Alienation

With every school or mass shooting on the commons we tend to seek cover here in the U.S. at the usual places. One party runs toward lack of gun control, another to mental health excuses. There they remain sheltered in place, feeling somehow safe and protected from the Other's ideological assaults. With all the endless talk in the media over gun control issues; the NRA's outsized influence; mental health screening; or bipartisan hand wringing why is no one talking about our pervasive Culture of Violence?

One of the great shames of our nation is its deplorable record of the near celebration of mindless violence, be it domestic or public, physical or psychological, compared with most other nations. There are any number of reasons for this, but how shall we ever address them if few are willing to approach the subject itself?

In my lifetime, so-called entertainment has gone from the good guys shooting the gun out of the bad guys hand to blowing his or her head off in as bloody a way as possible. We have gone from wise-cracking detectives to killer cops; from pinball to Resident Evil.  We have degraded ourselves from uncomfortable silence over bad or unusual behavior in public to outright bullying and virulent internet shaming. In the past, U.S. Presidents projected a courteous demeanor in public rather than crass insults and disrespect from the podium; from the friendly cop on the corner to the hostile trooper with hand on holster.

In today's vengeful atmosphere it seems more important to get even than to get over it or seek a just equitable solution. Endless cycles of retribution have become the norm while suggestions of peaceful solutions are usually scorned or scoffed at. Worse, this atmosphere is highly contagious; when vengeance and disrespect become entertaining or a mark of.....well, respect (!) among ones' peers the possibility of resolution or redemption is vastly reduced or eliminated altogether. In a sense, we seem to be devolving rather than evolving as a species. Shall we merely accept this as a given or address it as a critical cultural defect in need of correction?