After a discussion with a friend yesterday, I told myself I wasn't gonna write a big thing about Charleston. I simply can't afford to care about every bad thing that happens, and this one was weighing on me particularly heavy. I went to sleep with it in my head, and I woke up with it in my head. So, I'm gonna write a big thing about Charleston.
I've seen a lot of angry things written, and with good reason. Gawker debates whether we should be calling this terrorism. Friends have decried the fact that this keeps happening, and that we now consider it 'normal.' Liberal media outlets are calling for gun control, which is missing the point. Conservative media outlets are decrying an imaginary rising hostility towards the religious, for some retarded reason.
I feel a lot of that anger, but I'm not gonna write a big angry thing. We already have enough big angry things. So, I'm going to write something different.
First, let me say unequivocally that Dylann Roof did a very bad, evil thing, and he is guilty of it. He chose to do what he did himself. I will also say that there is no instance of this kind of violence that could reasonably be called 'tolerable.' This was horrible, it was a horrible thing, and it will always be a horrible thing.
According to the CDC, in 2013 (the last year for which we have complete data), the death by homicide rate for all Americans was 5.1 per 100,000 people. That's the highest rate for any country in the civilized world, and that's bad. At the same time, we're talking about 0.000051% of Americans. I don't mean to imply those deaths are insignificant, but it's important to recognize how statistically unusual it is for any given person to be killed by homicide, because it sure isn't represented as unusual.
Briefly, modern media is casting a much larger net than it used to. We're hearing about more and more violent crimes, and that can fuck with our perception of our population as a whole.
Now, we still have a large problem in this country. As much as I support reasonable gun control measures, gun control is not the problem. As much as our mental health infrastructure is lacking, it's also not the source of the problem.
To illustrate the problem, I'm going to pull another number from the same report: 13.0. That's the rate per 100,000 people for death by suicide. That's more than two-and-a-half times higher than the murder rate, and in the Top 10 causes of death, but you don't see it reported nearly as much. For the 25-54 age group, that rates jumps to 16.9. I'm not a sociologist. I can't say with certainty what the cause of all this is, but I have an observation.
The American economy is based on continual growth. This has called for an increased emphasis on productivity and profit, and as a result of lax regulations, worker conditions have suffered; wages are stagnant, so people are doing more, companies are earning more money, and the workers are slowly getting squeezed.
This is pressure, in the purest, most terrible form. This is pressure to produce. This is pressure to succeed. And it has spread throughout our society, right down to our kids. You might notice some parallels to our education system here; an emphasis not on critical thinking or personal growth, but on test scores and memorized facts.
Humans are a durable species. We can survive incredible, temporary hardships. But put a group of us under intense pressure for a decade, or two, or three, or ten, and we start to crack. And that's what we're seeing. Parents are put under too much pressure to produce; they have less and less time and energy to nurture their kids. The public education system is under too much pressure to produce; they have less time and energy to nurture their kids.
You look at all this pressure, and you can begin to see how a human like Dylann Roof, or Adam Lanza, or Eric Harris, or Dylan Klebold can come to be. Too much pressure, too little growth and guidance, and we break.
It's very easy to make these people out to be monsters, and again, I'm not defending what they did, but simply calling them monsters and then switching the conversation to some talking point does us all a disservice. The horrible truth about the people who commit these acts is that they are not monsters, but human beings who endured too much pressure, and got too little help. Given the same circumstances, it could just as easily been any of us 'normal' people.
That's the truth that we're too reluctant to admit. This isn't some unexplainable, almost supernatural phenomenon. This isn't the result of some political agenda or movement. This is simply what happens to us when we look at ourselves as numbers instead of people. This is what happens to us when all we care about is production. This is what happens to us when we stop caring.
The good news, and the hopeful news, is that there was a time before this was the case. That means there will be a time after this was the case. It may not be in our lifetime, and it may get a lot worse before we get there, but sooner or later, this too will pass, and we'll decide that 5.1 in 100,000 is too many, and 13 in 100,000 is too many, and that there are more important things in this world than production, profit, and test scores.
Not today. But someday.
