The eCrozier

It’s been a regular refrain after the murderous violence we’ve experienced in the last few years in places like Charleston, Parkland, or Pittsburgh (that, of course, is only a partial list, isn’t it?). A civic leader steps before the media’s microphones and, referring to the perpetrator and the violence, says something like: “We’re better than this. This isn’t who we are.” I understand the sentiment that comes when someone makes such a statement. The person wants to exude hope for the future, an ongoing trust in their community’s leadership, and encourage everyone to work to end these recurring horrors.

Except, people stating such sentiments are grossly mistaken in what they’re saying. We aren’t better than this. It’s who we are now. Ok, clearly not all of us all the time, but enough of us enough of the time that when we say “we,” then we have to include those who are willing to enter a church, school, or synagogue and murder people. We don’t want to think that about ourselves or our fellow citizens but think about it we must. Our denial isn’t helping anything. By saying “this isn’t who we are,” we’re denying that our current soci0-political context is producing people so angry and twisted that they’ve concluded mass murder is a sensical act. Our culture’s moral imperative du jour is to be authentic to your own truth (see philosopher Charles Taylor’s “ethics of authenticity”). Actually, I’m thankful these people with such weapons aren’t even more “authentic” to their own truth. I shudder to think what that would produce, if they were.

Of course, aberrant thinking coupled with murderous impulses have been present in humans from the beginning (see: Cain & Abel), but the multi-murderous means to act on such thinking and impulses is relatively new. Cheap and easy access to a panoply of high-powered weaponry gives aberrant thoughts and vicious impulses a way to be expressed with deadly mass consequences. Such mass-murderous behavior in the past couldn’t be accomplished with a Kentucky long rifle or even a carbine.

This is who we are: As a people, we’ve made a (possibly unconscious) choice between competing rights. We’ve decided that we should have a right to very few limits on our ability to obtain high-powered weaponry. And this right trumps the right to life free of the fear of being the victim of someone with such weaponry. Let’s not pretend that’s not the choice we’ve made. We the people have chosen this. We can’t be passive and blame Congress. We elected them to represent us. We, of course, can make other choices in the future, but for now, honesty demands we acknowledge that’s what we’ve chosen.

We won’t be “better than this” as long as our current choice stands. While no one can predict the future, I think it’s a safe to say that our “new normal” will be more Charlestons and Parklands and Pittsburghs (as horrific as that is to think about). Nothing has changed since those mass murders. Certainly human nature in all its potentially twisted forms hasn’t. That’s “the source.” And easy access to high-powered weaponry, that is, “the means,” hasn’t changed either. So, why would anyone think such mass-murderous behavior will somehow end? We’d have to engage in magical thinking to believe this wasn’t our new normal. This is, God help us, who we are right now.

+Scott