Blaming the Victim

We have a word for "sad." That word is "sad." Why is it then that so many deaths or other saddening events in the news are deemed "tragic"? Is "sad" no longer sufficient to express the pain of loss before its time? ("Sad" serves the purpose just fine. On learning of the recent death of our cat, my vet left us a voicemail message in which he said, "I'm sad." Simple. Effective. It made us cry all over again.)

Although it is increasingly coming to be used this way, "tragic" is not simply a longer (and more hackneyed) synonym for "sad." Tragedies are plays in which the hero comes to a bad end as a result of a flaw in his or her (mostly his; we're not talking modern drama here) character. Think, for example, of Hamlet, in which almost everyone ends up dead as a result of greed, schemes, arrogance, envy, and an assortment of other sins. Tragedies are sad, but they had it coming.

Meantime, in search of a stronger word for "sad" ("very sad" apparently not doing the trick), virtually every television news story is deemed "tragic." It does capture, by way of its theatrical origin, the drama--in some cases melodrama--the program is intended to evoke.

But "tragic" is not the right word, in my view, for the Tucson shootings, for example. The murder of a bright nine-year-old who wanted to meet her congresswoman is heartrending, infuriating, and deeply saddening. The story of the man who died shielding his wife from the assailant's bullets is poignant and sorrowful. The families, friends, and neighbors of Representative Giffords and all of the other victims are no doubt anguished and devastated. The fact that people were cut down so easily in the course of exercising their rights under our laws is terrifying and deplorable to all of us.

You see? Our language has plenty of words to encompass these events with power and precision. There is no need to abuse the word "tragic" with constant use for everything from a runaway dog to the destruction of the World Trade Center towers. Moreover, given the origin and meaning of the word, tragedy leaves a bad taste in my mouth in these situations, with its lingering sense of blaming the victim. Better to use our words to be clear about feelings and cautious about blame.