It's Time for a Culture Shift: Preventing Tragedy
The tragedies that occurred today at Sandy Hook Elementary and at Chenpeng Village’s Wanquan Elementary School are horrific and heart-wrenching. A 20-something Connecticut man killed his mother this morning and then proceeded to brutally murder 14 kindergarteners and at least 10 other adults. A middle-aged, unemployed Chinese man also slaughtered 22 schoolchildren this morning with a knife. Nearly 40 innocent young lives were destroyed today. 40 vibrant children bursting with potential. 40 different futures. 40 reasons that we should not let their lives be mourned in grand gestures and moments of silence only to let them die in vain by failing to address the real issues behind these terrible events.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for a culture shift. It's time to stop talking about politics, about religion, and about gun control laws when discussing these acts of mass cruelty and violence against innocents--for all of those things have trivial at best potential for bringing about the change we need. Instead, it's time for the American people, and perhaps the Chinese as well (I cannot accurately comment on their cultural situation, as I've never resided there nor am very knowledgeable about their society's workings) to take a good, long, and hard look at our culture and how it's in direct conflict with the current socioeconomic atmosphere most of the world is dealing with today.
Are there evil people in this world? Yes, unfortunately there are, but I don't believe that people are born evil; something or someone over the course of their life has made them this way. Something has filled them with so much hate and anger and confusion that many can only see a very distorted and hopeless reality. Such desperation can drive people to do illogical and unspeakable things.
I believe that these senseless killings can be prevented in the future if we as a culture learn how to properly address mental illness and the extremely dark sense of despair and frustration that seems to be permeating our society in this very economically and socially challenging time. If people were taught to stop stigmatizing mental illness, then maybe people like these two men would more willingly seek care before they undergo the sort of sinister snaps we saw on television today. Maybe if people with mental illnesses and their families weren't termed "crazy" or "nuttier than a fruitcake" and their families weren't ridiculed, family members would be more likely to seek mental healthcare for their troubled relatives. Maybe if we expanded our mental health care system and made it more easily accessible to all people, those who need help could get it without having to worry about financial or bureaucratic barriers. Maybe if we started analyzing how our culture promotes mental illness as a culture-bound syndrome, we could stop people from ever twisting their anger and frustration with life into something so sickening as killing innocent children. Maybe we would realize the true harm that telling our kids that "everyone is a winner" can do once they grow up and discover most of what their childhood fairy tales and Disney movies told them was a lie. Think about how that paradigm shift affects people--especially young people who have been promised their shot at the American dream throughout their entire lives, who have buried themselves in debt with the promise of better job opportunities after graduating from college, only to find themselves unemployed and out of luck. Then think about how our world receives them in their broken-spirit state. They've been told their entire lives that they're meant to be successful, that success is the ability to afford a nice car and a nice house, to drink expensive booze, and vacation in exotic places with friends. Then when they can't achieve these things, when they're down in the dumps and have lost all hope (in many cases they've also had their psychological coping mechanisms unknowingly sabotaged by parents who have never let their children experience failure. Mommy and daddy were always there to get them out of trouble or to provide some sort of conciliatory prize after a loss), we hit them with some good ole American values. We tell them to suck it up. We tell them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. We tell them that they should be successful and that it's 100% the individual's fault if he or she is not immediately successful by American standards. Think about all that cognitive dissonance, unhappiness, guilt, shame, and myriad of other emotions that must be swirling around in their heads every day.
I'm not saying that people aren't responsible for their own rise and fall (including their actions); I'm simply trying to explain that we tend to over-attribute an individual's failures and successes to their own personal character instead of the situations they have little control over (i.e. the economic depression and the paradox of student loan debt, education, and "employ-ability"). We often times overlook the other factors in their lives that are stressing them or influencing their decisions. Perhaps instead of judging them and telling them that they are weak for complaining or being upset about their lot in life, we should listen. We should stop glorifying stoicism in the face of adversity. We should encourage talking about these social issues instead of shaming people for succumbing to them. We should lend an ear and provide support services aimed at getting people back on their feet and heading in the right direction by using the "teach a man to fish" philosophy of social policy. Perhaps we should "get real" about the meaning of success in this country.
I'm not a psychologist or a criminal profiler, but I've spent a fair bit of time taking psychology and medical anthropology classes and studying the human condition. I've experienced mental illness, have lived with mentally ill family members, and have seen how our health care system and society treats the mentally ill. These are simply my opinions and observations as reflected through the lens my life experiences have provided. I've noticed that these two men who committed the atrocity of mass-murdering children were both in the prime-age range to have been affected by student loan debt, disillusionment concerning their hopes for life, and the sting and financial stress of unemployment. Not to mention that the global atmosphere today is rather dismal and provides little hope--most of what's reported on the news is violence, politicians bickering incessantly, people killing each other over religion, and stories about starvation and disease. Again, I don't know much about their lives or how they were raised, and I'm not making excuses for their actions. I'm simply saying that maybe there's more to these killings than simply two deranged and evil men. Perhaps we need to delve deeper into their lives and their motives to understand what drives a person to do this sort of thing so that we can ensure that 40 innocent lives have not been lost in vain.
My heart goes out to the families who have lost children and loved ones today. I hope they can find peace and solace in the world-wide embrace and deluge of prayers that have been sent their way.