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How does a seemingly normal human being reach such depths of despair, hopelessness, and anger that they decide their only way out of life is the killing of others? That’s a question I always ask myself when a mass shooting in America occurs. A mass shooting being defined as the shooting of four or more people in one incident, which in the U.S., occurs on average 5 out of 6 days a week.
This person went to the same schools, churches, and institutions many of us did. They watched the same television shows, were immersed in the same American culture all of us were. Somewhere along the way there was a massive schism that sent them down a path where this was the outcome. Whether they were radicalized, political or religious fanatics, or just hopeless, thinking there was no way out, the environment that incubates this is all the same – one of atomization – where they have been isolated, and have experienced loneliness to such a degree that radical and warped mindsets appear normal.
Why are the vast majority of these mass shooters men? What are the messages we are sending men, and how are we sending them? We are sending messages of isolationism and we are sending them through social and technology platforms.
The mindset we have in America is the way of rugged independence. The “self-made man”, the one who doesn’t need anyone else and made it all on his own. This idea is deeply woven into the fabric of American society – pumped into our living rooms through the movies we watch and the celebrity personalities we worship. The problem with this is that it doesn’t exist – it never did. The “self-made man” is nothing but a poor caricature of a flawed mindset. Ask any person who has had any kind of success and they will tell you it can’t be done alone. Nonetheless we worship it anyway. We worship many similar “false idols,” to use the religious term. Many of them empty and lacking substance.
Spirituality has become so lost in America, that any whisper of the word invokes cringe responses from people who often confuse spirituality with religion. Paradoxically, as one of the most religious countries in the world, certain spiritual truths have been washed away in the tides of for profit, religious corporations, whose goals are political and power driven.
American culture has successfully shaped anything having to do with spirituality as archaic or “stupid”, but we still freely worship celebrities, politicians, and the rich elite in cult-like, religious ways. Corporations and mass media outlets have feed us a vain pseudo-religion of popular culture and money. They’ve done a good job at replacing most of our moral and ethical road maps.
How do we receive these messages in modern society? As we scroll through our social media accounts all alone at 2 a.m. These flawed and dangerous mindsets aren’t shared much through conversation – that might make them slightly less potent since there would be some human connection involved. Next time you walk into a coffee shop, or pass a bus stop, take a look at all the people not interacting with each other. They don’t even make small talk – just sit their head down in their phone. It’s even more appalling to see people who know each other – friends, lovers, family members – looking down at their phones while out to dinner.
What does this boil down to? What’s the end result? Everyone becomes the most important person in the world. There is no greater good, no cohesive society that unites us. It’s all about me. We don’t all play for the same team. I am out to get mine; I am the most important person in the world, and to hell with everyone else. This kind of spiritual disease that plagues our society manifests in a multitude of ways: the growing income inequality, the hatred and vitriol we have for people who have different political views than us, and the radicalization of people who think their only option is to carry out mass murders, are all heads of the same monster – a monster that is thriving in the conditions of isolation we have created.
With Amazon just purchasing WholeFoods is it too farfetched to see a world where we have groceries, medications, and anything else we need delivered to our door? We wouldn’t have to go to the grocery store and see other people anymore. With the advancing technology of artificial intelligence and virtual reality, there may come a day when we can go anywhere in the world, and do anything we’d like, without ever having to leave the safety of the sofa. What a wonderful world that will be.
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Photo Credit: Getty Images