a family member died

Oh, shit. I'm sorry.

As to the middle-school-level business, let me try to answer your question and some other allied questions that might be relevant:

• I was not saying, and do not believe, that there is anything contemptible or silly going on when people in middle school engage in middle-school-level anything.
• I was not saying, and do not believe, that concern with karma and such matters is in fact either (1) middle-school-level status manoeuvring or (2) contemptible.
• I didn't intend to say, though maybe I did by mistake, that everything that could be described as middle-school-level status manoeuvring is contemptible.
• What I did say, and did intend to say, is that specifically calling something "middle-school-level", if the thing in question is being done by adults of (at least) normal mental capacity, is typically an expression of contempt. (And, in particular, I interpreted Lumifer as intending either to express such contempt on his own behalf or at least to imply that the LW admins might see debates and angst over karma as contemptible.)

I suppose none of those is actually an answer to your question (I'm hoping that the above may bypass it, as it were) but here is one: In such a situation I can entirely see how you might have that reaction, and I'd regard it as a reasonable but maybe not a rational, reaction to have.

[EDITED to try to fix a formatting screwup.]