Last Wednesday one of the guys in our group
said we can’t be missionary disciples if all we offer is cynicism and sarcasm.
I was interrupted in taking
his words to heart Friday when I heard about the Santa Fe shooting. My reaction
was: “OK, roll out the candles and flowers and teddy bears for the standard
makeshift memorial, and let’s hear the expressions of ‘thoughts and prayers’ from the great and
good so we can get back to cleaning our weapons for next time.
“I mean, 10 dead in a
school shooting is so routine we can react without taking our minds off the
Preakness.”
Now that is sarcasm.
I would argue that sarcasm and cynicism are not the same thing. A cynic has
given up on the issue. But a user of sarcasm has given up only on arguing with
irrational people; he is trying to deal with them some other way. Cynicism is
despair; sarcasm is a sign that hope weakly remains.
For example, the
Parkland kids calling b.s. on “hope and prayers” pushed that knee-jerk
meaningless to the edge of the stage. The president got by (barely)
without it:
"This has been going on too long in our country. Too many years, too many decades now. We grieve for the terrible loss of life and send our support and love to everyone affected by this absolutely horrific attack. To the students, families, teachers and personnel at Santa Fe High: we’re with you in this tragic hour and we will be with you forever.
"My Administration is determined to do everything in our power to protect our students, secure our schools and to keep weapons out of the hands of those who pose a threat to themselves and to others. Everyone must work together at every level of government to keep our children safe.
"May God heal the injured and may God comfort the wounded, and may God be with the victims and with the victims’ families. (He couldn’t resist the compulsion to bring God in on our faux compassion.) Very sad day. Very very sad."Yes, it has been going on too long. It is getting worse with his admonition to punch out hecklers and he’ll pay for lawyers, and his demoting human beings to rapists and animals. His administration will do nothing to offend the NRA or anyone else who considers guns part of his “culture.” (News flash: Lynching used to be part of that “culture.” The Mafia had a culture of concrete shoes for corpses. Beating up Jews was part of Nazi culture. Some culture is very uncultured.)
So now we retreat to our respective corners. One side says guns are off the table because of the Second Amendment and we should be talking about mental illness, Hollywood and video games. (BTW, Hollywood has a Hollywood culture; video games are part of some people’s culture. If we protect all American cultures, everything is off the table.)
The other side says everything is on the table.
So to be even-handed, we have to say the truth is “somewhere in between” everything on the table and everything but guns on the table. Discussion may now begin on those terms.
Yes. That is sarcastic. But it is at least as close to reality than anything else you are see and hear about last week’s – not to be confused with next week’s – bullets-flying outrage. The alternative to sarcasm in a fact-free, post-truth era is crying.
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ReplyDeleteJim PauwelsMay 21, 2018 at 10:12 AM
ReplyDeleteTom, that quote from the president, was that in the wake of this most recent shooting? That's like a real presidential reaction: I would think that a staff writer wrote it and he (mostly) stuck to his script. That's kind of notable in its own right.
FWIW, I don't like the vector of scorn being heaped on thoughts and prayers. We need thought (about the issues) and prayers (for the victims and their families). If we're really serious about doing something about guns, then thinking and praying are appropriate. Victims and their families should welcome thoughts and prayers in the spirit of solidarity. If I'm a victim or family member and someone offers me thoughts and prayers, the response is, "Thank you. Now let's work together to make sure this never happens again, here or anywhere else."
I don't know that the president is much of a gun guy. It may not be high on his list of priorities. And he doesn't have to take the lead on this issue. If there is some practical legislation that can be enacted to decrease the chances of these shootings (or other types of shootings - as I've stated before, I don't think school shootings are nearly the whole of the issue), then there are 535 members of Congress who have the ability to write and introduce bills. What are those things that can be done?
FWIW, here's what I think can be done: we can revise the 2nd amendment. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the constitution is an obstacle to the government exerting control over gun ownership. But the constitution is revisable, and we've done it many times before. Our state legislature is spending precious time and resources on a wholly symbolic effort to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, whose time clock, I understand, has expired. Why not spend that time on something that can make a difference? I'll support any responsible attempt to fix the constitution. Anyone else interested?
Jim, the 2nd amendment is extremely vague and strangely worded. I agree that it should be repealed and replaced by something more specific. I don't believe that a constitutional originalist could construe an individual right to gun ownership from the 2nd, but they did. I believe the 2nd amendment was made to soothe slaveowner states. You need guns to control slaves.
DeleteRegarding thoughts and prayers, I think the scorn comes from regarding these events as something beyond human agency and they aren't. It's like driving past someone lying on the side of the road while offering thoughts and prayers. THOSE thoughts and prayers are meaningless. These phony politicians have made a joke of thoughts and prayers.
DeleteIn the Santa Fe shooting, the shooter had a shotgun and a .38 revolver. Some are saying that this shows that a ban on guns like the AR-15 would be futile. But if the shooter had an AR-15, many more could have been killed. Also, modern shotguns are capable of repetitive shots up to eight through pump action or semiautomatic action. Also, if the father were bound by law to keep his guns in a safe, that would have prevented this. The father was an idiot. I think gun control people need to take as extreme a position as the NRA but in the opposite direction. Then perhaps the compromise will end up being reasonable. They should have as a goal a ban on ALL guns.
ReplyDeleteIf faith without works is dead, then thoughts and prayers without action are useless, and I think that's the source of the scorn. The kiddies know it's an empty phrase, and I dislike it because it makes thoughts and prayers meaningless.
ReplyDeleteThe Santa Fe kids, as far as I know, are not raising hell like the Parkland kids. The news made a big deal over one kid's comment that she pretty much expected it would happen eventually.
