How many degrees of separation between each of us and the horrors of the world?

[Bradskii]

Two?

I can't think of anyone I know who doesn't know or wouldn't have directly known someone caught up in some conflict or other. Or experienced the worst that we can be.

Now there's a cheerful topic...

 

[Aryeh Jay]

Zero for me, I'm caught up in a conflict right now.

 

[Bradskii]

Zero for me, I'm caught up in a conflict right now.

Stay safe.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Two?

I can't think of anyone I know who doesn't know or wouldn't have directly known someone caught up in some conflict or other. Or experienced the worst that we can be.

Now there's a cheerful topic...

I have a hard time seeing 'conflict' as 'the horrors of the world'. Sometimes, it is horrible, though. But I don't think any of us is "the worst that we can be."

 

[Robban]

Two?

I can't think of anyone I know who doesn't know or wouldn't have directly known someone caught up in some conflict or other. Or experienced the worst that we can be.

Now there's a cheerful topic...

I pass, so I don't have to regret tomorrow what I declare now.

 

[Estrid]

Two?

I can't think of anyone I know who doesn't know or wouldn't have directly known someone caught up in some conflict or other. Or experienced the worst that we can be.

Now there's a cheerful topic...

Like my family in HK being caught up in the
Japanese invssion.

 

[MehGuy]

One of my sisters friends was murdered this year. Didn't really interact with her much.. but it was pretty disturbing when I heard about it.

 

[jayem]

I guess I'm fortunate. I've had what I'd call difficulties. Generally relating to employment issues. But I've worked them out,and wouldn't call them horrors. My wife has some chronic medical problems--all of an orthopedic nature, i.e, multilevel lumbar degenerative disc disease and hip and knee osteoarthritis. These are distressing, they limit her mobility, and are often painful. But I don't think they rise to the level of a horror.

 

[Robban]

I pass, so I don't have to regret tomorrow what I declare now.

When a calamity befalls one, often the first reaction is to draw a swotd, only by the grace of God does one replace the sword in it's sheaf.
As well is.

 

[Chesterton]

I don't understand the question.

 

[Bradskii]

I don't understand the question.

There's a theory that any two given people can be connected by social contacts in six or less steps. So for example I could have a cousin who has a friend in the US who knows a man who has an uncle who you used to work with a girl that you know. That's the six degrees of separation between you and me.

I did this at my daughter's wedding during my speech and told the bride's mother-in-law that she could now tell everyone that her son's wife's mother's mother's sister's daughter's husband's mother's daughter's husband's father is Kirk Douglas (my wife's cousin married Catherine Zeta-Jones' cousin). OK, it got to 11 degrees of separation, but hey...

So I proposed that we're only ever two degress from someone who was murdered, fought in a war, was involved in some terrorist act or something equaly as horrifying. No-one is very far from the evils of this world.

 

[public hermit]

Two?

I can't think of anyone I know who doesn't know or wouldn't have directly known someone caught up in some conflict or other. Or experienced the worst that we can be.

Now there's a cheerful topic...

I think, at best, two. Life is so precarious and people can be so ruthless. There is something terribly wrong with humans, so much so that it doesn't sound absurd to say that.

 

[Chesterton]

There's a theory that any two given people can be connected by social contacts in six or less steps. So for example I could have a cousin who has a friend in the US who knows a man who has an uncle who you used to work with a girl that you know. That's the six degrees of separation between you and me.

I did this at my daughter's wedding during my speech and told the bride's mother-in-law that she could now tell everyone that her son's wife's mother's mother's sister's daughter's husband's mother's daughter's husband's father is Kirk Douglas (my wife's cousin married Catherine Zeta-Jones' cousin). OK, it got to 11 degrees of separation, but hey...

So I proposed that we're only ever two degress from someone who was murdered, fought in a war, was involved in some terrorist act or something equaly as horrifying. No-one is very far from the evils of this world.

Sure, becoming related to Catherine Zeta-Jones is truly a horror of the world, (j/k) but here's something possibly interesting. You know how some people have family heirlooms? I only have two family heirlooms, and both of them are murder weapons. I could tell you a whole lot more but suffice to say, I had a rather colorful upbringing.

But more recently, a friend and fellow church member, an immigrant from "Palestine", told me he's had 12 members of his extended family killed in Gaza.

 

[Bob Crowley]

Er ... my mother's maiden surname was Middleton, but I don't suppose that will get me an invitation to the the front door at Adelaide Cottage, 19 Adelaide Square, Windsor SL4 2AQ, UK.

It's a pretty ordinary label though - apparently it's derived from "middle of the setlement" or "middle of the town" or something blase like that.

I prefer "Crowley" - it apparenlty means "descendant of the hardy warrior" although a more cynical derivative is "eaters of crow". I prefer the first as I sit in my armchair not eating crow.

 

[Matt5]

"How many degrees of separation between each of us and the horrors of the world?"

1. Russia keeps threatening war with America over Ukraine.
2. China keeps threatening war with Taiwan which would suck in America.
3. Iran can now build a nuclear weapon within a week or 12 weapons within 5 months.
4. Israel's war with Hamas threatens to suck in Hezbollah (Lebanon).
5. Hezbollah threats to use unconventional weapons (chemical) in a full war with Israel. I wonder how Israel would respond to its cities being gassed?
6. Israel threatens to wipe out Damascus if Hezbollah joins the current war.

