What quantifies a tragedy?

[Mighty NorCal]

So yea, unlike most, my Cigar Lounge threads arent esoteric, snobby, and dont suck (best of all)

Like most of you, I hate when people give some long drawn out boring backstory to their threads. Unfortunately, I have to, to set this up. Appologies. Ill try to keep it short, and concise.

Ok so, my senior year of football, I wore No.58 in honor of the recently deceased KC Cheifs linebacker Derrick Thomas. He had been slain in an auto accident, hit by a drunk driver. I was so sad to hear this, as he was one of my favorite players, and it I found it SUCH a tragedy.

Well, recently, I come to find out, that after investigation, thats NOT what happened at all. Actually, Thomas was late to catch a plane, was speeding, weaving in and out of traffic, and got into an accident after running a red light. He died because he wasnt wearin a seat belt, and was ejected from the car.

Now, as much of an asshole as this may make me seem, I sat back and thought to myself "well....thats not very tragic at all, he was just being a total absolute fucking idiot"

So. Question is...What quantifies something as a tragedy? Is someone dying because of their own moronic behaviour tragic, really? Or is it natural selection in action? If a person downs a bottle of whiskey, and then decides to go take a drive and crash into a telephone pole, is that a tragedy? If someone smokes 2 packs a day for 20 years and dies of lung cancer, after being pleaded with to stop, is that a tragedy?

I say no, personally. What do you guys think?

 

[Phoenix]

A tragedy to me, would be the loss of someone you hold dear when their time was too soon to you, without a wreckless reason.

I mean my example would be where my nan's passing was tragic to me and my family, it was the right time for her, despite how huge the loss of her was. It was definitely a tragedy because she such a wonderful person.

Despite it being a bland out example, I would call Eddie Guerrero's passing a tragedy, because it was unexpected, it was a huge loss and he was a good person in the peak of his career at the time of passing, you think that he would have been the last person to pass away at that time then.

What I didn't class a tragedy was a kid I knew at school has recently died in an accident. Now I might seem a bastard, but he was a bad apple, he was popular locally for the being first under 16 to be given an ASBO, but I was unaffected by his death.

Tragedies are defined by emotional involvements, but also how much of a shock factor the passing may be and your experiences or how dear you hold the person who passes away.

 

[Nitafrong]

Well I havn't seen any of your other cigar threads so I can't comment on them but this is certainly a very interesting question

Maybe I might be a bit more softhearted than you but even in the examples that you give I would still see them as a tragedy- tragedy that the smoker for instance refused to believe in the inevitable and believed in their own immortality before he was creully reminded of the essiential facts of life. I suppose I always equate it with Macbeth. No one is ever truly evil, they always tend to have some benevelent aspect to their character and in the more nasty and malevent this has become tiny through their own maccinations or that of others. When they ultimatly meet their own destruction due to their own actions, it feels to me like a tragedy- they caused their own death though whatever faults they possessed, however deserved their death may have been (like Macbeth).

I know this may all seem a little confusing, when an evil person dies due to their own actions, I feel it is a tragedy that caused it for themselves- that they were corrupted, though I don't feel sorry for them and may feel their death is deserved. In my mind no one is ever born evil, and I think back to the small kind child they were once and feel it is a tragedy what they have become.

Yeah as I say, a bit soft hearted of me. I just hate the thought of self corruption

 

[HBK-aholic]

I view tragedy on more of a personal level than you, I think. If it was my mother who had died after continually smoked despite warnings about her health, I'd think of it as a tragedy, despite your arguments against that. To me, when I think of a tragedy I think of something which upsets me personally, because it seems such a strong word to mean something else.

On the other hand, I also view things such as 9/11 and 7/7 as tragedies, despite not being personally involved in them. I'm really not making any sense here, am I? I'm just going to go with a tragedy being something that really upsets people, because it's the people left behind from the alcoholic or smokers deaths who matter, and they're not going to care how the death occured.

 

[The Legendary 23]

In my view, a tragedy doesn't even have to result in death. A tragedy can be an event that terribly alters someone's life that nobody can change. I always never liked it when people bring up some bland story from their life, but I think it's necessary here to emphasize my point.


One of my friends (lets call him Eric in this thread) was the kind of guy who was always working out. And I mean always working out. Needless to say he was a pretty big guy with rock hard muscles. He had always dreamed of going into the Marines, and living the army life he felt he was born for. And honestly, I think that he was.

One day before swim practice he decides to wrestle another classmate for fun in the wrestling room, and this other classmate is a big guy himself, bigger than Eric. I don't feel like explaining exactly how it happened, but the bigger classmate badly breaks Eric's leg when he slams him on the ground. Eric immediately starts screaming in pain, and we send him off to the hospital. I hear the next day about the seriousness of the injury; there is a blood clot denying his lower leg blood and oxygen, he is to undergo 4-5 surgeries, and afterwards, he is going to have 4 poles through his leg to stabilize it. I was in shock to say the least.

I visit him in the hospital as soon as possible, and I nearly fell on my ass when I saw him. He turned very gaunt, and his arms was half of their usual thickness. I turned and saw 5 lb dumbells on the table, his mom later told me he was struggling to lift even those. Days later I found out that Steve's life was in danger. Apparently all of the atrophying muscle was doing a number on his kidneys, causing possible failure. At this point in the whole dilemma I was worried sick about Eric, but I was also in disbelief. How could something like this happen to a guy like Eric? He was the last person to need this. He overcame it though, and pulled through.

In the end, the doctor said that Eric will never be able to run or jump again, and walk with a limp. He was right. All it took was one wrestling match, something that all teenage boys do, for Eric's dreams to be shattered. Now he will never become a Marine, or a Navy Seal, or a member of the Army. Now Eric will never be as great of an athlete as he was.

His life will never be what it could have been, and to me, that's a tragedy.

 

[Dexter]

This is something I've thought about quite a bit. Why is it that a celebrity, politician, or any other recognizable figure dies and we're all affected by that, but the guy down the street dies and we just shrug and move on? Why is one human life any more important than any other?

That's always bothered me, and I don't have an answer for it, which is why I hadn't posted in this thread up to this point. Typically don't like to post unless I have a definitive statement to make but... I thought maybe it was worth at least posing the question. I don't think there IS an answer though.

 

[Cowboyfromhell]

I think if it is someone you personally know, then it can be tragic. Ex., if my brother drinks too much Wild Turkey and wraps himself around a telephone pole, even though he was a moron for doing so, that would greatly affect me. It wouldn't bother 99% of the world, but to me that would be tragic.
On the larger scale, random killings for no reason are tragic; your school shootings, Sept 11, little kids with cancer.
Let me change my answer, my brother dying would be sad, not tragic. Horrible things happening to people for no rhyme or reason, that is tragic.