Call me a cynic. I would support a change, repeal, whatever in the second amendment or any number of other fixes, but it won't get done. The loss of a dozen or so kids is and has been tacitly deemed an acceptable sacrifice to the right for everybody's nutcase brother to own a gun.
I do think that parents of kids who shoot up schools with the family arsenal should be liable for accessory to murder charges, given that they were unable to keep their guns safely.
The Harris and Klebold families settled civil suits out of courrt. Susan Klebold says she is contributing profits of what critics say is a highly unsatisfactory memoir to "mental health." These parents should have been stripped of parental rights and sent to prison. Harsh punishment might at least force parents to get serious about locking up the weaponry.
Yes, I agree that if parents can be held responsible for their teenagers throwing a beer party while the parents are out of town (that does happen occasionally around here - the holding-parents-legally-responsible part), then they could, and should, be held responsible if they were negligent in keeping their firearms out of the hands of their teens. I'd support such a law and it's not immediately clear it would be unconstitutional.
DeleteStanley and Jean, yes, I'm with you on words without deeds. But that's not quite what I hear being scorned. I hear "thoughts and prayers" said in the kind of voice that people say "Donald Trump" or "Chicago White Sox": as though it's so self-evident that thoughts and prayers are worthless that no more need be said. I think more needs to be said.
DeleteJim, I don't think the kids calling b.s. (or I) have anything against thought or prayer as such. It's "thoughtsandprayers" as a shibboleth after which there will be little thought, and probably no prayers, that we are objecting to.
DeleteYeah, I resent that it has become a shibboleth. Because when I say that I'm praying and thinking of someone, I really mean that I am attempting to do that. Not virtue-signaling, just trying to follow the Lord's admonition to "...pray unceasingly". we can't let toxic politics change the meaning of our heartfelt words.
DeleteI think most of us know who means it with the "thoughts and prayers."
DeleteThis article was mentioned in "On Point" last night.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/thresholds-of-violence
It is difficult to read, but thought-provoking. Tries to explain how school shootings are a "slow motion riot," and looking for red flags and mental illness in any conventional sense is nearly useless. Shooters shoot because shooting is now in the culture.
Snip:
Then came Columbine. The sociologist Ralph Larkin argues that Harris and Klebold laid down the “cultural script” for the next generation of shooters. They had a Web site. They made home movies starring themselves as hit men. They wrote lengthy manifestos. They recorded their “basement tapes.” Their motivations were spelled out with grandiose specificity: Harris said he wanted to “kick-start a revolution.” Larkin looked at the twelve major school shootings in the United States in the eight years after Columbine, and he found that in eight of those subsequent cases the shooters made explicit reference to Harris and Klebold. Of the eleven school shootings outside the United States between 1999 and 2007, Larkin says six were plainly versions of Columbine; of the eleven cases of thwarted shootings in the same period, Larkin says all were Columbine-inspired.
Do it's mimetic mixed, sometimes, with high functioning autism. A very frightening article. But why hasn't this virus spread to other countries? Europeans like our action films. What is the factor or factors? Ubiquity of guns?
ReplyDeleteI don't think movies have anything to do with it.
DeleteSchool shootings are a counter-cultural, national phenomenon for which there is now an established pattern without sufficient, quelling counterweight.
Shooting up schools isn't part of the European gestalt. They have neo-Nazis and Islamicist terrorists.
A very chilling article. Stanley, I don't think you are far off the mark when you compare the phenomenon to a virus.
DeleteSome else that sticks out like a sore thumb is that these incidents are nearly all perpetrated by young males. The article also mentions incidence of torture of animals. It would seem there is a disturbing lack of empathy, as well as a nihilistic view of life.
Should read "Something else" rather than "Some else".
DeleteThe kid comes back an atheist and this eventuates. I'm reminded of that Dostoevsky line: "If there is no God, then all things are permissible." Indeed.
ReplyDeleteI think we have to be really careful here. Some of us resent our thoughts and prayers being blown off as the empty sentiments of the publicly pious, when, in fact we ask God what we should do every time there's another shooting and say Hail Marys for every victim.
ReplyDeleteAnd there are lots of atheists who believe in the moral imperatives embodied in the 10 Commandments.
Modern ideas about mental illness seem to be underfunded with the idea that people are naturally good, and that when people commit horrible crimes, they are "sick" or traumatized.
The point is that these kids have, in many cases, chosen to turn away from decent families and friends who could help them.
Perhaps we are wrong to look for reasons and patterns in every case. Evil does not need a reason. It is an end in itself.
Reminds me of that Grahame Greene short story about the boys wrecking a man's house just to do it. The ringleader burns money they found to keep the act of evil pure in itself.
DeleteI don't see how one can look at this stuff and not see demonic influence.
DeleteJean your comment of 10:01 am: brava
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ReplyDelete*undergirded (auto correct gets worse and worse)
ReplyDelete... but also you are right that our system of mental health is underfunded!
DeleteNo, kidding. I had to call Social Services on a relative with mental problems who was committing slow suicide with booze and pills. I realize how lucky I was that they a) responded within 24 hours, got the person detox, and arranged follow-up counseling; and b) created a file so that if it ever happened again, there was a plan for commitment and guardianship. This usually does not happen.
DeleteEven when people have access to emergency and routine mental health care through insurance, the solution is to throw drugs at it. Sometimes that's needed. But many of the people in my cancer group are on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds. These things are pushed by oncologists and other patients. They help some people, but they also add a host of side effects in some cases. In my experience, the depression and anxiety is situational. Learn to deal with the situation, and you don't need the dope. I don't mean to be critical here; we've all got different thresholds to psychic pain, and some people just don't have much support at home. But sometimes a pill is not the best alternative.