--On Thursday, September 20, 2001 5:48 PM +0100 Jonathan Crowther wrote:

>
> I would question the use of the word "only".  The symbolic act surely
> is the supreme act, at least for the profoundly religious
> conciousness.  If only we could understand the symbolism we could
> react accordingly.



> The event has also been repeatedly called a tragedy, when it is really
> an atrocity.  It has also been called terror when it is really horror.
> Tragedy and comedy, pity and terror are aesthetic terms; to apply them
> to the atrocity in America is to be dangerously mistaken:

 Jonathan,
  I'm still reading/thinking/opining/maybe responding; but just want to 
intersperse that while I would agree that confusing the aesthetic with the 
actual is not good, it may be too soon to say that what is an atrocity may 
not also be a tragedy or be so from a different perspective, especially 
after one allows as how one does not understand the symbolism involved in 
the act. Miguel de Unamuno wrote about the tragic sense of life. I'm not 
sure that the  tragic is not something bred in the bone.
						Ken Armstrong