In the Walt Disney classic animated film Pinocchio, groups of rambunctious boys are seduced into coming to Pleasure Island, where they are eventually turned into donkeys and forced to work in the salt mines. The “naughty” boys in the film are presented as voiceless and faceless; they are seen in the distance and in sequences where they are bundled together, giving them no humanity at all. Much like the Lost Boys of Peter Pan, “who fall out of their prams when the nurse is looking the other way and if they are not claimed in seven days, they are sent far away to the Neverland.”
As we witness yet another boy walk back into school and kill, the question becomes, are these our Lost Boys?
After the Parkland school shooting, the polarized gun arguments began right on cue—mostly black and white, with little room at the center. The method used at Parkland was a gun, but the act had almost nothing to do with guns. Due to our abject political natures, the discussion never really ends up being about the school shootings.
Peering deeper into the abyss of modern humanity, there is something more horrible going on–something that no one wants to look at it. Someone intent on doing evil will find a way. But what possesses them to do these things? Looking further, why are school shootings committed by men, many times young men?
People like Mr. Cruz are possessed by a kind of evil ill will, a state of mind and magnitude of hate that has gown well past the ability to understand or describe it. At its core it is a soul that is alienated, disoriented and overcome by a perceived meaninglessness. The expressions left for this soul present themselves in horrible ways. Most lately with gun violence. In Luchino Visconti’s “The Damned”, the SS officer tells the young boy, “You see Gunther, you have acquired something truly extraordinary. You possess hate! It’s a young hate. Pure. Absolute.”
It’s hard to have an intelligent conversation about school shootings–nobody wants to look into the darkness long enough to actually understand what motivates people like Mr. Cruz. Of course, there are marginal legal measures, but until we can understand this fundamental situation, horrible things will continue to happen.
What we are seeing is young men stuck in lives without a purpose and direction. Life is hard, and tragic; by turning to, using an older term like nihilism, it feeds and drives people like mass spree shooters.
For many, life is suffering. This should not be too surprising. People from Socrates to religious sages have understood how to embrace an existence of suffering. It plays an important role in a number of religions, such as consolation or relief; moral conduct and spiritual advancement through a life hardships or through self-imposed trials (mortification of the flesh, penance, asceticism).
The ‘Four Noble Truths’ of Buddhism are about dukkha, a term usually translated as suffering in the Dharma. Suffering is greatly defined in Buddhism and holds a key role in attaining the supreme bliss Nirvana. Understanding the nature of suffering, its cause, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation (the Noble Eightfold Path) is the quintessential practice of Buddhism.
Because life is very difficult, you need to set something positive against that suffering, or it poisons you. This poison leads to vengefulness, many times leading to murderous and genocidal acts.
People like Cruz turn against life because life is so difficult, and there is nothing positive to balance it.
An element of this is the way we become ideologues because people lack genuine meaning in their own lives. According to philosophers and religious critics, this happens because we don’t understand how necessary it is to take responsibility. Instead, we flounder and flail about positing one or even a series of pseudosolutions (like gun control, protest marches, #killTheNRA, etc.).
An ideology is not the meaning of a life.
We see so many men from broken homes, growing up without a dad (9 of the recent spree shooters came from fatherless homes). The American culture has somewhat turned against them. How do these boys find meaning as part of a group, when the last fifty years has involved a concerted effort to feminize and eviscerate them? After a shooting, we hear the term toxic masculinity quite a bit.
How do our boys find meaning in their life, when society is at every turn is messaging them, sometimes even subliminally, saying you’re bad, worthless? You’re not needed.
Since the 1960s, formal criticism has propagated the idea that male competence is indistinguishable from male tyranny and power, so it should be all torn down.
A recent example was an article by Marcie Bianco, editorial and communications manager at Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research. She wrote article in 21 NBC News attacking Elon Musk (Tesla, Space X) after his launching a Tesla car into space, where she wrote:
“The patriarchal race to colonize Mars is just another example of male entitlement…These men, particularly Musk, are not only heavily invested in who can get their rocket into space first, but in colonizing Mars.”
