What Is Going On?

This is the 27th school shooting this year!! Let me say that again.. THIS IS THE 27TH SCHOOL SHOOTING THIS YEAR! What in God’s name are we to do about this? What needs to change in order to stop such violence?

I wonder how we grow accustomed to such horrific events. I know from watching Outlander that there was a time in history where disturbing and unimaginable deaths occurred. There were beheadings, burnings, torture — and, onlookers watched as if these were normal practices (I guess they were considered “normal” back in the day) done to people who disobeyed the law, who partook in treasonous acts, etc. There are still parts of the world today where horrific acts are witnessed and somehow normalized.

Have we “normalized” violence in our world today? Have we become numb to the shootings, stabbings, rape, human trafficking, etc. today? I believe the answer is “yes.” We are living in a sick place that needs to be healed. We can’t keep blaming politicians, guns, mental illness, etc. for the breakdown of a society. We need to understand it’s a combination of years and years of an underlying hatred and disdain. We are disconnected from one another. We are isolated..

According to Bari Weiss, “The social rot that’s come over America, the nihilism and hatred of each other, is part of the cause here. The dissolution of our social ties—and with them the accountability and responsibility that an actual community demands—has allowed insanity to fester unnoticed. Lockdowns accelerated the isolation, the purposelessness, the lack of meaning that was already overcoming us.

If we insist on viewing this shooting as part of some isolated issue or species of violence, then we miss the point. The point is the country is being consumed by what Philip Roth famously called “the indigenous American berserk.” It stretches back many decades, or longer, and for ages, it was possible to ignore or compartmentalize. Now the brokenness is everywhere we look and it is impossible to unsee it.”

-C