Why Must We Always Unite in Grief?!

If one looks at America today and takes the speeches and images of the memorial in Arizona as the representative images of the entire nation, one would think we were the most united place on earth. I can think of only one other moment in my lifetime and recent memory when we acted similarly: after the events of September 11, 2001. If I think hard, then other events come to mind and, sadly for us, they are all lugubrious events.

We, as a nation, always seem to unite in the aftermath of tragedy and terror; we praise our freedoms, condemn the perpetrators who violate them, and shake hands with enemies political, ideological, or otherwise. We immediately follow these scenes with self-given praise on our ability to unite and overlook our differences, only to return to and dwell on those differences when positive superlatives we attribute to ourselves and our leaders have been exhausted. Once again, we become disrobed of our good-natured tendencies and are left in the nakedness of our seemingly irreconcilable differences. Political attacks ensue; accusations of all sorts fly about; commentators and other loudmouths pontificate and incite division, anger, and violence; and, as a nation, we once again lose our ability (or willingness) to come together in civil discourse and discuss our differences, accept one-another as free citizens of a country of which we are supposedly proud. We promptly fail to accept and allow diverging opinions or true bilateral compromise. Most deplorably, however, we fail to accept or allow to work the mechanics of our democracy. Instead, we become the hypocrites and charlatans we eagerly criticize in others.

Why must we always unite in grief?!

I look forward to being proved wrong on this ominous observation.