After listening to the media coverage of the horrible events that occurred in Boston on XM radio, my only source for news on a boat in Alaska, of which I get bits and pieces almost equivalent to headlines or bylines, I find that just as quick and shocking as those were, the media’s attempt to place blame before any facts were or are known, and indeed before any compassion for the victims was made evident, provided an element of shock to me. Various ideological labels were thrown about by various news organizations in an effort to assign a blame. My main question concerning this is whether or not it is reasonable to A, make such quick judgements and B, if assigning blame towards suspected associations is both legit and accurate. I regard question A to be a much easier question to answer than the latter.
The desire to hold someone accountable for such an atrocity is certainly reasonable and should be part of our inherent nature. Yet, there have been those times, and those circumstances, where such judgements are rushed, or globalized, leading not to justice, but rather injustice. This includes, but certainly is not limited to, the examples of the opinion of the general public, law enforcement, and media.
Yet, though I write this after the incidents in Boston, I do believe law enforcement, “got their men.” In a particularly rare twist the media and the public helped out law enforcement, by giving them the clues to track the perps down. This is a rarity in that the interactions between all these groups are sometimes muddled and frequently lead to outrage and discontent whether it be justified or not. Obviously I cannot address every example, for they are numerous, but it seems the law enforcement “tool” of the public and media, can be both a blessing and a curse.
This is due to media drawing its own conclusions, though occasionally using the word, “alleged,” have obviously already made up their own minds on the guilty and culprits, most the time independent of evidence. It is interesting, but in media this responsible party is generally a reflection on those whom they consider villains. What this does in the ring of popular opinion is cause strife between ideologies. For instance, immediately after the bombing, Chris Matthews blamed it on a right-wing culprit due to its lack of sophistication. He even had a guest on his show who echoed his conclusion. This can rile up the emotions of disagreeing philosophies and bring about conflict.
Thus, before a culprit was even named, an ideology was blamed responsible, a total askew and backward way of thinking on Matthews’ part. It truthfully shows us more about Mr. Matthews than the actual events and the protagonists behind them. What about in cases of profiling? We know that in certain groups can commit atrocities, or too just singular individuals can commit crimes and subscribe to a particular ideology, which can be manifest in their crimes and actions. There are those specialists who are versed in identifying these horrible ideals which lead to the despicable nature of their crimes. When this is known, or suspected, it provides a profile law enforcement can use to apprehend the guilty. Even so, this is not always accurate.
What is apparent is that those in media are hardly educated enough to point out a perpetrator and/or the philosophies he/she may subscribe to. In fact, in such media outbursts as such Matthews is guilty of. Furthermore, despite the presence of profilers in law enforcement, these men and women are not always instrumental in the capture of a criminal. At times, as is the case with the Boston suspects, the criminal is first apprehended and then their motives and idealism become clear. As of today, in fact, a day after the arrest of the second brother, his motives are still not clear, and Obama told the public wisely, “Not to jump to any conclusions.” Chris Matthews would be wise to listen to the president whose voice sends a tingle up his leg, those I guess it beats a trickle down his leg. Just sayin’. Perhaps the President too knows that the more rash the conclusion, the least likely it is to be true. Rash conclusions reflect more on those concluding than what is the case in reality.
Certainly we can see the danger in rushing to judgement, but what about the judging of ideals or a persons inherent beliefs? At what time, if any, is this warranted and at what time is it not? This is of course is a somewhat difficult question to answer, for there are those ideals which contain a violent aspect and these are ones that may need to be addressed independent of the general rules.
I find it might be helpful to start off this portion of my essay with an illustration. Let us say you belong to a local YMCA, and one of the members goes on a shooting rampage, killing innocent people in the process. Now, should your whole local organization become suspect for such atrocities? This is rather a silly example, but I choose it for a purpose, because its sometimes what we do, which is equally silly. There are plenty of ideologies, philosophies, dogmas, creeds, denominations, and categories, for almost every general belief structure out there. Each one, in addition, has its own subsections, divisions and partitions.
Let us suppose Chris Matthews was right for a change (speaking of making generalities, nudge, nudge) and there was a right-wing culprit responsible for the attacks in Boston. Should that reflect on all those who subscribe to the right-wing ideology? Certainly there are those that would believe this to be the case, but mainly only because they already have a predisposition, feelings of anger, discontent, or paranoia concerning those who belong to the right-wing of American society. Yet, it isn’t a reasonable conclusion, for it disregards those right-wing individuals who are as outraged and sympathetic concerning such attacks. It is an unjust globalization of an ideology. This remains true if one were to attribute the bombing to the left-wing faction of society, or even Americans in general, it would be equally unreasonable.
So when does it become justified? Simply, we need to narrow our scope of focus, and apply and observe applicable conditions. For instance, there are groups that exist within the world where their philosophies encourage violent behavior, and are a integral component of it. Thus, it being an essential part of their dogma, a conclusion that these groups possess violent tendencies, would be a reasonable one to make. Yet, there needs to be specificity, for these groups may take on the guise of another or be adjunct from a greater, deserving of its own classification. The more general and wide the scope we draw conclusions from, the more these conclusions are alike with racism or sexism, which is dangerous indeed.
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