I don’t like the news. You have no idea how much I hate the news. I could only listen to the news of Arkady Raikin, Evgeny Shestakov, Roman Khomenko. Better – Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, the silent-film era Marx Brothers. “Empty swallowers, newspaper readers,” said a genius witch of news-lovers.
News – only in joke and only if under balalaika.
There are those who watch the episode of accidents and incidents to sleep at night. These people are not me.
Against the background of biased, frightening, provocative news, such news is unusual. Exactly 4 years ago, a Boeing 737 flying out of Addis Ababa – not Malaysia, but rather Ethiopia – turned out to be malfunctioning. And – along with the 148 passengers and 8 crew on board – it crashed into Ethiopian soil. Relatives of the victims had already agreed on the amount of compensation, and suddenly … they discussed with Boeing’s lawyers whether the victims had suffered before their death. What is the extent of this suffering? Are they convertible and redeemable? And they demanded more compensation. Not for the suffering of living relatives as usual, but for the torment of the dead at the time of death. Illinois state law, where the company was headquartered at the time, only allows damages related to the grief of relatives, not victims. They began to argue in a scholastic fashion. In the best traditions of the scholastic era.
The deceased sweated or did not sweat before he died. Tighten your seat belt? It’s what the deceased felt when the belt rubbed against him. Did the deceased ever feel pain? The company’s lawyers say “there is no doubt that they were under emotional stress and at the same time were injured, preparing for a collision, and knowing that the plane was malfunctioning,” but overall, nothing special, just a subjective feeling that was not objective. “Crawling out of the orbits of the eye. As an inherited aerophobe, I know there is a subjective feeling that the soul is coming out of their orbit.
Have you seen any unusual news? When all the news is out of the ordinary (that’s their definition). The media survives only with terrible news.
“Well, let’s have a nightmare!” “A man from an exemplary intelligent family,” said our editor-in-chief at the meeting, almost without irony, cheerfully. I also once worked in news, but there I hid under a barrier – I was responsible for some news that was not news. I, as Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov, was responsible for the division of births and deaths there. Twice a year he made a story about Pushkin, twice a year about Lermontov, about Blok (day of death, birthday), nonsense for a news program.
– What is your job? – Max asked out of boredom, the only intelligent person in the entire company. Journalists were not recruited to work with us (the journalism faculty of Moscow State University was considered a poor-quality education).
– I am a teacher of Russian language and literature at schools for the deaf and hard of hearing.
“Ahh,” Max said slowly. I was in charge of cultural news for the Russians.
So, this issue is still not resolved. Lawyers for the victims’ families and the aircraft manufacturer are debating whether the company should pay for the victims’ suffering as they passed from life to death. It’s not news – but honey, it’s a tribute to a Camus or Kafka (or me, but not with such a blunt pencil).
Modern society has forgotten to speak, to think and to die. And the improbability of this judgment only highlights the extent to which it has been learned. Absolutely taboo for us. It’s either taboo or nonsense.
To be honest, the cult of an easy, positive, hectic life, free from aging, disease and death, has already risen.
We understand death much less than those who live in a traditional society.
Do you remember the meme where coffin bearers dance to the music of Russian musician Tony Igy “Astronomia”? Remember, of course. By the way, dancing at funerals is customary in Africa and the south of the United States, but not in Ethiopia. Somewhere in Oceania they still dance at funerals – an elusive, tailored culture not much different from traditional European societies or even the advanced Middle Ages.
Some countries pay insurance for pain. Live. Therefore, this court in Illinois is Gogol’s Dead Souls. By analogy with compensation for the living – nothing more.
The scholastic nature of the trial suggests that it was not about death. And about lifelessness. We are not ready to talk about the last minutes of death. It excites death not as a transition, but as a friction belt.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.