starting fires
Because I like metaphors, many times I hear stories and I think about them as metaphors.
Today, I'm listening to stories of people being questioned about starting fires that caused/added to the California fire storm. That is the extent of my knowledge of the real story.
But in my brain, I see a father and son camping. Simultaneously, I see two college age kids throwing a cigarette out of the window. When we tell stories, we like to blame the people who have erred. Therefore, it would be the cigarette, not the camp fire, that destroys people's homes. But, even with my short number of years, I have learned that it is not always as simple as that. Blame is a sticky business.
Not coincidentally, I have my students writing their "cause and effect" paper (a requirement that I am following -- not a paper I would choose to do). The problem with the paper is that it is not always easy (or even helpful) to trace things to their causes. And sometimes, we find out that the cause was not malicious. It was two people attempting to spend a weekend together in the woods.
So, I imagine a story. A story where no one is to blame for natural disasters.
Then I wonder about global warming and arson and FEMA and looting and and and.
I find myself attempting to sort out ethical behaviors from others. I drive a better car, but I don't do anywhere near everything I could to lighten my footprint.
I don't know where I am going with this. I just keep thinking about two people enjoying a campfire. I imagine something going wrong, and the fire gets out of control. But, then I hear people on the news: they want to "have time alone" with these suspected arsonists. As if beating him/her senseless could rebuild their homes.
I don't know. I just think we could be so much better than this.
Today, I'm listening to stories of people being questioned about starting fires that caused/added to the California fire storm. That is the extent of my knowledge of the real story.
But in my brain, I see a father and son camping. Simultaneously, I see two college age kids throwing a cigarette out of the window. When we tell stories, we like to blame the people who have erred. Therefore, it would be the cigarette, not the camp fire, that destroys people's homes. But, even with my short number of years, I have learned that it is not always as simple as that. Blame is a sticky business.
Not coincidentally, I have my students writing their "cause and effect" paper (a requirement that I am following -- not a paper I would choose to do). The problem with the paper is that it is not always easy (or even helpful) to trace things to their causes. And sometimes, we find out that the cause was not malicious. It was two people attempting to spend a weekend together in the woods.
So, I imagine a story. A story where no one is to blame for natural disasters.
Then I wonder about global warming and arson and FEMA and looting and and and.
I find myself attempting to sort out ethical behaviors from others. I drive a better car, but I don't do anywhere near everything I could to lighten my footprint.
I don't know where I am going with this. I just keep thinking about two people enjoying a campfire. I imagine something going wrong, and the fire gets out of control. But, then I hear people on the news: they want to "have time alone" with these suspected arsonists. As if beating him/her senseless could rebuild their homes.
I don't know. I just think we could be so much better than this.
posted by perrykat at
4:47 PM
1 Comments:
Leaving aside even trying to say why being to oversimplify, I heard a nice piece on NPR about the fires, where a person involved (scientist or firefighter or advocate) saying, essentially, that it is ludicrous to focus on the trigger when the key factor is the abundance of fuel that builds up and waits ... and waits ...
Yeah, I know there is that whole Marxist structuralist inevitability versus free will Great Man human agency shaping destiny. Both are insufficient on their own. But we conflate cause with trigger too easily. Time for a discussion of proximate and root causes. The rigged shotgun that kills the intruder... who fires it?
How to balance the idea of response-ability, the choice can we make to continue a cycle, to be the tango partner, or to shape the future - with - the idea that the past and the environment matter, and even bound the range of possible responses, outcomes?
To close the circle, they said one fire was an arson, another an exploding transformer, another a careless welding torch.
And the arson? Arsonists, says the expert, like the feeling of power from taking a little match and seeing all the fire and destruction and attention.
To "cause" so much.
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