Rethinking about feeling historical

"The structure of an affect has, therefore, no inevitable relation to the emotions that may cluster in the wake of its activity, nor should it."
-Lauren Berlant, "Thinking about Feeling Historical, in Political Emotions

"Life can no longer be lived even phantasmagorically as a melodrama, as Aristotelian tragedy spread to ordinary people, as a predictable arc that is shaped by acts, facts, or fates."
-Berlant

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While I am convinced by parts of Berlant's argument, such as the first quote where she argues that any number of emotions can legitimately proceed from a spectator's reaction to an event, I am not sure that most people do not perceive these emotions as part of a melodramatic, tragedic, or otherwise generic arc. It reminded me of my previous post on the course blog (http://writingperformance.blogspot.com/2012/09/911-response-andrea.html) where I talked about my childhood reaction to September 11. Berlant may be right that human responses to any given event are of infinite variety, but we most often interpret using the models that are nearest to hand.