Well it's 3 days since Jo Cox was murdered and personally I'm still feeling shocked by it. I can't imagine what her family and those close who knew her must be going through, especially hearing on national media, her very well publicized last words about being in too much pain. I know that across the world, in many countries, this kind of thing - and much worse - happens with depressing regularity, but there is something that feels particularly shocking when it happens so close to home. It's already had a noticeable impact in my local Labour Party, in London, 200 miles from Jo Cox's constituency, where some of my friends are now seriously feeling a sense of 'it could have been me' - and I understand our own MP is - unsurprisingly - feeling that particularly badly.
There's obviously going to be - and should be - a lot of soul-searching about the causes of this attack. Personally, I do not think it's remotely credible to dismiss this as one person with mental health problems. Not only is that unfair (and somewhat insulting to the millions of other people in the UK who have mental health problems of some description, almost all of whom pose no danger to anyone except possibly themselves), but it ignores that none of us live in a vacuum; we are all heavily influenced by our culture, by society, by the attitudes of other people, and by the media. It seems very obvious to me in this regard that the continual denigration of politics, the cynicism, the assumption that politicians are always acting in bad faith, and the determination by many people (and many newspapers) to find reasons to make out that there is foul play or bad motivation must surely be a factor. The Telegraph has an unusually thoughtful
article about this:
Telegraph said:
Public discourse about politicians is becoming ugly. Its one thing to be critical of a specific MPs language, or their actions, or a partys policies. But its quite another to wish a plague on all their houses, to snort that theyre all the same, that theyre only in it for themselves. Im tired of hearing about the elites and the establishment, the bubble and the political class, nasty little phrases that dehumanise the individual, encourage brainless paranoia, poison us with suspicion and provoke some to hate. We arent ruled by a cabal of the evil, greedy and callous. Were served by human beings who make mistakes, and get no end of grief even when they dont.
We should remember Jo Cox and we should remember that.
Aside from remembering most people, whether politicians or otherwise, do actually often try to do their best with their limited understanding of whatever the situation is, I think that's a good reminder to try to conduct debates in a respectful manner.
And then I come to railforums and, on the thread that's supposed to be about this tragedy, I read stuff like this:
It's pretty obvious you're getting very desperate at this point.
This seems to be part of a long, rather boring to read, and increasingly acrimonious sub-discussion that, so far as I can tell, mostly seems to be made up of certain forum members questioning other forum members' intelligence/honesty/good faith/etc. I think several people here could do with stepping back and considering the thing about respectfulness.