Andrew. wrote:syntaxfree07 wrote:
Natural disasters are exciting when you are close enough to see them but not close enough to be harmed by them. I'm not saying that I want the fire to expand into the city or even destroy more of the park. I will stand in awe of it and not feel bad about it, though.
This is almost exactly in keeping with Edmund Burke's 1756
Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and the Beautiful. It
really is.
Don DeLillo writes about something related in
White Noise. One doesn't have to feel guilty for enjoiyng the spectacle of disaster on television. Anything on television is fair game to be watched as entertainment. It's even acceptable to want a disaster to get worse or to crave more and larger disasters.
A character says of Californians: "They invented the concept of lifestyle. This alone warrants their doom."
Dr. Geek wrote:I once found a soggy dollar floating in a puddle on the side of the street. I carefully picked it out of the water before it sank to the bottom. It smelled funny after it dried.