I would say the situation is not good.

 

[Bob Crowley]

I grew up in a street where nearly all the fathers had been soldiers in WWII in the Australian Army. One of them chased me down the road with a Samurai sword for a joke when I was a kid!

Two young blokes around the corner (according to the local gossip) had been mercenaries in the Congo.

One of the German teachers at school had lost toes due to frostbite on the Eastern Front. When challenged about "obeying orders" he shrugged and said they'd just shoot you if you didn't.

One of our near neighbours had been in Timor, along with a former boss at work.

Two postmen I worked with years ago found themselves swimming in their underwear when the HMAS Melbourne sank their destroyer HMAS Voyager in a nighttime collision in 1964, with Melbourne also colliding with an American ship USS Frank E. Evans in 1969. She was not a lucky aircraft carrier.

Two other postmen when I was doing a Christmas round as a schoolboy had been in the Korean War.

A former Toastmasters member had been shot down 3 times as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam.

We've had at least 2 and probably 3 Vietnamese priests who had been "boat people" or refugees from Vietnam. They went through things we know nothing about. Personally I think Asians are psychologically tougher than occidentals - we'd have gone mad living in tunnels like the Vietcong and North Vietnamese soldiers did.

My father, his father and my father in law all saw military service. One of my wife's uncles had been a "Rat of Trobruk".

Friends of my mothers had been on a minesweeper in Darwin harbour when it was bombed by the Japanese. I think she may have lost a boyfriend on the HMAS Sydney (if he'd lived I probably wouldn't be here).

Veterans and refugees are all over the place, although there are very few WWII vets left. The youngest of them (in Australia anyway) would be about 96 years old. Even the Vietnam Vets are 70 or older.

 

[Larniavc]

Two?

I can't think of anyone I know who doesn't know or wouldn't have directly known someone caught up in some conflict or other. Or experienced the worst that we can be.

Now there's a cheerful topic...

Two. My sister in law is Russian and her parents left Russia to go live in (drum roll) Israel.

They really haven’t caught a break poor devils.

 

[dzheremi]

I grew up in a street where nearly all the fathers had been soldiers in WWII in the Australian Army. One of them chased me down the road with a Samurai sword for a joke when I was a kid!

Oh, Australia...never change.

 

[Tuur]

I think we’re all closer to the horrors of the world than we might think. I’ve known US combat vets from WWI through the current conflicts, knew someone who’s uncle was in the USCT in the Civil War, knew two, possibly three, who knew former US slaves, and only three removed from Sherman’s March. Some saw concentration camps soon after liberation; some lived through the Japanese occupation of the Philippines; one was in the D-Day invasion; one was in Nagasaki soon after the bomb blast. One dear sweet lady turned out to be a former member of the Italian Resistance.

Unfortunately, I’ve know some who were murdered, and one convicted for his part in a contract killing. And I guess it’s not unusual to have almost died, not after you’ve been here over six decades.

 

[Chesterton]

My father, his father and my father in law all saw military service. One of my wife's uncles had been a "Rat of Trobruk".

Okay, since we're talking about horrors, I was reminded of something from my childhood, so I'll share a short story. My father and all my uncles saw combat in WWII. This one uncle, let's call him uncle Joe, had been a photographer all his life. After the war he worked as the photographer for his local small town newspaper. He was the nicest, friendliest guy you could ever want to meet.

In back of his house he had this large storage space which was filled with all kinds of junk and stuff, the kind of space a little boy like me would find interesting to browse around in when I visited him. One day I was rummaging around and came across a stack of old black and white photos. Among them were several photos of severed human heads. There's one with a head propped up on a rock, another with a head on a tree stump, etc. As I'm sure you'll agree, this demands inquiry, so I asked uncle Joe "what's up with all those pictures of severed heads?" So he proceeded to tell me.

He served with the army in the Philippines. As his unit was making its way through the jungle, they were having a really bad time with Japanese snipers. The snipers were picking off their patrols, and they were very good at hiding, and the Americans couldn't ever find them.

At some point, they meet up with some indigenous Filipino natives, and the topic is brought up. Now, the Filipinos hated the Japanese for invading their islands, and they basically say "we've lived in this jungle for millennia, we know it like the back of our hand, these Japanese snipers cannot hide from us. We'll get them for you." But like any soldier, they expect to get paid.

So a price was agreed upon, I forget, I think maybe $50 per sniper killed. A day or so later, some of the natives walked into camp and said they had killed a sniper and wanted to get paid. The Americans said "Well hold on a minute, you can't just walk in here and tell us you got one. If you want to get paid we need some proof. You need to bring us a Japanese rifle or a Japanese military jacket, something like that". The natives said okay.

A day or so later, the natives walk into camp carrying the decapitated head of a Japanese man. And that's what they chose to bring back as "receipts". And the Americans would set their heads around the camp as sort of trophies.

So that explained the photos my uncle took there in the jungle. What it doesn't explain is how a man like my uncle, a sweet, good-natured gentle soul could come back from the brutality and horror of war and be a normal person.