a group of middle-aged whites in the U.S. is destroying themselves at a rate slightly higher than everyone else

a story in the washington post earlier explains how white americans between the ages of 45 and 54 are “dying” at a rate higher than the rest of us are, according to a princeton statistical review. “dying,” is word used in both the study, article, and the article’s headline. it’s applied to stats that show white americans between the ages of 45 and 54 are dying more often than other demographics because “of problems with legal and illegal drugs, alcohol and suicide.”

i can’t help but strongly disagree with the word choice. had i been allowed any editorial authority over the article and its headline, i would have jettisoned the subtext. dying, as a word, connotes a passive, presumably peaceful death — one that occurred unknowingly in bed, asleep.

the deaths tabulated were hardly peaceful. immolation by bottle, needle, or pistol is hardly ‘dying.’ a death of those sorts is the conclusion of a deep and lasting personal blight, born out of pain magnitudes beyond what’s conceivable to those of us who function daily without pain so far reaching.

saying that these people ‘died’ is inaccurate, for their deaths were hardly unconscious. these people — depending on how you look at it — were either killed or killed themselves.

and while i hardly want to attack the semiotics of what it means — or doesn’t mean — to be a white american who between 45 and 54, i think it’s ridiculous to apply such a neutral word to a fact so absolutely absolved of any neutrality.

our civilization is unsatisfying. that’s its entire point. unsatisfied people are easier marketing targets. yet when the capitalist mechanism so deeply penetrates people’s psychologies that it drives them to destroy themselves something is clearly wrong.

“the plane has definetly crashed,” editorialized a dartmouth professor who reviewed the princeton study, when asked about what the statistics mean.

why bother trying to fix it.

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