9/15/2014
"Catastrophe is a punishment. It makes it easier in a way because we know it's not just some terrifying blind force, it has a meaning." Zizek's claim that people's anxieties should be assuaged during catastrophes because of its deliberateness is a difficult one for me to agree with. Although it is a comforting idea, I am not convinced that God controls every single treacherous event in our lives. During times of hardship or despair, many beg the question: "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Grappling with the aftermath of unspeakable evil such as the Holocaust, genocide, or war, many struggle to reconcile with the role of God and His powers during these catastrophes. I frequently ponder the same questions. I think it is too simple to merely state that God controls all of these disasters for a particular purpose. Zizek referring to the apocalypse as a "revelation" still confuses me. I think that the word has a far more negative connotation, and labeling it as a "revelation" is inaccurate due to its cultural stigma.
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I believe that the strongest evidence for these actions by people is the need to have an answer for everything. Zizek says that there are revelations from catastrophes as a way to explain what happened and why. Without these explanations of what happened, these disasters can just be actions that happened and nobody understands why. This lack of understanding eventually leads to more conflict in a humans need to know as much as possible.
ReplyDeleteI am also struggling with the answer to the question "Why do bad things happen to good people?" I approached the idea of an answer differently than with the people mentioned in the text. Instead, I found that there is never really a "right" answer to a lot of questions in the world. The key is to find the answer within yourself after careful examination of the situation.
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