‘The greater love’ survives a massacre
By Wes Pruden
PrudenPolitics.com
Gloria Steinem was wrong. Once in a fit of frustration she rolled her eyes, stamped her feet, and declared that “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” This became a battle cry in the war between the sexes.
Three
young women, who survived the movie-palace massacre
in Colorado because three men gave their lives to
save them, beg to differ.
The
names of the three – Jon Blunk, Matt McQuinn and
Alex Teves – are inscribed permanently in their
hearts, vivid reminders of the words of Christ as
recorded in the 15th chapter of the Gospel of John:
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends.” This is the passage
where Christ teaches that authentic love is not mere
emotion, treacly sentiment celebrated in the syrupy
lyrics of Tin Pan Alley, but the act of sacrificial
giving. “This is my commandment,” Christ told his
disciples, “that ye love one another as I have loved
you.”
Three
sacrificial acts in a darkened charnel reveal the
spark of humanity that can survive in the human
heart.
Alas,
the temptation to play politics with tragedy, with
scribblers and cameramen standing hungrily at the
ready, was too much to resist for politicians and
others with axes to grind. Even those who should
know better tried to one-up the Prince of Peace with
the trivia of politically correct argle-bargle.
“This
empty evil adds to a series of violent acts that
weigh heavily on the national consciousness,” said
the Rev. Francis H. Wade, an Episcopalian divine who
is the interim dean of Washington National
Cathedral. He then moved the conversation smartly
away from the pain of tragedy and saddled up a
favorite hobby horse: “[These are] acts that must
surely occasion focused discussion on the interplay
of violence and the availability of guns.”
Mayor
Michael Bloomberg and Sen. Charles Schumer of New
York couldn’t wait to get in their two bits’ worth
for taking guns away from those who had nothing to
do with tragedy in Colorado or anywhere else. The
prevailing sentiment of the pols was the Gospel not
of the Apostle John but of Rahm Emanuel of Chicago,
to “never let a crisis go to waste.”
Most
of the reaction, from every pol who could croak a
note within hailing distance of a camera, conformed
to the ritual which all know by heart – go on a bit
about how awful the event was, how broken up the pol
may be, and above all how his “thoughts and prayers”
are with the victims and their families.
(Speechwriter shorthand for “thoughts and prayers”
is “T&P,” as in, “make sure to get the T&P up high
in the statement for the press.”)
Nowhere do the crocodile tears flow with more sordid
abundance than in Hollywood, whence sprang “The Dark
Knight Rises.” Christopher Nolan, the director of
the movie that inspired the massacre, was beside
himself with regret, though not necessarily remorse,
and not necessarily for the dead and wounded.
He
assigned his “thoughts,” pointedly omitting
“prayers,” and quickly moved on to tender
remembrance of his own dreadful suffering. “I would
not presume to know anything about the victims of
the shooting but that they were there to watch a
movie. I believe movies are one of the great
American art forms and the shared experience of
watching a story unfold on the screen is an
important and joyful pastime. The movie theater is
my home, and the idea that someone would violate
that innocent and hopeful place in such an
unbearably savage way is devastating to me.”
No
doubt. The man’s church, the movie palace (which has
shrunk in most places to the dimensions of a tool
shed), has been desecrated by reality imitating the
mindless gore and offal on the screen. The Colorado
massacre has ignited anew a debate on whether the
movies, video games and other media have so polluted
the culture as to make massacres inevitable.
The
shooter, the self-described orange-haired Joker of
the Batman comic books, is solely responsible for
the carnage in Colorado. It was he who did the deed.
Collective guilt is for the sociologists and
head-shrinkers. But only a fool argues that movies
like “The Dark Night Rises” have not dumped trash
and garbage into the cesspool the culture has
become. We all swim in the pollution; a few of us,
unable to keep heads out of the sewage, cannot
resist the temptation to imitate in pursuit of
transient fame. But we take the comfort and
consolation we can from an unexpected act of greater
love.
Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington
Times.