Death and "healing"

Dennis Prager has written about the aftermath of the shooting at Virginia Technical Institute. The shooting itself is being covered to death, but Dennis takes issue with the convocation the following day.

Within hours of the massacre of more than 30 people at Virginia Tech University, the president of the university issued his first statement on the evil that had just engulfed the college campus and concluded with this:

"We're making plans for a convocation tomorrow at noon in Cassell Coliseum for the university to come together to begin the healing process from this terrible tragedy."

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I believe that this early healing talk is both foolish and immoral.

It is foolish because one does not speak about healing the same day (or week or perhaps even month) that one is traumatized -- especially by evil. One must be allowed time for anger and grief. To speak of healing and "closure" before one goes through those other emotions is to speak not of healing but of suppression.

...

This whole notion of instant healing (like its twin, instant forgiveness) is also morally wrong.

First, it is narcissistic. It focuses on me and my pain, not on the murderer and the murdered.

Second, it is almost obscene to talk of our healing when the bodies of the murdered are still lying in their blood on the very spot they were slaughtered. Our entire focus of attention must be on them and on the unspeakable suffering of their loved ones, not on the pain of the student body and the Virginia Tech "community."

There were, of course, comments. I left one in response to some that objected to any suggestion that anger, rage, or any similar emotion, would be appropriate:

Critical Bill writes:

"Prager wants "enraged" students. Erm, what on earth would that achieve? Do people who are in a state of rage make rational decisions? Rage is presumably one of the driving forces that led to this in the first place; more of it solves nothing."

A couple of points. First, you may be acquainted with Elizabeth Kuebler-Ross' work on the five stages of loss. The second of these is anger. If you suppress this natural phase of the grieving process, you bring the whole thing to a halt. Ironically, a call for instant "healing" sabotages this very process.

Additionally, the usefulness of rage depends on whom the rage is directed at. The Bible, from which Dennis draws his moral guidance, instructs us to "hate evil". In doing so, people oppose it, and prevent it from having its way.

In the abstract, it might be better to harbor no hate at all, but I'm not sure humans are wired that way. The Talmud observes that those who are merciful to the cruel will be cruel to the merciful. (And this is loudly echoed in the Kabbalah and its derivatives.) If victims of evil are forced to declare themselves "healed" and the evil-doer "forgiven", the result of this enforced mercy must be cruelty toward those who don't deserve it.