“The desire to colonize — to have unquestioned, unchallenged and automatic access to something, to any type of body, and to use it at will — is a patriarchal one.”
Bianco credits Musk with believing that they’re working to “save humanity”, yet, attacks his motivations, “It is the same instinctual and cultural force that teaches men that everything — and everyone — in their line of vision is theirs for the taking…You know, just like walking up to a woman and grabbing her by the p—-.”
Bianco describes Musk’s efforts as “Columbusing,” an “entitlement to power, control, domination and ownership” as well as “the presumed right to use and abuse something and then walk away to conquer and colonize something new.”
Instead of seeing Mr. Lusk’s quests as being something deeply personal and meaningful, and at the same time wonderful for all of us, he is described as being like a rapist.
Ms. Bianco is a brilliant person; however, the point has been driven home for some time. Late history has been all-out assault on the masculine spirit, and in a way, western competence.
If Western culture is perceived as a corrupt patriarchy, then the goal of course would be the destruction of the patriarchy. Boys have had to bear the brunt of this–the kids from Columbine High School, online and personally, somewhat described this sense of being lost and not belonging, a kind of formalized nothingness. Emasculated, weak men are not harmless, but always end up doing the most evil.
In his book, Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, author Robert Cacioppo notes, the pain of isolation can make us more likely to lash out at the people we feel alienated from, loneliness “promotes an emphasis on short-term self-preservation, including an increase in implicit vigilance for social threats.” In other words, while “a sense of social connectednedness serves as a scaffold for the self, loneliness and alienation, rather than creating a yearning to engage with the world around them, creates a hyper-vigilance that others are out to do them harm, making it less likely they will be able connect meaningfully.
Our boys may be squeezed in the middle of an ongoing culture war, but that should not be the end of it. How do we tell them that it is really okay to be a man, masculinity is not toxic? How to we avoid the outcome of Columbine, and turn boys like this away from nihilism, and instead make them strong, confident, competent partners?
Back to suffering, fulfillment comes by accepting responsibility for it, for owning the tragic nature of life. Take on more, become someone others rely upon, someone they can trust. Take on burdens that make the world a little better, rather than a little worse. The alternative, the more readily accepted path is to succumb to ideological possession and collective action and group hatred and tribalism. We have recently been hearing the term “right-wing hate” quite often, however maybe everyone needs to take a look in the mirror.
What does it really mean to live a life? Your death ensures that your life will be tragic. Freedom comes from acceptance of life’s intrinsic nature, which is tragic.
There is evil in the world. Understand this, assume responsibility and move towards the light of good. This is an individual, not a group responsibility.
America (and most of the West) is an individualist culture. The confusion it is not so much about individual rights, but individual responsibility.
The idea of evil and mass shootings is hard to grasp, but it points to a failure with our young men. Our boys, we need to put on them, and they need to accept as much responsibility as they can. But we need to show them that, as men and adults, over our lives, we have strengthened and built ourselves up into individuals who can take on more responsibility. To accept that, is to accept grace and to find meaning and purpose in life.
By assuming responsibility, you also become more connected, and less alienated.
The hate we see is due to a refusal to accept responsibility for the tragedy of life, and we turn to the gang, the tribe—in most cases this is the political party or a fringe hate group (white supremacists, Anitifa, take your pick). The American political and cultural system has become a tribal battlefield.
To reject tribalism means you must also accept the terrible and awful responsibility, to accept suffering and carry that weight on your shoulders.
How do you justify the suffering? To realize that by accepting the weight and assuming the responsibility, the fuller your life becomes.
Of course, I understand the mockery this will generate. However, Christ’s fraternization with outcasts was interpreted by the Pharisees as an inexcusable compromise with sin; they did not see it for what it really was, an expression of the divine compassion towards sinners. Christ assumed an even larger responsibility a little later
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Will we ever be able to stop mass shootings? Probably not, and no amount of government regulation is going to stop evil. It will always find a way. It will always find the gun, or knife or bomb.
