Yet Another Faux National Tragedy
In the latest example of what Perrspectives has called a "Faux National Tragedy", Scott Peterson was sentenced to death for the murder of his wife Laci.
As we described in 1997 after the Heaven's Gate cult mass suicide, a Faux National Tragedy has four identifiable traits:
Unlimited Media Frenzy.
This is the necessary but not sufficient first indicator of an FNT. The event in question, through its pure horror, strangeness or scatology, completely mobilizes the national media, which in turn immediately proclaim the awful crime symptomatic of a deeper breakdown in the American moral and social fabric. That this is not the case is what is so characteristic of a faux national tragedy.
Limited Occurrence and Participation.
As sad and tragic as it may be, the impact of an FNT must be limited to a relatively small group, with the event itself isolated and non-recurring. Frequency tends to engender the use of terms like "outbreak" and "epidemic", lending credence to the media frenzy already described.
Personal/Group Psychosis as Cause.
Despite a frantic search for societal "causes", the horrific and despicable actions in question will ultimately prove to be solely the result of individual psychosis, mental illness, or sociopathological behavior. Dan Rather and Peter Jennings notwithstanding, there is no larger social breakdown; the crazy mass suicides or the murder of unfortunate children are essentially the acts of unfortunate, crazy people.
No Lessons to be Learned.
Question: What larger message should be read, what lessons learned from the insular act of an individual with less than stellar mental or moral health? Answer: Probably none. Though the media may posit the role of childhood poverty, parental molestation, the prevention of similar future FNTs is neither possible nor necessary.
The media's obvious fixation with the tragedies of predictably white, often blond, and usually well-to-do girls continues unabated. Laci Peterson joins BYU student Brooke Wilsberger, Dru, Elizabeth, Jon Benet, Samantha, and Danielle in the pantheon of 24/7 coverage from CNN, Fox, MSNBC et al. These admittedly sad tales, of course, have no real national import. None that is, except that it apparently helps to be white, wealthy and attractive, if at all possible.
The only real national tragedy in the Peterson case? The passage of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act ("Laci and Connor's Law"), which with the acquiescence of some Democrats, only serves to increase the "Slippery Slope" undermining the reproductive rights of American women.
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