There seems to be an emerging trend in Australian public life that throws an interesting light on the attitude to death. Simplistically put it runs something like this: Australians shouldn't have to die, or suffer injury due to accidents and the government should do something about it and they are culpable if they don't. The media whip up the frenzy with little clarity about who really is or should be responsible for what.
The public storm over deaths related to the insulation installation program is a case in point. It did not actually matter that there was a certain death rate due to industrial accidents related to this sort of activity previously and that the accident rate after the program started was proportionately less than before the program began.
A similar mentality hs been displayed with respect to Australians arrested abroad and Australians subject to delay or discomfort due to natural disasters wile travelling overseas.
It is a bit hard to pin down but their is a sense of privileged entitlement accompanied by whinging on a large scale that seems to say this shouldn't happen to us and the Australian Government should be there immediately to sort it all out.
That life is dangerous and that in the end we do not get out of it alive is a truth that is fast assuming the status of the unthinkeable. Everything should be under control.
That life is a gift that we do not and cannot control but should live with open hands rather than with a grasping sense of entitlement becomes a heresy. The Beatitudes reflect a way of living that represents that awareness that we are not in control and should live gracefully out of control.
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