As America gets bigger and more angry, and the tribes become more entrenched, more and more of our boys will fall through the cracks. It will take more than a nickel to fix this.
About the Author
A lot of thought was obviously put into this article, and personally, I think that is a good thing to bring all these various points forward as you did.
I was taught Pinocchio when young (the book, not the movie) as a cautionary tale – act like a donkey and you will become one.
A simple truth indeed, and one not very difficult to understand.
And I did not see reference made to “Lord of the Flies,” the 1954 novel by Nobel Prize-winning British author William Golding, which I have always thought, especially after being in an infantry unit in combat in VEET NAM, was an accurate description of how people regress rapidly in the absence of what we think of, perhaps in our arrogance, as “civilized” society, although I am unsure of exactly how civilized it might be.
My feeling is the glue that binds “civilization” to the substrate of “American society” is a damn poor glue.
And you make no mention of Darwinism, either, as if Darwinism somehow excludes human beings, because unlike anything else on earth, we were all “created in God’s image,” and so, are immune to the fate that gathers in all else around us, where the weak seem to be the food supply of the strong.
As a combat veteran, I do not distinguish one kind of violence from another kind of violence.
Someone who uses their fists to beat someone is not in a different class from someone who takes a projectile weapon to inflict harm on someone else.
Both cases involve violence.
So, why are people violent, then?
The answer I have arrived at, after decades of study, is who the hell knows.
Consider the lyrics from 1971 to the song “Riders on the Storm” by the Doors, to wit:
“Riders On The Storm”
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house we’re born
Into this world we’re thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan
Riders on the storm
There’s a killer on the road
His brain is squirmin’ like a toad
Take a long holiday
Let your children play
If you give this man a ride
Sweet family will die
Killer on the road, yeah
Girl, you gotta love your man
Girl, you gotta love your man
Take him by the hand
Make him understand
The world on you depends
Our life will never end
Gotta love your man
end quotes
A song about violence from a time that I thought itself was quite violent.
And the violence that song was about was not new violence.
For proof of that, consider political philosopher John Locke (29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) in “The Second Treatise of Government, Chapter II, Of The State of War,” as follows:
For by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred; and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the common law of reason, have no other rule but that of force and violence, and so, may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power.
end quotes
Have the times changed since then?
Personally, I do not think so.
There is enough thought-provoking meat in this one article alone to keep this conversation going for some long time yet to come.
Wayne, you say, “(I)t’s hard to have an intelligent conversation about school shootings–nobody wants to look into the darkness long enough to actually understand what motivates people like Mr. Cruz.”
My response is that when you look into the darkness, what you find yourself confronted with is exactly that – more darkness.
So how do you shine any light at all on what motivates people like Mr. Cruz?
What rational scientific method do we employ as rational, mature people in this country that would enable us to understand how the mind of a killer actually functions?
Can rational people ever truly gain an understanding of what are irrational acts to a rational person – those of causing harm to children, or anyone for that matter?
Can people who are not killers and who abhor killing, or even causing harm, understand the minds of those who can kill with no conscience?
Personally, I don’t think so.
So that is why there is no conversation – all it would be was a lot of speculation, going back to whether he was potty-trained correctly, and whether or not Dr. Spock knew what he was talking about with respect to potty-training.
Out of curiosity, I just googled the question “What strategies does the military use to train soldiers to kill?” because all people are not natural-born killers, but are more likely, for whatever reason, to refrain from firing a shot at another human being.
An answer to that question in one forum on the internet where the same question was being debated was as follows:
As a soldier first, infantryman second, we’re never taught to pull the trigger without thinking.
With every order to kill comes the individual’s own assessment of the order: lawful or unlawful.
The military doesn’t actually teach a soldier to kill, it teaches him/her how to fight, the actual act of killing only comes because the soldier was trained how to properly fight.
