When tragedy strikes, we try to figure it out. We try to find meaning in a situation that is inherently meaningless. We try to find some link to the larger society and culture that might help us understand how and why such a horrid event could occur. Arguments ensue over the relative strength of the relationships between various cultural factors and the actors who carried out these horrid acts of violence.
Sometimes, however, that meaning just doesn't exist. In 2000, at my place of employment, a high school student was doing some homework during down time. She had to write an essay on Lord of the Flies, and asked me for help in understanding what the book was describing. Without hesitating, I said, "The Columbine High School shooting is Lord of the Flies in real life." Some Christians tried to make hay out of the death of one of the students, because she allegedly refused to denounce her beliefs before being murdered. Yet, all the students who died that day, Christian or not, died not because of what they believed or didn't believe. They died because the two young men who went on that killing spree were interested in killing. Period. No amount of post hoc scrutiny of this or that particular case will wrest anything more out of that event.
When a Luddite left-winger mails bombs to those he believes are destroying our world, the right goes in to overdrive on the dangers of liberal ideology.
When a small group of right-wing extremists bomb a building, killing 159 people, including children at an on-site day care facility, it might be important to look at the way popular anti-government talk - especially all the descriptions of government employees as "faceless bureaucrats" - might have helped depersonalize the victims enough to allow those responsible to carry out their act of terrorism.
When a young man is beaten to death for the heinous crime of hitting on one of a pair of bar-hopping buddies, his body left on display as a warning to any other young gay man, I would think the demonizing of gays might need to be paid attention to just a bit more (although, to be fair to the murderers here, the murder of gays for this particular crime against masculinity goes hand-in-hand with the rhetoric of anti-gay hatred).
Assessing the level of social and cultural culpability in any tragic event is, to a certain extent, a fools errand. Even should clear lines of cause and effect, or at the very least correlation, exist, their relative merits and strengths will always be a matter of dispute. One can allow rage to overwhelm one, as Tony Kushner did in a November, 1998 article in The Nation, in which he hung the death of Matthew Shepard around the necks of every politician and religious figure who ever spoke out against gays and "the gay lifestyle".
The facts of the David Adkisson case in Tennessee are pretty clear. A man, frustrated over lack of work, and directing his hostility out at "liberals" enters a Unitarian Church and opens fire, killing two and wounding several others before being subdued by members of the congregation as he reloads. At his home are book by radio personalities Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly. The lines of correlation are pretty clear here; these and other right-wingers routinely insist that liberals are responsible for our social ills, even if what they describe as social ills aren't at all, but figments of their own perfervid imaginations. While the shooter reached a breaking point due to a confluence of unfortunate circumstances, his grievances against a society that seemed to exclude him from making a positive contribution was certainly fed by a book describing liberalism as a mental disorder.
This is not to say that such books should not appear. This is not to say that right-wingers are not entitled to their opinions. This is only to say that when a right-winger goes on a shooting rampage, and leaves a note behind blaming liberals for all his troubles and explicitly targeting these same liberals, and there is abundant evidence that the man in question was exposed to the slurry coming from right-wing talking-heads and blabbermouths, it might be nice to hear a thoughtful word or two from these same folks acknowledging a certain level of culpability.
Stephen King removed from print copies of his pseudonymous novel Rage after Columbine. Are Savage, Hannity, and others who have written pages and pages of scurrilous nonsense about how liberals are destroying our country going to respond in a like fashion? Are they even going to acknowledge that in the fever-swamps of the right, there might be those who take their words so seriously as to end the threat to our way of life by murdering a bunch of church-goers watching a children's program?
“This is the beginning of Bradford County,”
4 months ago
6 comments:
Not sure I quite agree here. If I read your blog and go murder Sean Hannity, because you noted he was partially culpable in murder, would you be apologizing to his family? It seems a considerable stretch. The actions of a disturbed individual are just that. Murder is a complex act, and pointing fingers at the books read, shows watched, or political leanings of the murderer does nothing but add insult to the injury of a horrible and tragic event. (I recall you noting that Lennon and McCartney are not culpable for Sharon Tate's death.)
You report the reaction of the right as being disproportionate or unwarranted: "going into overdrive," but do not seem to place such a strong rhetoric regarding the reaction of the left, in fact you seem to support the blaming of the right-wing ideology for such tragedies.
