For Captain Sir Tom Moore R.I.P

[eighthobstruction]

S'what happens - I mentioned this earlier. Such sentimentality seems much more widely in evidence than it once was. Was it the Princess Di factor that unleashed it? Or just that it was always there but the media discovered it also sold papers? Seems a bit unfair, finally, on those who are canonised by the media. Here today, forgotten tomorrow.

....yes it is a very interesting sociological phen'....the question what is this exactly....what exactly is this....smoke and mirrors....cyber fratenisation....I will not open the topic beyond this....but very interesting - and specific in its nature....

....well I never born 4 miles from me....

[vinteuil]

Capt. Tom, such good example of helping others. I don't see his achievements as being sentimental just a good person putting others first.

R-I-P

... his achievements are not sentimental. It's the media pile-on which is where the issue of sentimentality comes in to being. I think I'm with frenchfrank in surmising these things rose to a new level following the death of Princess Diana.


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[Nick Armstrong]

I find it difficult to react to all this. He was obviously a good chap, well done him - but became such a media construct and now such a vector of national sentimentality ...

... not to mention an eagerly-grasped source of distraction tactics on the part of desperate politicians after 108000 other deaths

[Serial_Apologist]

S'what happens - I mentioned this earlier. Such sentimentality seems much more widely in evidence than it once was. Was it the Princess Di factor that unleashed it? Or just that it was always there but the media discovered it also sold papers?

At the time of Princess Di's funeral, I wrote excitedly to a friend in Canada that it would normally take only a socialist revolution to shut down the entire City on a weekday.

[french frank]

... not to mention an eagerly-grasped source of distraction tactics on the part of desperate politicians after 108000 other deaths

A very good point. As for Princess Diana, I never got caught up in the fever. At all (I say no more on that)). I could feel for two young boys having to go through a very public trauma (which seemingly - and understandably - scarred them). She was yet another media creation, though one who - I thought - played up to it.

[kernelbogey]

I wonder whether, in a time of omnipresent lurking illness and, for most of us, unprecedented death, this eulogising of Captain Sir Tom represents a groping for some kind of spiritual meaning: that he embodied, and acted from, a spirituality that is suddenly perceived to be absent in our lives.

[Guest]

Or that is how he's been portrayed and managed?

[Serial_Apologist]

I wonder whether, in a time of omnipresent lurking illness and, for most of us, unprecedented death, this eulogising of Captain Sir Tom represents a groping for some kind of spiritual meaning: that he embodied, and acted from, a spirituality that is suddenly perceived to be absent in our lives.

Sir David Attenborough provides that.

[Miles Coverdale]

I wonder whether, in a time of omnipresent lurking illness and, for most of us, unprecedented death, this eulogising of Captain Sir Tom represents a groping for some kind of spiritual meaning: that he embodied, and acted from, a spirituality that is suddenly perceived to be absent in our lives.

I think that's reading rather too much into it. (As an aside, I can't help thinking that the word 'spirituality' is rather over-used these days. Whenever someone says 'I'm a spiritual person', my first thought is: what does that even mean?) He fought in the Second World War, which is generally perceived as being a Noble Thing (if you fought on the winning side, anyway). He raised a large sum of money for the NHS. Again, a Noble Thing. He died with Covid, which is a Sad Thing. (No, he wasn't vaccinated because of the medication he was taking for pneumonia.) Noble plus Sad equals big media story.

[BBMmk2]

RIP Captain Sir Tom Moor. What a beacon you weee and you were just being yourself. The MoD honoured him with an honorary title of Colonel.

[kernelbogey]

I think that's reading rather too much into it. (As an aside, I can't help thinking that the word 'spirituality' is rather over-used these days. Whenever someone says 'I'm a spiritual person', my first thought is: what does that even mean?).

I would tentatively suggest that there are many who do not accept theistic thinking who nonetheless sense that beyond ordinary existence there lies some manifestation of meaning that binds living things; and I think that is how 'spiritual' may often be used. It manifests in Buddhism, for example (where not confused with older animistic religions), and no doubt sufism. I'd suggest that perhaps what some people search for in a time of unprecedented restriction and sorrow is 'that of god in everyone' as the Quakers put it - and that perhaps Captain Tom is, for some, an embodiment of this. Which is not to say that his example has not been seized on by other forces.

[Guest]

<< Which is not to say that his example has not been seized on by other forces. >>

Which must be wretched for the whole clan. I just wonder how much / if any damage BEHIND the adulation has been done to that family in this tip into public scrutiny?

[oddoneout]

<< Which is not to say that his example has not been seized on by other forces. >>

Which must be wretched for the whole clan. I just wonder how much / if any damage BEHIND the adulation has been done to that family in this tip into public scrutiny?

I always think it's sad, and difficult, in such circumstances when someone who was 'theirs' - father, grandfather etc and a person in his own right - becomes in effect public property, and a commodity.

[Serial_Apologist]

I would tentatively suggest that there are many who do not accept theistic thinking who nonetheless sense that beyond ordinary existence there lies some manifestation of meaning that binds living things; and I think that is how 'spiritual' may often be used. It manifests in Buddhism, for example (where not confused with older animistic religions), and no doubt sufism. I'd suggest that perhaps what some people search for in a time of unprecedented restriction and sorrow is 'that of god in everyone' as the Quakers put it - and that perhaps Captain Tom is, for some, an embodiment of this. Which is not to say that his example has not been seized on by other forces.

Thank you KB - couldn't have put it better myself.

[vinteuil]

... there are many who do not accept theistic thinking who nonetheless sense that beyond ordinary existence there lies some manifestation of meaning that binds living things; and I think that is how 'spiritual' may often be used. .

.. as long as you also accept that for many of us there is no such immanent 'manifestation of meaning' (whatever that might mean), and that the only 'meaning' that there is in existence / the universe is the patterns that we, as pattern-making animals, impose upon it.




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