The bottom line is, the military gives you the tools and training necessary to kill, but it’s up to the actual individual to not only teach themselves to kill, but to determine if the “enemy” is a lawful combatant, regardless of orders.
end quotes
I would put that out as the conundrum that faces rational people who are in the military, who certainly are not the only ones in there, especially back in the VEET NAM times, when people in this country were given a choice of go to jail or go to VEET NAM.
So who then, are these people who can take a weapon and start mindlessly spraying bullets into a crowd of people they are not seemingly at war with, and don’t even know in many cases?
As to “school shootings,” as Wikipedia makes clear with its extensive list of school shootings here in the so-called “Land of the Brave and Home of the Free,” they are hardly anything new, despite the claims of these so-called “school shooting survivors” in America.
On November 12, 1840, in Charlottesville, Virginia, John Anthony Gardner Davis, a law professor at the University of Virginia, was shot by student Joseph Semmes, and died from his wound three days later.
On November 2, 1853, in Louisville, Kentucky, Student Matthew Ward took a pistol to school, where he shot the schoolmaster Mr. Butler as revenge for what Ward thought was excessive punishment of his brother the day before.
Ward was acquitted.
On August 16, 1856, in Florence, Alabama, the schoolmaster had a tame sparrow and had warned the students not to harm it, threatening death.
One of the boys stepped on the bird and killed it; he was afraid to return to school but did so.
After lessons, the master took the boy into a private room and strangled him to death.
The boy’s father went to the school and shot the schoolmaster dead.
On July 8, 1858, in Baltimore, Maryland, the 15-year-old son of Col. John T. Farlow. Baltimore’s Marshal of Police 1867–70, was killed during a Sabbath School gathering.
The perpetrator escaped, but several arrests were made.
On January 21, 1860, in Todd County, Kentucky, a son of Col. Elijah Sebree was killed by another student.
Young Sebree was threatening the other boy and said he intended to kill him.
The other student got a gun and walked up to Sebree in the schoolhouse, where he killed him.
On February 6, 1864, in Ashland County, Ohio, George W. Longfelt, the school teacher of the Pyfer’s School House, killed student Alfred Desem and fled.
On February 16, 1867, in Knights Ferry, California, Mr. McGinnis was killed by his daughter’s teacher after McGinnis threatened the teacher for expelling his daughter from school.
When McGinnis’ son learned of this, he went to the school and killed the teacher.
end quotes
And that list goes on and on and on, right up to this present time:
On October 9, 2006, in Joplin, Missouri, 13-year-old student Thomas White fired one shot from a Mac-90 rifle at a hallway ceiling at Memorial Middle School.
The gunshot struck a water pipe, and nobody was injured.
He also tried repeatedly to shoot principal Stephen Gilbreth at near-point-blank range as Gilbreth ushered him out of the school.
Joplin police say the attempt was foiled by an improperly seated ammunition clip in the rifle.
The principal was not injured.
White was tried as an adult on charges of assault and firearms possession, and in 2009 he was sentenced to ten years of prison.
On January 3, 2007, in Tacoma, Washington, 18-year-old student Douglas S. Chanthabouly, killed 17-year-old Samnang Kok, in the hallways of Henry Foss High School following a personal disagreement.
In 2009, Chanthabouly was sentenced to 23 years in prison on a charge of second-degree murder.
On March 7, 2007, in Compton, California, during an argument with several non-students and students, a student was shot in the elbow and wounded in the eating area at Centennial High School.
The shooting occurred an hour after classes were dismissed, and students in after-school activities were sent home.
On April 16, 2007, in the Blacksburg, Virginia, Virginia Tech shooting: 23-year-old student, Seung-Hui Cho, killed thirty-two students and faculty members at Virginia Tech, and wounded another seventeen students and faculty members in two separate attacks before committing suicide.
The incident is the third-deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in modern U.S. history.
On October 10, 2007, in the Cleveland, Ohio SuccessTech Academy shooting, Asa H. Coon, a 14-year-old suspended student, returned to SuccessTech Academy, where he fired shots at people inside the school building, wounding two teachers and two students.
