Inhumane Humanity

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed. --Herman Melville

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Whose Fault Is All This?

 Elliot Rodger's Retribution

 Myrtle Beach shootings

 More Guns, More Mass Shootings

Although I avidly and vociferously support far more stringent laws regulating firearms, I worry that, like so many other issues carved out of our social environment and stuffed under some hyper-focused magnifying glass, perhaps we focus too hard on trimming one single blade of grass when the whole damned lawn needs to be mowed (or hell, maybe burned and replanted).

I’m a voracious consumer of news reported by various small, international media outlets disconnected to our completely biased main stream media.  From a perspective gained in doing so, the culture of our nation seems unlike any other among the developed nations on this planet in that it repeatedly breeds hate, violence, racism, misogyny and murder like rats receiving daily injections of testosterone.

Hell; we're even the only developed country still using the death penalty for christ sake.

I'm neither educated well enough, nor am I equipped with the natural intelligence it would take to find any single factor, or even a group of prevailing causes to pin the parade of horrific violence that streams endlessly across the idiot tube, over the radio waves and through the Net (almost sounds like a Christmas carol).

As much as I would love to blame all this on what is likely the most repulsive lobbyist group that has ever entered the lobby arena, the NRA (and make no mistake, I firmly believe that the NRA and their efforts towards massive firearms proliferation are major factors in all these mass shootings), there’s more to the problem; there must be.

And!  As much as I would love to add the following to my hypothetical causal analysis; evangelical extremists spewing ad-lib Christianity while they promulgate hate against other religions and diversity; myopic politicians owned by special interests; the apathetic white middle class living in the comfort of our indifference, I still cannot find a definitive connection to any one of them, or even collectively that explains the incredible volume of violence Americans summon from whatever "hell" there is to cast upon one another.

Is it the culture of exceptionalism we've been force-fed from the moment we could find our way to K-12? 

Or, is it the incessant barrage of all the mind-numbing drivel combined, scrambling our brains beyond the capability to organize our own thoughts well enough to fix any of them?

I’m not one to read what even looks like a conspiracy theory, much less subscribe to them, but one can't help but wonder; is there some grand manipulation taking place that would make Lysistrata herself proud?

It’s all very baffling and frustrating, especially when we continue to hear the same rhetorical horseshit coming from the same horse’s asses; all the while nothing is resolved.

The only fix, and just perhaps even a contributor to our conundrum, I can see is personal responsibility, and accountability.

Perhaps we spend too much time blaming others and seeking a fix from government, when we we should simply be changing us rather than attempting to change the world around us.

7 comments:

  1. It is often said that American showmanship has few equals. Not for nothing is America the leading manufacturer of entertainment.

    Psychopaths are not an American invention or even monopoly. They exist everywhere, in people of all ages and both genders, all social backgrounds.

    But the psychopathic showman … the exploder… one who wants to trumpet their crime to the world in a detonation of force… the one who wants to make everyone cower…. these DO appear to be disproportionately American.

    I don’t share the Right wing narrative that mass murders are the fault of Hollywood or video games rather than laws so lax that guns can be legally acquired by people with an established history of mental problems. It’s clearly deflection. The rest of the world sees the same entertainment but doesn’t have the same rate of mass murder.
    Nonetheless that idea is probably a tunnel-visioned stumble toward the same thought that I am giving words to here - that the desire to have an explosive murder spree must somehow be linked to something in the broader mindset.

    The mass shooter is aiming at the whole world, they want everyone to look at them. As far as they are concerned we are all participants in their performance.

    What feeds this idea that the whole world should look at them? What does a society reward that brews this vile drunkenness of self-exaltation?

    I’m not sure, exactly, but I think part of the answer to the riddle is there somewhere in that question.

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    1. I frequently wonder what that riddle is Magpie.

      Is it due to the changes brought about by our rebelling during the "Hippy Generation" wherein we became far more tolerant with our children, thereby bringing about behavioral issues on a level we hadn't witnessed prior?

      But then; that wouldn't explain the differences between the US and so many other countries whose generations were also Hippies.

      Like you, I doubt the movies and video games promote the level of violence we're seeing here either.

      Just too many single issues being examined as the root cause. Maybe, if some group of people gathered and, using the standard root cause analysis techniques with an objective, non-polarized approach, they could find the cause. But finding folks that pragmatic here may be a problem in itself.

      A baffling conundrum for certain.

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  2. Thanks for the link BB. I like what you post and have linked back.

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  3. Anonymous8:34 PM

    Americans have a strange hero worship of criminals. Bonnie and Clyde were more popular than Oprah.
    Even worse they have a strange idea of what a good guy is. A good guy is not someone who mass kills bad guys, as Hollywood likes to depict. Vengeance is not justice.
    There is no solution, or reason for a mentally deranged persons actions. There are many things we can do to limit gun shot deaths.

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    1. Thanks for the comment anonymous. Sadly, you're right; we do seem to have a love for violence and we idolize the violent.

      Maybe it;s as simple as poor voter turnout and our partisan politicians pandering to the resulting small groups of electorate who put them in office.

      Or maybe it's not simple at all, which is the frightening aspect of all this

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  4. Nothing easy about this and it won't get better for a long time.

    I believe it's the media who are responsible for most of our societal issues.

    We have an exceptionally ignorant populace and that is what the 1% wants and "they" own the media.

    Great post!

    Forgot to mention how screwed we are. What a terrible message bit it's the reality.

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    1. I believe you're right One Fly - too much of America uses the media to make important decisions for them; watch whatever "news" station, or read whichever rag they prefer and simply parrot that media's views.

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