THOUGHTS & PRAYERS

After mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton I was encumbered with feelings of both ambivalence and a sense of disconnected grief. I tried to write about it but ended up with a lot of talk-talk, processing that doesn’t serve any purpose. All you get is exhausted. Media commentators have run out of ways to report the bad news. So far in this calendar year the rate of mass shootings exceeds one per day. We’ve become desensitized to  gun violence in spite of the horror it spawns. I feel a need to scream but for what? I don’t know where to begin. 

The difference between how we behave with other individuals and how we plug into the aggregate culture is worth considering. People I talk with don’t seem to give it much credence. My story takes away some of our presumed  superiority which is unacceptable. When you engage with one or a few other people, your input can be the driver of cause and effect, you are part of the cause. Within the dominant culture, one’s individual input is basically irrelevant. I can cooperate with my neighbor on a charity event or I can take him to court over a code violation. I am an agent of change in both cases. But on the grand scale, a national issue, I tend to stratify among the many. I no longer drive the cause but rather, become part of the effect. The difference between being an agent of change and a stratified particle is not obvious when cultural self-worship is the rule. People love to believe their vote or protesting may be the difference in who rules but it’s mixing individual and group dynamics and they don’t mix. Me, the whole, I am made up of systems, made up of organs, made up of tissue, made up of cells. There are over a trillion cells in the human body. If any particular cell was self aware and believed its individual input drove any collective effect it would be deemed ridiculous. 

Keeping track of when one’s role changes from agent of change to the change itself seems logical to me but then I don’t get much respect when I start challenging the sanctified human bias. Where is this going! We live in a gun culture. I don’t have to highlight our national history, our legacy is a violent outpouring against anyone who thwarts our collective ambition. We don’t choose it, it selects us even if we don’t like it. All things being equal, our culture tracks one way for a while and then self corrects. But all things aren’t equal. Since 9/11, America’s greater culture has been turning to the dark side. Not only have we exported violence at an inordinate rate in retaliation but we have been turning on each other as well. A perceived need to cleanse our racial and ideological identity has never been more prevalent. Do the math! We need more guns. If you go to a movie or a grocery store, to the university or to a church, it is safe to assume there are as many concealed fire arms there as there are empty pockets. If you hate guns, lobby against them, you are still part of the gun culture, you are the effect. I don’t think it will reverse its course in my lifetime. Change comes slowly, one funeral at a time. 

Mass shootings: why not? The tools of death are easily acquired. Some people, for whatever reason, glamorize violence with a convoluted sense of patriotism. It spawns mass shooters who aspire to be martyrs. It’s easy. That kind of self righteous disregard for life runs not only deep but near the surface. So when the news breaks for deadly events I am neither surprised nor outraged. We are part of the effect and as deeply as we want to believe that someone can turn it around, I don’t. Looking back at history, everything bad could have been avoided but looking forward, there is no way to anticipate what hasn’t happened yet. Unanticipated consequence is always in play.

Many Conservative leaders are afraid of their own constituents. Instead of the greater good, instead of policy and practice we get “Thoughts & Prayers.” It’s a way to change the subject. If they take a real stand against gun violence the gun-clones will kick them to the curb and elect someone else. They (martyrs) relish the energy, the current that has given them a voice. They love to believe they are agents of change but like the rest of us, they are being dragged through history, not creating it. Our President believes he is a history maker but history has made him. There is no plan. We get what we get and make up stories to reinforce our sense of purpose. I wish I had better news. For really good news you have to fall back on small group interactions where you can after all, be an agent of change.