He shot himself in the head, committing suicide.
end quotes
So what lessons are there to be learned by any of us?
And here I am going to close with some words from U.S. president Woodrow Wilson back in the time of the great violence of WWI:
“TO FIGHT, you must be brutal, and ruthless, and the SPIRIT of RUTHLESS BRUTALITY will enter into the very fibre of OUR national life, INFECTING Congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street ……”
end quotes
I do not claim to be omniscient enough to know WHY that is, but I do firmly believe that that statement underlies at least some of these societal problems we are witnessing in this country today, because I do believe, like Woodrow Wilson, that to continuously fight like this nation has been doing, seemingly forever now, the nation must be indeed be a brutal people, and ruthless, and that SPIRIT of RUTHLESS BRUTALITY has indeed entered into the very fibre of our national life, infecting as it has the Congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street.
So how do we unwind that scenario?
How is the lid put back on Pandora’s Box?
These young people in America today have spent their lives in a nation at eternal war not only with itself, but seemingly with every other nation on the face of the earth.
What effect has that had on their psyches?
For example, on Monday, September 28, 2015, the nation was confronted with this following headline in the venerable Washington Times: “President Obama: I lead the strongest military the world has ever known!” wherein we were informed:
President Barack Obama addresses the UN General Assembly on September 28, 2015.
“As President of the United States, I am mindful of the dangers that we face.”
“They cross my desk every morning.”
“I lead the strongest military that the world has ever known.”
“And I will never hesitate to protect my country or our allies, unilaterally and by force where necessary.”
end quotes
“By force where necessary!”
The Stringbean that roared!
Now what message does that send to these young people here in America?
Isn’t it a message of “violence is the way to solve your problems?”
Seems that way to me, anyway, and no, I am not a racist, nor am I a Republican.
And not only are we seemingly the most hostile, belligerent and vicious nation on the face of the earth, ready to use force to force our will on others at the drop of a hat, check it out on google, and you will find that we are also the only nation on the face of the earth with an opioid epidemic, as well.
And we are a nation that starts its children off on psychiatric drugs from the time that they are young, drugs that cause them to be suicidal, or to have rages.
And we wonder why we have “lost boys” in this country.
Go figure!
As to life being difficult, that is a state of mind.
Life is simply life.
The same with “suffering,” as you state above.
Suffering is similarly a state of mind.
I grew up in an old farmhouse in a cold place when I was young with no running hot water.
We heated the house with wood, and we grew our own food.
All of that entailed work, but did that make life difficult?
Did we suffer because we were poor?
Beats the hell out of me because I never thought of it that way.
So where has all this talk of how difficult life is today come from?
For example, are people in Parkland, Florida, where the per capita income is $51,076 v. $28,889 for the rest of the country suffering?
If so, why?
In Parkland, Florida, the median household income is $130,107 v. $53,657 for the rest of the nation.
So is life for people more difficult in Parkland, Florida than it is for people in the rest of the country?
Is that why they produced a mass shooter down there, because life for them is so hard?
But according to published statistics, in Parkland, Florida, only 3.3 percent of the population is living below the poverty level.
https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/fl/parkland/demographics
So what really is going on here?
Is it a case of where the more money and affluence you have the more difficult for you life becomes, so that you suffer more than the poor folks do?
Any thoughts, anyone?
Speaking of America suffering because life has become so hard here as compared to other less-well-off nations on the face of the earth, the British publication The Guardian gives us a good view of it in the article “Opioid crisis: overdoses increased by a third across US in 14 months, says CDC – Results show opioid overdoses increasing across all regions and in most states, for most men and women and most age groups” by Jessica Glenza in New York on 6 March 2018, as follows:
Opioid overdoses increased by roughly 30% across the US in just 14 months between 2016 and 2017, according to a new report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The CDC called the data a “wake up call to the fast-moving opioid overdose epidemic”.
