Madrid

I've been trying not to write about this, but it keeps coming back. Last week in Madrid on March 11 two hundred and one people were killed on their way to work and many more were injured, some quite seriously on commuter trains coming into town for the morning rush. The weapons were ten bombs on the trains, all controlled by ordinary cell phones.

My thoughts on this are very personal. Two and a half years ago I was on my way to the World Trade Center as the first plane hit. Like those who were killed or injured I was on my way to do something quite mundane: buy doughnuts. Terrorism kills people simply because they happened to be doing perfectly ordinary things and aren't the least bit heroic. My wife believes the perfect memorial would be a giant marble Xerox machine to commemorate all the dead ordinary office workers.

I was very lucky. I didn't get hurt at all until I developed some lung and blood pressure problems later on. I consider myself fortunate.

In light of our readings it is interesting to see how terror uses those ordinary communications tools we so take for granted to communicate terror. Aircraft, commuter trains, cell phones. All a part of our normal lives. Terror is communication and uses the tools of communication.

I've been trying to reconcile all this for the past few years, an coincidentally just before Madrid I purchased Robbie's book on Ortega y Gassett. It's excellent, and for mental hygene reasons glad I had it. It discusses the idea of a social pedagogy and the idea of kinderland, or thinking of the future. This is not McLuhan, but more metaphysical and social. What do we want the future to be like? Are we even thinking about the future?

Will return to this in or near future. It is a mother lode of thought on terror, pedagogy and communication.