We Don’t Really Care Why
Photo by US Park Service Office of Public Affairs [Public domain] via Wikipedia Commons
I don’t want to argue about gun control or the second amendment.
I don’t want to argue about mental illness or video games, or anti-depressants or absent fathers or incels.
It’s all of it or none of it or some of it.
It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. The “why” doesn’t help the mom who bled out on the floor of WalMart with her baby boy under her body, where she fell trying to protect him, or the 21 other dead people. It doesn’t help the families sitting at some appointed gathering place waiting to hear about their missing husband, or child, or father or sister, still vaguely hopeful even though all the hospitals have been checked and it’s been 20 some hours and they know they’re only waiting for confirmation that it is, in fact, the worst day of their lives.
Some of you heard that the evil man in Texas was a white supremacist declaring a one man war on Democrats and illegal immigrants and you clucked your tongues and were secretly thrilled that you could point at your political opposites and say “see? He’s one of yours.” Vindication of your fervent desire to hate righteously.
“Don’t politicize this, you ghouls!” they cry in response.
Then Dayton happened, before all the bodies were even removed from the El Paso WalMart. This time 9 innocent lives ended, late night revelers on a street outside a bar. Then rumors started swirling that the shooter was a Warren supporter, a member of antifa, a socialist, or even worse, an “sjw” — he had his pronouns in his Twitter bio — and the right1 rejoiced. “It’s not us, see? It’s you! He’s one of you! Evil leftist!” Vindication of your fervent desire to hate righteously.
Never mind that the asshole in Texas didn’t ask any of his victims their political affiliation or their country of origin before he shot them to death.
Never mind that the asshole in Dayton shot his own sister dead in the attack, or that he also did not endeavor to find out the political philosophies of his targets before he ended their lives. No, it must be his politics.
It has to be, because what’s important is that we can point to our ideological counterparts accusingly and lay this unexplainable insanity at their feet. Just think how helpful all this will be during the upcoming campaign season, when we can blame the party of our foes for the bloodshed that saturates our American life?
I said the why doesn’t matter. Of course it does matter; it’s the only thing that matters. But it is of little moment, because even if we have our theories, even if we show our work, the other side will shut it down.
“It’s the guns so let’s pass some stricter legislation,” they say. “Guns aren’t the problem!” they cry in response, even though a gun was in fact the instrument of their deaths. “My gun has never killed anyone! Right to bear arms and don’t tread on me and good guy with a gun and you don’t know the difference between a magazine and a clip, lib, so shut up! The problem is mental health.”
“Don’t blame mental illness!” they say in return, even though a healthy mind does not plan a rampage, “I’m bipolar and I’ve never killed anyone and stigma and scapegoat and unfair!”
It’s the video games/violent music/broken families/drag queens/Y chromosomes/lack of melanin/Fox News. For every excuse, a rebuttal, a dozen reasons why That’s Not It and That Won’t Work. So we fight and call each other names on Twitter and suggest the dissolution of our union and wait around for the next alert on our smart phones, when we will shake our heads and say to our significant others something like “14 in California” and they know exactly what we mean without elaboration because this is what we are now.
I don’t know the answer. I just know we will never find it because we can’t leave our corners. The news breaks and we just wait to find out if it’s terrorism and if so, is it homegrown or imported? And then we think please, please let it be one of “them.”
Well, those of us who have that luxury. Some of us instead are busy thinking please, please let my loved one not be among the dead.
I’m just so tired.
Last Sunday, I went to an Eagle Scout Court of Honor awarding the rank to a young man, now 18, who was on a very bad path in his life at age 13. His parents, and several other adults have invested considerable time and pain into pushing him on to a better path, and it seems to have worked. He talks about his former attitudes with a sort of brutal frankness that’s refreshing and gives me hope.
There were 6 other young men on that stage, too. It was a very pleasing contrast to the events of the weekend. Particularly the young man in El Paso, whom, it seems, wanted to do something to “help’ his group by repelling the “invasion” of Other People which was harming his group.
In contrast, every young man on the stage had done a service project of considerable substance. My particular charge had built a bunch of bookcases for a local middle school. His prototype had the principal of that school, ahem, squee in delight, “I want that in my office. How many of these are you gonna make? TEN!!!? I WANT them!”
