Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The Navy Yard Shooter and America's "Permanent" State of Violence

The awareness of how fragile our lives are should prompt more compassion, and more willingness to actively pursue the kinds of changes that might bring about a much more peaceful society. So often, though, these incidents quickly devolve into heated, ugly debates about motives or gun control. They are also rife with frenzied attempts to attach or detach numerous labels, as well as a desire to create as much separation from the perpetrators as possible. We seem prone to hurried burials. Wanting to put into the ground not only the bodies of the dead, but also every other aspect of disturbance itself. Instead of lingering with questions, we rush to fixed answers. Instead of living with open grief, and letting it disturb business as usual, we do whatever we can to push through it, or stuff it, and move on. Buddhists do this. Christians do this. Humans do this. It’s something we are wont to do.

And yet, there’s something about living in an empire nation that makes it that much more the case. Quick burials are our specialty. The business of profits and power won’t be blocked by such things. We’ll just bury the dead, offer some tidy narrative about the killers, and privately attend to the grief stricken families. It’s all very predictable.

You can read the rest of the post here.

1 comment:

Zach said...

The talent of surviving in a world of limited resources must somehow be entertained in this day and age in a way that doesn't substitute violence from the paleolithic era or the era of the last 100 years...

Perhaps, the children's game minecraft with its incentivazation of creating will replace our age old game of surviving with the best use of violence.

I suppose even if that day were to come to pass, there would be the kid/person that comes along that just likes smashing sand castles. I'll continue to build.

Nice blog.