound of birdsong, heaps up a plate with juicy meatballs, sings, dances, juggles, flirts, puts the finishing touch on the crossword puzzle, scores a goal, fills her lungs with the smell of the frangipani blossoms, gets a letter of admission from the university of his choice, takes the first drag of a cigarette after a long run, buys a new pair of shoes, enjoys a cool glass of water after making love.
Yes, Sarah, the whole world (except dimwitted and insensitive America) is a homogeneous, starving, suffering, violent, humorless horde, and obviously no one who isn’t American could ever be amused by the sight of people dumping buckets of cold water on each others’ heads because other people aren’t really human; they don’t have real, complex lives with a full range of emotions, including joy, boredom, curiosity, tenderness, and — say — horror at the thought of being stricken with ALS and hope that Americans (and it will be Americans, if it’s anyone) find a cure. They just (all) suffer mutely, feeling diminished and insulted by the joy of others.
And they can’t take a joke.
Image Credit: Flickr user Anthony Quintano.
Published in General
“Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere is having a good time.” – H.L. Mencken
Well if you don’t believe in anything else America stands for, the least you can do is perpetuate our sacred obligation to regard the rest of the world with sanctimonious pity. *Something* has to survive of American exceptionalism!
It used to be that flagellation was something one did in private with a whip. There are always kill joys out there ready to prove their moral superiority by telling you how much worse they feel about some tragedy than you do. The irony of her story, I find, is that she decided to waste even more time discussing an activity she feels is diverting attention away from other more imminent problems.
Good point. Perhaps she is really writing about herself, not about the troubles of the world.
I think the ice bucket challenge is vacuous. I rate it the same level as all these “runs” for [name your cause] awareness. Or shaving your head for the same reason. We’re a society with not enough to do. So we make up stuff.
From now on, I’m going to respond to any comment with which I disagree by saying that enjoying yourself on Ricochet “is disrespectful to the literally millions of people in the world who are, as I type and you read, in actual physical pain.”
These efforts raise money for these causes. So not so vacuous.
Very well put!
On another note (opposite end of the humor spectrum), mywife showed me a video of a guy chugging a beer to stamp out pms. “Having grown up in a house with all women, my life has been particularly impacted by this disease,” and he proceeds to challenge three of his friends.
Hardest I’ve laughed in a little while.
While I have not personally found the humor in the Ice Buck Challenge it seems harmless and if it raises awareness and causes more donations to charity all the better. On the other hand some of the knock off Ice Bucket Challenge videos have been quite humorous. Patrick Stewards come to mind as his method is one I can heartily embrace.
I suppose the Ice Bucket Challenge is the flip side of the [#Bring our girls home] stuff a while back, where posturing is confused as a substitute for actually doing something.
I’m not eager to make too big of a deal out of it, either way.
Or as Sigmund Freud used to say, “sometimes a Facebook video is just a Facebook video.” (still searching for citation).
No one can have fun, unless it is in a manner approved by scolds of the left and the right, apparently. I have no interest in performing the Ice Bucket Challenge. But I admit to being highly amused by people who are incensed that other people would dare to do such a thing.
As I started writing this comment I suddenly remembered that I played ice hockey for years and was at times one of those that was an inflictor of pain while doing something I loved. Excuse me I’m going to pour a bucket of ice water over my head as part of my penance as soon as I finish 3 decades of the Rosary.
Isn’t that horribly insensitive to those suffering from inactual physical pain?
Note the presumption that, because Michael Brown (who weighed in at about 300 pounds), was not carrying a gun, the police office in question could not have been in danger. It is easy to take cheap shots and reach premature conclusions if one carefully averts one’s gaze from salient facts.
I believe what you are looking for is his seminal work Five Lectures on Facebook-Analysis: The Standard Edition, Pg. 324, BN Publishing (Nov 2008). Hope this helps!
Claire . . .
Your “Yes, Sarah” . . . stands beside Church’s “Yes, Virginia . . .”
Yours is a lovely, lovely testimonial to mystery, beauty and the mere goodness in our daily lives.
(Sadly, she’s that proverbial horse that you can lead to water . . . but. . . .)
The ice bucket challenge is only a gimmick or a shtick. It actually does not mean anything either good or bad. It is some pointless action that is at home in a frat party, comedy club or youth group. It is both a brilliant and lucky marketing from a fund raising prospective, that I bet a lot of non-profits are wishing they thought off.
However, I can’t even comprehend a universe were a 15 minute fad has anything to do with suffering people and violence. We murder 30% of our infants every year, and I have lived with that reality my whole life.
I can’t even comprehend why people have such strong emotionally attachment over ice water. The only thing I can think of is we have a bunch of Fremen from Arrakis running around or some sports fans team just won or lost a national championship.
“I love it when people tell me I shouldn’t enjoy something that I enjoy. It means I’m having a better time than they are.” – Internet Comment of Unknown Origin
Or – the motorcycle rides for benefit of whatever. That one always puzzles me.
The ALS Association has received more than double the amount of donations in a two month period than it received in all of 2013.
It ain’t for nothing.
Basically, people who complain about the Ice Bucket Challenge are saying that ALS doesn’t “deserve” these donations.
The #bringourgirlshome campaign did not, in fact, achieve the goal of bringing any girls home.
The Ice Bucket Challenge, by contrast, is meeting the goal of increasing donations for the ALS Association.
Because it is one of the most unpleasant, but not life-endangering, sensations that the human body can experience.
Almost any sensation that’s more unpleasant than dumping a bucket of ice water on one’s head is accompanied by a higher risk of injury.
Even then, the ice bucket challenge is not without its own risk of injury and death.
You’re aware that the origins of the ice bucket challenge really had nothing to do with ALS, they just got lucky in getting associated with it before any other single charity?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-oped-icebucket-0819-20140819-story.html
That makes for a nice origin story, but it’s not quite accurate. Matt Lauer’s challenge, along with that of Martha Stewart and many others, predated Frates’ involvement and had nothing to do with ALS. Rather, it came from a dare that was circulating among a group of pro athletes, including golfer Greg Norman and motorcycle racer Jeremy McGrath. Those who declined the ice bath were compelled to give $100 to a charity of the challenger’s choice. (Lauer donated to the Hospice of Palm Beach County.)
Watch the golfers’ videos and you’ll see the stunt was really just about getting their friends to film themselves doing something dumb for no reason. The charity part was an afterthought.
So?
While running or ice water has little to do with the causes they support, those activities serve primarily to focus the mind. We are trying to raise money from humans, after all, who have all kinds of other things vying for their attention.
Except in this case, rather than doing nothing, the ice water dumpers have donated about $100 million in under a month.
How many thirsty children could’ve had their thirst slaked with all that wasted ice water?
#WhatEveryScoldEverywhereIsThinking
Great! To be clear, I wasn’t trying to denigrate it, I was much more trying to say it’s not a big deal, either way. I’m happy for them.