Over night last night 9 people were shot in Liberty City, 2 of whom were killed (Huffpost story here). For those who do not know (ignorance abounds) Liberty City is a dangerous place to be.
Of course this report denies much of the reality we live with but includes the ubiquitous term "gun violence" as a descriptor, as if that is somehow a different animal than violence. When are those of this mindset going to realize that the issue here is violence, the conditions that lead to violence, a culture of people whose answer is violence, who care nothing for human life or others or laws? Those who commit such violence are not people who find a gun in their hand one day and do not know how it got there. These are not people who woke up this morning, decided not to go to their cushy job and instead grab a gun and kill people. The weapon - any weapon, be it car, club, knife, fist, gun, or corkscrew - is the final common pathway for aggression and evil turned to violence.
I understand the polly-anna mentality, even if I cannot tolerate it: In a world where we do not feel we can fix things it is easier to blame the inanimate object, to blame the proximal cause of death instead of the motivating evil. These people were not killed by guns, they were killed by people with evil intent. But in a world where the evil seems unfathomable and uncontrollable, the fairy tale emerges. It is so much easier to believe that these are angels who would never hurt anyone until they a gun wound up in their hand. It is so much easier to excuse the behavior and blame the instrument, to decry gun violence instead of violence. Surely no one would choose to act this way. It is so much more pleasing to those who want to believe a fairy tale conception of the world to think that if only there were no guns there would be no violence, that there are no bad people only bad weapons.
Some who think this way are malicious - they want only to control others in any and every way possible and one way is to use the misbehavior of others. I do not wear a tin foil hat, but for some people it is clear that any step they can make to limiting the freedom of others to do things they themselves do not want to do is one more victory for them in creating the world they think they want. A world where we all turn to them for protection, for guidance. Others are simply deluded in their idealism - the horror repels them, it is incomprehensible, so they have to believe that if we all would just through our weapons into the abyss and sit down together to a group hug and chorus of kumbaya, then things would be okay. Just a little understanding and unconditional positive regard and the gangs, thugs, and jihadists will all put down there weapons and live with us in peace.
It is exactly the fact that there are people out there who would commit violence - any violence - that we cannot sit idly by and let ourselves be forced into the flock of bleating sheep. Where they see gun violence, we see violence, we see threat, we see a need to be ready to defend ourselves.
It is interesting to consider this phenomenon in light of a quote from Colonal Kurtz's monologue in Apocalypse Now:
"Horror... Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared."
If we find violence so horrific that we make it an enemy to be feared, to be avoided at all costs - even when the cost is our own victimhood - then we give horror free reign over our lives. We will rush to act in ways that will may make us feel safe, but will make us prey to acts of horror. Some would deny its existence. To defend against horrific violence one must make a friend of horror, not shy away from its reality, not pretend it is not there, wish it away and enact magical solutions, like "If we ban all guns, no violence will ever happen again."
I think Kurtz was presaging Grossman's notion of the "sheep, wolf, and sheep dog".
Sheep find horror an enemy to be feared so strongly that one cannot fully contemplate its existence and the fact that it can flow from the heart of a human. They fear it so much that they cannot contemplate their own ability to act against it - to act violently on their own behalf (that is why the need the sheep dogs, who they hate). They cover their hatred by using words like "hero" when the violence defends themselves, but it drips hate in its lack of ingenuousness.
The wolf thrives on horror, on terror; it knows the sheep will stand transfixed by it, frozen by it, willingly submitting to slaughter in their insistence that it does not exist. Whether the wolf is your local gang member or the jihadist who kills most gruesomely for the camera and you-tube audience, he knows that the sheep has no answer to his actions.
The Sheep Dog wishes for peace, wishes for an end to violence. But the sheep dog also accepts the inevitability of violence, the reality of it and that it cannot be wished away. The sheep dog accepts the horror, knows the horror and has made a friend of it. Thus the sheep dog is willing and able to stand against it.
Today the sheep, outnumbering the sheep dogs, wish to disarm us. We will not let that happen, will not stand by helpless is the face of the horror.
No comments:
Post a Comment