Our country has become a nation more sensitive to nudity than it is sensitive to mass destruction.
Our country has normalized violence.
Our country exploits violence in media, video games, youtube, television, movies, etcetera.
We lay out cultural scripts for those in our country to lament and think about violence.
((Cultural script = "organized units of knowledge that code and propagate meanings and practices"))
We stir the minds of those with low and high thresholds for committing violent acts to do so.
"The problem is not that there is an endless supply of deeply disturbed young men who are willing to contemplate horrific acts. It's worse. It's that young men no longer need to be deeply disturbed to contemplate horrific acts." (Gladwell 2015)
The only pattern drawn from these mass-shootings are that of the shooter being a young male, from the middle-class, and white. Belonging to the generally dominating majority of American citizens. Seemingly "ordinary".
I believe that our nation propagates a cultural script for young, seemingly "ordinary", men to express the stressor of toxic masculinity in the form of violence, namely mass-school shootings.
An American sociologist from the 70's - Mark Granovetter - maintains a Threshold Theory which states threshold of people who commit school shootings are getting higher and higher.
"The riot has changed: it became more and more self-referential, more ritualized, more and more about identification with the school-shooting tradition.
Eric Harris wanted to start a revolution. Aguilar and Ybarra wanted to join one. Harris saw himself as a hero. Aguilar and Ybarra were hero-worshippers." (Gladwell 2015)
I realize my statement is a bold claim. There are many factors that play into this. I am going to be addressing namely: the issues of violence de-sensitivity and over-prevalence in popular media, toxic masculinity, and the continuous expansion of capitalism leading to alienation between individuals (especially between parents and children). [This is the order of level of influence, but I will be addressing them in a different order -- I ask you bear with me.]
VIOLENCE:
America as a nation has become de-sensitized to violence, we have normalized it.
Someone whom I never thought I would quote in a positive way - Donald Trump - even commented on this. While I may never respect him, he did point out that our movie rating system in America will be so quick to make any movie with any kind of nudity immediately rated R, but when it comes to violence - PG-13 is even a stretch. Think about it. Even in animated movies we have some kind of violent act going on in some form or another.
TOXIC MASCULINITY
The narratives and cultural scripts that are emulated from society onto the kids of our current generation do not only glorify violence, but also supports a culture maintained by "toxic masculinity".
The father of John LaDue (a seventeen-year-old from Minnesota who conducted an extremely detail-oriented thought out plan in which he planned to kill his family, his school, and then himself) attempted to defend his son in an interview, by stating that, “it is difficult for men—and for teen-age boys in particular—to admit to vulnerability."
He is correct to state this, but that does not make room for the acts of mass-violence or destruction.
CAPITALISM
Capitalism expands, humans are alienated from themselves and from each other in the chase for money.
For parents to support their children in America, often what it entails is that they do have the privilege of seeing or spending quality time with their children as often as they would like.
The economic strains that our capitalist system places on people belonging to every social class has led to money taking precedence over quality family time. This dates back to the 18th century with the start of the Industrial Revolution, mass consumerism, urbanization, and the ultimate loss of traditional ties between family and community. Alienation is the result of chasing money.
I digress. But, I state this to enforce that it is harder/less common for parents to monitor what their kids are doing.
This is an issue especially with the exponential perpetuating growth of the internet and the violence that it contains. This is no longer a social issue in regards to social media and self-esteem, but, in culmination with other toxic influence in America, it has now become an issue of violence.
CHANGE
While we may not have the power to flip capitalism and its immoral values that it implicates, we do have to ability, as viewers and participants of popular media, to dictate what narratives we focus on and the way in which we do.
We must shift our media's content from focusing on the glorification of violent acts to expand to begin to incorporate positive news just as much as the bad.
In 2017, I saw an twitter thread that listed and informed me about 100 GOOD things that came out of 2017, despite the news focusing on what America was negatively impacted by in 2017.
It may seem to be the simplest thing, but we - OUR GENERATION - has the power to shift our cultural narratives and scripts that we hone in on from acts of violence to acts of love.
Toxic masculinity --> failure is okay. Vulnerability is LOVE. Vulnerability is GROWTH. Vulnerability is WHOLE. Sensitivity is HUMAN and how we relate and CONNECT with others. Failure is GOOD. Normalize failure. (((My favorite narrative is that of Michael Jordan and how he did not make his high school basketball team when he originally tried out, but below and behold, he did not quit and he became the Michael Jordan that we know today.)))
Let us teach our young men that violence is not an outlet for expression, nor is it necessitated to "prove their masculinity".
Statistics and descriptions/narratives of violent acts in the news --> restorative projects and acts done to help victims.
Let us spread positive acts. Self-love. Communal love. Solidarity. Diversity Appreciation. Holistic Outlooks. Healing. Soul work. Empathy.
Let us thrive as an American people. Let the future of our kids empower us to do so. Let the love for our families allow us to do so. Let the love for ourselves, each other, the planet, and the universe allow us to do so.
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