And now there's case of a judge being murdered, this time in a court room. Public space and public officials at risk?
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I am sure that people have heard about the terrible tragedy in Chicago: the mother and husband of federal judge Joan Lefkow were murdered at their home, execution style. This morning, in a routine traffic stop, a man who was apparently the murderer committed suicide.
The man, Bart Ross of Chicago, was apparently after revenge. Judge Lefkow dismissed a medical lawsuit Ross had filed.
The facts of the case are pretty apparent. What is chilling is that an act like this fairly unprecedented in the United States. It honestly recalls something that we might hear about in Columbia or, for a more contemporary example, Iraq. It suggests a breakdown in rule of law, social order, and civility. (This is not my original argument - I heard it from a professor last week.)
Certainly, I do not want to be extreme - one act a trend does not make. But I do think it is something we need to pause and think about. As life (or, just as important: our *perception* of life) becomes more dangerous, the risk is hiding ourselves behind walls and sequestering away our public officials for their own safety. Ostensibly, you would have the withering of public life, presumably a necessary component for the exhange of ideas and hence a necessity of democratic dialogue.
I am not sure I have answer to this. And I am not sure there is a lot of deeper thinking to be done on this. The question is pretty obvious: is our society so filled with rage and fear (and so well armed to boot) that we are putting our democratic institutions at risk? Similarly, too often our debates about public life seem to get caught up in ridiculous debates about method (bashing Robert Putnam like he has no clue what he's doing and hasn't measured something meaningful about changes in American social life). Related to that, our discussions of violence tend to break down into partisan bickering over media and gun laws.
The murder of Judge Lefkow's family is a terrible tragedy. I think we only exacerbate that tragedy if we fail to discuss this more seriously. Security is one part of addressing this problem. But it seems there could be more to talk about than just cameras and police and dogs. Maybe, we need to have a real talk about our politics and civility.
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I am sure that people have heard about the terrible tragedy in Chicago: the mother and husband of federal judge Joan Lefkow were murdered at their home, execution style. This morning, in a routine traffic stop, a man who was apparently the murderer committed suicide.
The man, Bart Ross of Chicago, was apparently after revenge. Judge Lefkow dismissed a medical lawsuit Ross had filed.
The facts of the case are pretty apparent. What is chilling is that an act like this fairly unprecedented in the United States. It honestly recalls something that we might hear about in Columbia or, for a more contemporary example, Iraq. It suggests a breakdown in rule of law, social order, and civility. (This is not my original argument - I heard it from a professor last week.)
Certainly, I do not want to be extreme - one act a trend does not make. But I do think it is something we need to pause and think about. As life (or, just as important: our *perception* of life) becomes more dangerous, the risk is hiding ourselves behind walls and sequestering away our public officials for their own safety. Ostensibly, you would have the withering of public life, presumably a necessary component for the exhange of ideas and hence a necessity of democratic dialogue.
I am not sure I have answer to this. And I am not sure there is a lot of deeper thinking to be done on this. The question is pretty obvious: is our society so filled with rage and fear (and so well armed to boot) that we are putting our democratic institutions at risk? Similarly, too often our debates about public life seem to get caught up in ridiculous debates about method (bashing Robert Putnam like he has no clue what he's doing and hasn't measured something meaningful about changes in American social life). Related to that, our discussions of violence tend to break down into partisan bickering over media and gun laws.
The murder of Judge Lefkow's family is a terrible tragedy. I think we only exacerbate that tragedy if we fail to discuss this more seriously. Security is one part of addressing this problem. But it seems there could be more to talk about than just cameras and police and dogs. Maybe, we need to have a real talk about our politics and civility.
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As you can guess, my feelings towards helping this problem targets structures: education, urban poverty, and gun control. But I fear the Ameican remedy is simply building more jails.
The Sennett lecture was one of the best of the Retirement Colloqium the GSFA had for Joeseph Rykwert when he retired. I'm guessing that some of his writing will be right up your alley.