What constitutes an event? Are there temporal, spatial bounds, and do we evaluate the event by its intent or its impact?
I recently picked up “The Stuff of Thought” by Steven Pinker, which explores how we use words and what that reveals about us. Pinker opens with exploring the 9/11 cardinality debate, whether the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center constituted one occurrence or two — there was a singular plan, but two distinct buildings, struck at two distinct times. Both these facts are undisputed, but the former would result in $3.5 billion in compensation for Larry Silverstein, the latter up to $7 billion. It then becomes a question not of what occurred, but where we draw the boundaries to decide what that occurrence was.
Now, journalism usually covers a series of events, with full articles unpacking the stories behind, during and after decisions. But the headline and the lede often require the complexity to be distilled into one moment — Aragon Leadership hosts winter formal, Senate Bill 729 creates new families. In the Daily Journal police reports, crimes are typically synthesized into one sentence. So with one subject and one verb, where should the emphasis go? The crime, the suspect, the victim? Centering the crime (a robbery occurred) abstracts it but remains the most neutral. Centering the suspect (someone robbed another person) foregrounds intent and agency but perhaps points fingers based on information we do not have. Centering the victim (someone was robbed) highlights harm and impact. As with 9/11 — although on a drastically smaller scale — there are immediate ways to define an event, each one altering how others may interpret it.
Last year, our school saw the tensions between intent and impact surface when our equity counsel focused on reducing the use of dehumanizing language: slurs in school hallways, prejudiced comments freely exchanged. Our halls then became plastered with posters of students addressing and refuting common justifications — it was a joke, or I meant no harm — with “there’s no excuse.” But these defenses defined the event by intent, and the students’ responses by impact. And that same split appeared when our editorial team took issue with the execution of the anti-dehumanizing language program: We could acknowledge its noble intent while critiquing the lack of impact.
The 9/11 insurance disputes or the phrasing of newspaper headlines may seem semantically petty, but definitions carry consequences — billions of dollars worth for the former, shaping public memory for the latter. To define an event is to distribute attention and blame and sympathy, while validating multiple truths at once.
Emma Shen is a senior at Aragon High School in San Mateo. Student News appears in the weekend edition. You can email Student News at news@smdailyjournal.com.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
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