It recorded 142,000 overdoses in US hospital emergency departments between July 2016 and September 2017.
end quotes
That seems to be an indication that how hard life is here in the United States is increasing at a rapid rate, as well, since people take opioids to help them deal with all the suffering they have to do in America today.
According to The Guardian article, in the US in 2016, illicit and prescription drug overdoses killed 64,000 people:
“Our results through September 2017 show opioid overdoses are increasing across all regions, most states for most men and women and most age groups,” said Dr Anne Schuchat, acting director of the CDC.
“We’re currently seeing the highest overdose death rates ever recorded in the United States.” Schuchat later added: “The infrastructure to fully tackle this problem is fragile.”
end quotes
Interestingly, the Daily Mail, another British publication had a story entitled “Deadly opioid epidemic that is crippling the US is set to spread to Europe as doctors continue to over prescribe the highly-addictive painkillers” by Alexandra Thompson on 27 October 2017, that told us as follows about our exporting pour suffering as a nation to the other nations on the face of the earth, to wit:
The opioid epidemic that is crippling the US is set to spread to Europe as doctors continue to over prescribe the highly-addictive painkillers, experts warn.
Opioids, which often lead to addicts experimenting with illegal substances such as heroin, have killed more deaths by accidental overdose than any other drug in US history, leading to President Donald Trump declaring the epidemic a national public health emergency yesterday.
Cathy Stannard, a consultant in pain medicine in Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, said: ‘We (in Europe) are mindful of all the facets of the U.S. conversation, but where we start on this is a very similar increase in prescription rates of opioid medicines.’
end quotes
When it comes to suffering and the drug addiction suffering apparently causes, we are a leader in the world.
Getting back to the Daily Mail:
Prescriptions aside, the number of US deaths caused by the production of potent synthetic opioids by drug traffickers rose by 1,125 percent between 2000 and 2015.
Between 2000 and 2015, US deaths from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which is up to 100 times more powerful than morphine, rose by 1,125 percent.
In the same 15 years deaths from all opioids rose by 294 percent.
Overall drug overdose deaths in the US reached around 64,000 last year, up from 52,000 in 2015; more than half of which were related to opioids.
Europe’s overdose deaths rose for the third consecutive year in 2015 to 8,441; 81 percent of which were related to opioids, including heroin.
end quotes
So when it comes to suffering, we can see that here in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, we are far out in front of our nearest competitors, which is only right, given we are the world’s only Superpower.
Getting back to the Guardian:
Two states reported overdoses more than doubled – including in Wisconsin with 109% and Delaware with 105% increases.
Another dramatic increase occurred in Pennsylvania, where overdoses went up 81%.
Overdoses also increased in “cities and towns of all types”, the report said.
Overdoses are often associated with rural America but metropolitan areas with 1 million or more people saw the steepest increase, at 54%.
end quotes
So we can see that suffering in America is really quite widespread.
Is there a cure?
Here is what the Guardian tells us:
To curb the crisis, officials said communities would need more naloxone (which reverses overdoses); better access to mental health services and medication-assisted addiction treatment; harm reduction programs to screen for injection-drug associated diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C; and for physicians to use prescription monitoring services.
end quotes
We have become, in our national prosperity, a nation with an ever-increasing need for mental health services, so much so, that former president Barack Hussein Obama put mental health services front and center in his Obamacare, which is really an interesting statement about these times we find ourselves in today in the United States of America – too much of a real good thing makes you mentally ill!
Which takes us back to the Guardian, as follows:
The surgeon general, Jerome Adams, said: “Addiction is a chronic disease, and not a moral failing.”
end quotes
So, a medical expert has spoken – we are a diseased nation, not a nation with a moral failing.
Can we draw any comfort from that?
One can only wonder.
I cannot say how I even happened upon this article, but it was incredibly well written and thought out. I am now searching for more of your writing Wayne and hope it leads me on a pleasant journey.
Tho of a different nature, the comments from Paul are also of a very high caliber.
-Thank you both-