Saturday, June 29, 2013

OUTRAGE?

I just thought I'd get this off my chest.  I'm so tired of the use of the word "outrage."  There are a lot of things in this world that are outrageous.  Most of the crap that people label as "outrageous" isn't really outrageous.  It may be annoying or it may piss you off.  But it's not outrageous. 

I recently read a book titled "Auschwitz" my daughter gave to me for father's day.  I really hesitated about reading it but I finally realized that reading history requires reading a lot of uncomfortable stuff.  I read the book.  I digested the book.  It was horrible.  The writer was a doctor who survived years in the prison camp by conducting numerous autopsies under the supervision of Dr. Mengele.  If that doesn't ring a bell he is the infamous "Angel of Death."  He conducted the most disgusting human experiments the human mind could contemplate.  Most the autopsies were done on demand.  In other words, there wasn't a lot of natural death going on.  Mostly the killing was on demand because Mengele wanted to conduct his research on the victims.  This was truly a disturbing book. 

As the Holocaust fades into history we need to read about what happened to remember.  Genocides have occurred throughout history for no other reason than a dominant group wanted to eliminate a subservient group.  My friend Z has a connection to one of the most horrible genocidal incidents in history: Armenians slaughtered by the Turks during WWI.  The Japanese conducted genocide in Asia in the 1930s with very little notice in America because America is Eurocentric.

These incidents are truly "OUTRAGEOUS."   Please don't cheapen the word by applying it to a series of bothersome incidents that really aren't worth the hyperventilating that goes on with politicians and other of the lower species who use the word to express their annoyance that everybody doesn't agree with them. 

6 comments:

Z said...

thanks for the mention and the 'friend'..I'm honored.

And yes, that's my ugly connection to the German holocaust; I call the Armenian one the 'low-tech' holocaust.

And yes, it is OUTRAGEOUS to use that word cheaply... I personally can't stand the word "awesome" used cheaply...everything is awesome these days. Not to me; God is AWEsome...that's it. :-)

Anonymous said...

Z,
The silliness of our language today is ridiculous. OMG!

WomanHonorThyself said...

what a thoughtful post. I too know full well the horrors of that dreaded time...but .HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!
Have a patriotic weekend :)

Ducky's here said...

Maybe the outrage is how few history has chosen to remember.

The Armenians have been remembered but the millions of Greeks and Assyrians killed by the Turks at the same time? Long forgotten.

The Holodomor?

Was the cause of the Bengali famine ever decided?

How about the string of White Terrors, many with Americas cooperation.
If our history books mention Chiang Kai-Shek at all I'm sure they omit that butchery.
One of the slaughters in Central America countenanced by the great Ronald Reagan is not going quietly away in Guatemala.

What's the body count up to in Congo? Is it high enough for outrage yet?

Maybe the true outrage is how a few events get selected and the rest just slip quietly away, never letting us grasp the real lesson. There is nothing one man, and that includes strutting "freedom loving" Americans will not do to another.
Yeah, that's the outrage.


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