Has the "Minute's Silence" become overused?

[Calladan]

When I was a child, the only time I can remember standing in silence for a minute was on Remembrance Sunday at 11am - to remember the men who went to fight in World War 1 and World War 2.

We were asked to stand in silence to remember those who willingly went to fight and die to protect our country - those who sacrificed their lives to ensure our freedom.

But in more recent times it seems that the "minute's silence" has become more and more common. That every time there is a tragedy of some type - an air crash, a bomb, a mass shooting, a terrorist attack, some "authority" (generally the government of the nation, or governments of various nations) decide that we should remember the victims by standing in silent contemplation for a given length of time - one minute, two minutes and so on.

But does it really apply in the same way?

I was taught as a child that I wasn't remembering specific people - I couldn't tell you if I had any relatives that fought in WW I (and if I did I wouldn't have met them, especially if they died) and while I know one of my grandfathers fought in Japan in World War II, that is about all I know and I only learned about that after he died (when I was around 25) - but it was about the sacrifice. The fact they went willingly to war and fought and died (mostly) of their own free will.

And although I am sorry for the victims of terror attacks, of mass shootings, of air crashes, of bombings, of rail disasters and gas explosions, I am sure that they did NOT die of their own free will - that if they had had a choice they would have been anywhere else at that point in time. And standing in silence to remember people I have never met seems....... a tad hypocritical to me. I can't mourn someone I have never met - it is insulting to the people who knew them, and even more to so the people who loved them to pretend that I can fell the loss the same way they do.

But more than that - if we start using "x minute's silence" (1, 2, 3) etc to mark every disaster - are we cheapening the entire concept of it in general? If we can have a minute's silence for 30 people dying when a library collapses in South Northshire, then what does it say about a minute's silence for EVERYONE who has fought and died in wars over the last 100 years?

Thoughts? Comments?

[Herargon]

I think that for really huge events like wars where many people died (like, hundreds of thousands) a minute of silence is the least we could do: it is apprioprate.

For diseases and such, it doesn't make sense to me, honestly, unless it was a huge part of the history that affected a whole country (looking at yours for example), but again, then a speech and some poems would fit better. I would respect any remembrance though, unless it swas something remembranced by a disgusting ideology like Nazism where they mourn 'Hitlers death'.

For things like 11/9 and such where a few thousand or less died, it would be a bit fuzzy but best would be if the first years after it was remembranced quite locally (depending on the internationality of the thing that happened) and after like 20 years it might stop being official and becomes unofficial. Again, that depends on how big the country is and how severe.* With due respect I wanted to express my opinion.

* A small country like Luxembourg where almost everybody indirectly or directly knows each other, where they would experience 2000 deaths would get a large remembrance, nationwide. But a large country where the incident has had more impact and influence with the same amount of deaths would get the same or slightly smaller remembrance, and such.. You get my idea.


And lastly, remembrance is not only for remembering war but rather to pay respect to the dead. Like pressing F but in real life.

[The Interstellar Federation]

I disagree with the OP.

The minute's silence is not just a minute to remember war, it's a moment to think about the tragedy and pay your respects by stopping whatever you're doing and acknowledging that these people have passed away. As with your freewill point, (not to be offensive) I think you are being ignorant of the fact these people were victims of tragedies and it doesn't matter if they died based on their free will or not, they died. We should pay our respects to them and their loved ones nonetheless and by not doing so, it can appear to people that you have no regard for this.

[Calladan]

I disagree with the OP.

The minute's silence is not just a minute to remember war, it's a moment to think about the tragedy and pay your respects by stopping whatever you're doing and acknowledging that these people have passed away. As with your freewill point, (not to be offensive) I think you are being ignorant of the fact these people were victims of tragedies and it doesn't matter if they died based on their free will or not, they died. We should pay our respects to them and their loved ones nonetheless and by not doing so, it can appear to people that you have no regard for this.

But (and, as you say, not to be offensive) people die in tragedies every day. A five year old girl got knocked down and killed by a drunk driver on our high street three days ago - for her parents, her older sister, her aunts, uncles, grandparents and friends that is a pretty horrific tragedy. But no one is going to ask the entire country stop what they are doing for sixty seconds to pay their respects to a girl they have never met and to the family of a girl they have never met, however tragic her death might have been.

Now if my home town's town council wants to organise a minute's silence on the high street next week (a week after she died) then I can't see a problem, because there are good odds most of the people who would attend *are* people who would have known her and who will be able to pay their respects in some kind of meaningful way and meaningful manner.

But (with all due respect) asking me to pay my respects to (say) a hundred people half way around the world who I have never met, just because they died being shot by another guy I have never met (rather than because they died individually in their sleep on the same night, for example) seems somewhat insulting to the people who DID know them and CAN mourn them.

I can't honestly say I share the grief and the pain of someone who lost their wife/husband/son/daughter/father/mother - and to pretend that I can is (as I said) frankly insulting.

[Ifreann]

I'm not aware that a minute's silence was ever something specially reserved for people who volunteered to fight in a war.

[Allied Connurist States]

OP, I think that I can see your point. In fact, I must say that you made me think for a couple of minutes about what a minute's silence means to me.

I was always brought up to believe that a minute of silence was about paying respect, and this was something, as you pointed out, was typically done on Remembrance Sunday where we pay our respect to the fallen for what they did for their countries. In this sense, we are respecting their willing sacrifice for our futures.

However, I don't believe it has become overused. It is still about paying respect, but not quite in the same way. Of course, it might not be immediately obvious what/why one might be paying respects to these people - it's not about that willing sacrifice in wartime. Instead, I would say we are respecting the fact that these people (in any aforementioned tragedy) were loved by others and therefore are people worthy of respectfully remembering ; in the way that the world is not quite as good without these people who have gone as it would be if they were still here.

[Thermodolia]

I'm not aware that a minute's silence was ever something specially reserved for people who volunteered to fight in a war.

This

[Cannot think of a name]

I'm not aware that a minute's silence was ever something specially reserved for people who volunteered to fight in a war.

News to me as well.

[USS Monitor]

I'm not aware that a minute's silence was ever something specially reserved for people who volunteered to fight in a war.

News to me as well.

Same.

With small incidents like shootings, it doesn't become an annual event, so there is still a distinction between that and the annual holidays that commemorate the dead from wars.

[PaNTuXIa]

Oh yeah. It's essentially just used when ever the government wants to designate something as objectively bad.