Frothy Paradise

Thought-provoking — and extremely sad — article. On its face, the article is about parents whose children die of hyperthermia when the parents inadvertently leave them in a car; the subtext is about how cruel we can be to each other and what provokes that cruelty. To wit:

“Humans, Hickling said, have a fundamental need to create and maintain a narrative for their lives in which the universe is not implacable and heartless, that terrible things do not happen at random, and that catastrophe can be avoided if you are vigilant and responsible. In hyperthermia cases, he believes, the parents are demonized for much the same reasons. ‘We are vulnerable, but we don’t want to be reminded of that. We want to believe that the world is understandable and controllable and unthreatening, that if we follow the rules, we’ll be okay. So, when this kind of thing happens to other people, we need to put them in a different category from us. We don’t want to resemble them, and the fact that we might is too terrifying to deal with. So, they have to be monsters.’”

FAIR WARNING: The article is not only sad, but extremely disturbing in parts, so you might want to take care before you click.