Tip Jar

5/18/2018

When Heroes Aren't Human


Another month another school shooting and the never ending debate trying to understand the seemingly unknowing, why?

Why are young men in the freest most prosperous nation in human history killing their peers? Seemingly without remorse or any sense of humanity.

The go to battle lines are formed around the gun "debate" but there really is no debate there is just a divide. An insurmountable divide which will last far into the future. The divide between those who believe that guns are the problem and those who believe people are the problem. There is one undeniable fact which is that when all the guns are gone, there will still be people. And people kill people, Cain slew Abel and there was not a gun in sight.

The question should not be are guns the problem, the question should be, why are young men in the freest nation in human history killing their peers? It is sad but true that far more young people are killed due to gang violence than at school as the result of a mass murder, but that does not make these mass killings any less horrifying and far more difficult to understand.

There is, in a way, a correlation between these two seemingly different American tragedies. A desire by young people to belong. This is obvious when it comes to gangs. Gangs are formed and survive because of a desire by their members to belong, a natural need for camaraderie.

Camaraderie, there is an old fashioned word, one of those archaic ideals being ripped asunder from modern culture. But a concept critical to the psyche of the male of the species like another word not in vogue brotherhood. In a very real emotional sense it is not unlike belonging to a sports team, a fraternity or a club. Although gangs are not a justifiable outlet for this normal male desire for camaraderie , it is at least understandable.

But what of the school shooters, most of whom are outsiders and loners with no attachment to teams, groups, clubs or even gangs?

When you don't "fit in" you may find a place to "fit in" with others who have suffered as you have. Your heroes your mentors may turn out to be those who paved a path to the outlet for the frustration you so deeply feel. You may choose to join the club, the ever larger club of those who found release through massacre.

As the club grows, so too does it's opportunities for recruitment. The boy who does not identify with the Parkland shooter may, as the most recent shooting appears, identify with the Columbine murders'. As the events grow in number and frequency so too does the possibility for a spark to be lit inside a darkened soul.

Worse yet as the numbers increase so too does the justification for joining the club become easier within a tormented mind. "I am not alone, lots of people do it."

In a truly brilliant if chilling article written several shootings ago Malcolm Caldwell explored this phenomena Thresholds of Violence , How school shootings catch on.

In his essay he makes the following observation:
We misleadingly use the word “copycat” to describe contagious behavior—implying that new participants in an epidemic act in a manner identical to the source of their infection.

The key word here is contagious. The problem is not guns, young people are, as he also notes, being infected. They are catching something which their immune system cannot resist. They are susceptible to evil acts because they do not have the antibodies to fight off impulses.

It is widely accepted that gangs are primarily the result of and incubated in poverty. Add to that the increase in fatherless households and you have a toxic mix that will lead young men "astray." Not so the school shooters. A vast majority who come middle class and higher income households. Most do not come from fatherless homes. Often times it is shocking the "normal" families and homes where these killers are raised.

Which makes this epidemic even more frightening.

So again why? Why are young men from "normal" homes committing evil against their peers and society? I would suggest that there are many reasons which ferment this tragic brew. Explaining the spread of the epidemic does not explain the cause. Why in the last half century have more and more boys sought out relief from their pent up frustrations by joining this evil cult?

Let's begin with this:
Abortion is not a choice in American society today it is a cause; death should never be a cause. When the death of an innocent unborn baby becomes a political cause for individual liberty, a tool to be used to promote political agendas and a defining measure of womanhood in popular society, we truly have lost our way.

[I]n so called popular American society today, those who oppose an unnatural act are somehow considered villains and uncaring, whereas those who promote the unnatural destruction of life are considered enlightened. This is not only backwards, it is sick and it is by any moral precept-wrong. Worse, this backward, sick, immoral thinking is promoted and championed in our society to the detriment of our moral structure which corrodes the very fabric of any truly progressive society. When any society champions death over life, the death of that society is inevitable.

I wrote those words many years ago and they are no less true today. The school shooting epidemic is not a gun issue, and no it is not an abortion issue, it is a societal issue. It is about what we believe and how we teach, or do not teach, our children to believe. If you begin with promoting the death of the most innocent how can you teach children the respect for life?

In a very real sense it is not unlike the old canard "A man who stands for nothing, will fall for anything." In this case "a boy who believes in nothing is capable of anything." Life is either precious or it is not and if in your formative years you are taught not to respect life...well you figure it out.

When I was growing up, and for the generations before me, I was surrounded by heroes. Not because I lived in a unique environment or location or time but because that is the way boys were raised. Boys will be boys is not a curse it is the pathway to manhood.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" Is not just a question it is an invitation, an invitation to look around you to see what you admire. "I want to be a cowboy, I want to be a policeman, I want to be a soldier. In today's "popular culture" all these and many other heroic figures are not only not held up to the youth as worthy role models they are vilified. Many of the heroes of my youth are now portrayed as villains in some way or another.

If a boy has no great dreams and examples of heroism he will never be a hero. Unless boys have totally changed since I was one, boys love to dream of being the hero. If they don't our society is lost. Heroes made the world, especially the ones we never heard of.

Try to go to a movie today where the heroes are even human, they are cartoon characters. Humans especially the male of the species are no longer allowed to be the heroes unless they are from a Galaxy far far away or a world that does not really exist. American society not only treats life as a throw away commodity we have created a heroless society less someone be offended by the glory of another.

So now we raise boys ridiculed and even drugged for their natural metabolism. They are chastised for their impulses and desires while their opposite gender is glorified for their blatant promiscuity meant to entice their male counterpart who is belittled for being what God and nature made him to be.

Not to mention that a girl in today's society is not only allowed to kill her "mistake", Barack Obama's words not mine, they are glorified for doing so. The boy? The boy is a lecherous scoundrel preying on noble womanhood. This is the world we raise our boys in, and worse.

All this is happening while "popular culture" actively promotes the degradation of normal role models and promotes the less natural alternative life styles which only confuse young males as to who they are and what they should be.

It is not that boys are stigmatized by video games or movies, it is that it becomes their escape from a society which is increasingly hostile to their nature. The outcome is the same though. Living in an imaginary world with comic book heroes and rules that defy nature will lead to more and more young men not being men at all.

It is hard to be a man when you do not know what a man is in a society which is telling you how to think and feel when you do not think and feel that way at all.

What we need are heroes. Not comic book ones but real men who know what a man's place is and proudly explain it and more importantly live it for all to see, especially the boys.

Guns are not the problem, but increasingly for the broken boys of our broken culture guns are becoming the answer.


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