None of these opinions is to support any of the particular points of the right or the left, but I just don't see the culpability.
I hold the blame with the individual committing the crime. I do not blame J.D. Salinger, The Qur'an, The Beatles, Craig Kilborn, or Rush Limbaugh for any of the actions of those agreeing with their ideologies (or musical meassages).
Regarding Stephen King.: It was the 1997 Kentucky school shootings (Michael Carneal had a copy of "Rage" in his locker) that prompted King's request pulling of that 1977 novel. But, to quote him directly discussing that: "If, on the other hand, you were to ask me if the presence of potentially unstable or homicidal persons makes it immoral to write a novel or make a movie in which violence plays a part, I would say absolutely not. In most cases, I have no patience with such reasoning. I reject it as both bad thinking and bad morals."
We can't, as you say, do much to "asses the level of social and cultural culpability." It's about as silly as blaming video games or that gosh darned rock-and-roll music any time a kid misbehaves. So I don't really blame that pathetic closet case Savage, or Hannity, etc. Perhaps I lean way to far on the side of personal responsibility, but I believe most people make their own decisions.
However.
If I were, God forbid, some hack like Hannity, or O'Reilly, or Savage, I might begin to wonder, "What is it about my writing that attracts lunatics?"
As John Stewart said on Hannity once, "Stop. Stop. Please ... stop. You're hurting America."
It seems to be up to the Right as to where they want to take this. Do they wish to continue down this path of creating homegrown terrorists? Or should they find new leaders and change course? The level of aggression from the Right is far greater than the Liberals. And, they make a point of this. Their authoritarian, hyper-masculine way of approaching nearly every aspect of contemporary society combined with their slash and burn politics is distressing. Should Savage, BO and others tone it down or stop publishing? I dont think so. But, The actual human beings that make up their constituency need to take a good long look in the mirror.
I am not saying that the people who wrote those books are responsible for this horrid act of violence. I am saying that the atmosphere of depersonalization, of demonization, and the rampant violent rhetoric ("culture wars", "war for the American soul") in the mind of a clinically depressed borderline personality might lead to a certain justification to violence.
Let me be clear. Charles Manson heard Paul McCartney's song about a roller coaster and thought he heard a code for the on-coming race war, and thus "Helter Skelter" was spread across their crime scenes in the blood of the victims. David Berkowitz's neighbor's dog was possessed by a demon, ordering him to kill. I am not saying that Adkinsson is less responsible for his crimes because there is a certain tolerance for rhetorical violence against political opponents on the part of the American right.
I am suggesting, not responsibility, but a certain level of culpability that any decent, moral person would feel if something they produced, some words of theirs somehow twisted around inside the maze-like mind of an insane person and came out as a justification for murder. I think there should at least be a certain amount of introspection on their part.
The responsibility for this horrific event lies in the lap of David Adkinsson. Yet, it did not occur in a vacuum, either personally or in society at large. If we are to understand it, at the very least, we should at least consider the way our violent tinged public discourse might just be enough to push a person teetering on the brink over the edge.
Very interesting.
I think it's a great idea for everyone to periodically stop and ponder what it is they are contributing to society.
Just as video games obviously and demonstrably contribute to thought and behavior, so can the things we choose to read, watch, and listen to.
I especially appreciate your spotlighting "rampant violent rhetoric". It reminds me of a Miami football player a couple of years ago catching heat for calling himself a "soldier". Sporting events are full of war cliches. It seems like it both trivializes and glorifies war all at the same time.
Most damning, and perhaps the thing most to be learned here, is the use of labels. Any time a person becomes nothing more than a label, humanity loses.
We have a collection of individuals who spout hate rhetoric against liberals because it sells ads on their radio and TV programs. They become heroes to their followers because they say out loud on TV what these morons are thinking but can't articulate even if someone would listen.
We have a government that is so beholden to the big media interests that they have taken away all the regulatory restraints that once made our airwaves a forum for relatively intelligent and civil debate. Civil debate doesn't sell stuff, so we turn the only medium for national discussion of the critical issues of the day into a shouting match for ratings points.
It's greed and the increasing refusal of some to view their political or religious enemies as human beings. Couple that with mental illness and job loss and there's no telling what you will get. Now we know.
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