I’m sure this was a very new experience for him, and a profoundly beneficial one. All these young men were shown a way to have an impact in a way that was welcomed and praised by the community.
Working with young men of this age can be difficult, frustrating and slow. It’s worth it. I feel we need to spend more time as a culture figuring out how to pull them into activities that enrich them. This is work for older men, but it’s not completely gendered. I know women who have been effective with this age group as well, though it’s a challenge.
I want to note that I say this as an invitation, not as an imperative. We need more, we don’t necessarily need everyone. I’m also not saying that it needs to be through the Boy Scouts of America, either. There are lots of platforms for engagement, and maybe you will have one that’s personal to you.
I’m saying that you should maybe resist the impulse to count. Sometimes just changing one life is more than enough.Report
I don’t mean to brag or anything, but I am the treasurer and assistant den leader for cub scout pack 146.
I’m also raising two young men, and try very hard to keep them involved activities and impress upon them that they are valued by and important to the wider community. It’s more difficult with my older son, who is really not a joiner. But we try. I think this is the most important thing we can do, preventatively.
Thank you for reading.Report
I think I already knew most of this, actually. I have been out of scouting for a long time. My engagement was via martial arts, and via being a friend of the family.
It was good though, to remember all those wonderful experiences that I had. Now all the, ahem, moral platitudes that were dished around seem to make more sense.
There are many paths. I don’t know the boy, or your situation, so let me make a wild suggestion based on almost nothing. What if you told him he didn’t have to join anything per se, but he had to do something, some project, that helped the community in some specific, visible way. Perhaps you might insist that he had to talk to one or two other adults in order to do it. Work with his inclinations, rather than against them.
I have a streak of social anxiety in those days – though I had enormous support for growth in that area from my extended family, who were mostly very outgoing. But I got my alone time, too.
Like I said, this is just a crazy suggestion based on almost nothing. Feel free to ignore it if it doesn’t fit.Report
No one wants to talk about how to stop the killing in the inner cities either…and no one “cares” to try and stop it since it happens to “those people”…..similar to what you describe above.
No one wants to talk about how the US’s foreign policy actions effect mass migration from South America and Africa/Middle East to North America / Europe.
I could go on….Report
End the war on drugs… and then wait about three generations.Report
There is a LOT of truth to this.Report
They both went bad for their own reasons, which are shared by far too many kids, and they’ll be scrutinized under a microscope in ways that Boeing’s management won’t, even if that management deserves such scrutiny to a far greater degree. As the great Sarah Conner said, “Nobody is safe. Nobody is ever safe.” We spend our lives trying to avoid the horror of that truth.
Some fixes are easy, and some are almost impossible, and sometimes exploiting tragedies leads to worse tragedies. I’m reminded of a story about the first Soviet party congress, when a member stood up and asked “And what does the Socialist state tell the father of a little girl who’s been run over and killed by a wagon?” There was a pause, and then someone rapturously shouted “In the Soviet State, there will be no wagon accidents!” Everyone cheered. Yet horrible tragedy has stubbornly defied a total solution. But there are worse things than tragedy, such as tragedy that’s so enormous it has to be reduced to statistics.
Earlier last week a mother, her sister, and her daughter were gathered on a California beach to joyously celebrate the sister’s recovery from breast cancer. Then a freak rock slide crushed them all, and we were reminded that the universe is cruel and often senseless. We so wish that weren’t the case, but still we find a way to soldier on and persevere. If we did otherwise we’d still be huddling in caves, afraid to take our chances in such a chaotic world.
So we mourn, we grieve, and we worry, and yet we find a way to do more than that, because there’s also faith and hope.Report
QFT!Report
Some of you heard that the evil man in Texas was a white supremacist declaring a one man war on Democrats and illegal immigrants and you clucked your tongues and were secretly thrilled that you could point at your political opposites and say “see? He’s one of yours.” Vindication of your fervent desire to hate righteously.
Do you sincerely believe this? That there are people who comment right here on this site, whose reaction to a mass murder was delight that the murderer liked the political party they don’t? And you’re still here writing for this audience?
I don’t believe that, myself – and if I did, I wouldn’t come back to OT.Report
No. Not OTers specifically. I wrote it for the public at large, not this little group only. Report
Wonderful. Thanks for sharing it with us.Report