I have written a great deal about Narcissism and how our modern, comfortable, wealthy existence tends to reinforce trends which exaggerate narcissistic issues in childhood development. (I would add that even the poorest in the West are wealthy to an unprecedented degree compared to people throughout the world and throughout history.) In Narcissism, Disintegration, Suicidality & the Fall of the West: Part III, I summarized some of the reasons for the enhanced narcissism tendencies of the baby boom generation:
After World War II, with the widespread use of antibiotics and vaccines, child mortality declined to <2%. The baby boomer generation became the first generation in the history of man which was born into a world in which the vast majority could be confidently expected to reach adulthood. After the horrendous blood letting of WWII, newly returned GI's and the women who had been left behind formed families at record paces, moved to the suburbs, and created a now (retrospectively) idealized life style which included ever increasing availability off material goods and an ever decreasing risk of the natural ills that man had always been subject to. Because there was less need to have many children in order to support one's old age (Social Security had an important part in this, as did the movement off the farms) and the expectation was that all the children would survive and thrive, the parents were able to make a much greater investment, emotionally and financially, in their fewer children. Children with few siblings were much more likely to remain the center of their parents universe for extended periods of time. Further, the nartural inclination of all parents who love their children to protect them from the vicissitudes of life lead to parents raising children who had very little first hand experience of deprivation or disappointment. The extended time and the increased intensity of the child's position as center of the universe led to many baby boomers developing narcissistic pathology.
Along with our enhanced Narcissism, of which my cohort in the post-war baby boom generation are the exemplars, there is an additional aspect of our modern comforts that is becoming increasingly apparent and increasingly problematic in this brave, new world in which we find ourselves.
The post-war generation, even more so in Europe than in America were horrified by the blood letting of WWII. A reactive disgust at aggression became the basis for a quasi-pacifistic disdain of all expressions of aggression, even aggression in self-defense. The gun control movement is, at its core, an expression of fear and hatred of the inchoate aggression imagined to exist in the population. Michel Malkin, in her piece, Wanted: A Culture of Self-Defense, discusses the defeat of a bill which was designed to allow holder of legal carry permits to bring their weapons onto college campuses in Virginia:
In response to student Bradford Wiles's campus newspaper op-ed piece in support of concealed carry on campus, Virginia Tech Associate Vice President Larry Hincker scoffed:
"[I]t is absolutely mind-boggling to see the opinions of Bradford Wiles. . . . The editors of this page must have printed this commentary if for no other reason than malicious compliance. Surely, they scratched their heads saying, 'I can't believe he really wants to say that.' Wiles tells us that he didn't feel safe with the hundreds of highly trained officers armed with high powered rifles encircling the building and protecting him. He even implies that he needed his sidearm to protect himself . . ."
The nerve!
Hincker continued: "The writer would have us believe that a university campus, with tens of thousands of young people, is safer with everyone packing heat. Imagine the continual fear of students in that scenario. We've seen that fear here, and we don't want to see it again. . . . Guns don't belong in classrooms. They never will. Virginia Tech has a very sound policy preventing same." [Emphasis mine-SW]
Although this could easily be used to ridicule Hincker, that would be completely unfair and inappropriate. The fact is that our cultural elites almost to a man accept this characterization; anyone living in New York will be familiar with politician after politician imagining gun carnage in the streets if commoners were allowed to have legal carry permits. Whether this is a reasonable expectation is rarely questioned. It is tacitly accepted, from kindergarten on, that any expression of aggression is "bad" and punishable. When two 3rd graders get into a school yard fight, no distinction is made between the bully who has been terrorizing the schoolyard for weeks and the child who has had his fill of humiliation and fear and strikes back; both are punished. The mantra that "violence never solves anything" is accepted without reservation by our media, liberal politicians, academics, et al, despite the fact that on occasion, violence is the only alternative to surrender.
In Israel, in 1974, the PLO in one of their masterful and courageous operations (and yes, that is bitter irony I am expressing) invaded an elementary school in Ma'alot, and murdered 26 people, 21 of them children. The Israeli government realized that in their small besieged country, no one was exempt from attack by those who hated their existence and form that day on, Israeli teachers received permission to carry weapons in school. There has not been another such attack.
In Virginia, the carry law apparently allows anyone over 21 with a legal permit to carry a weapon; of one or two teachers or older students had been so armed, perhaps some lives would have been spared.
Even beyond that, our societal discomfort with aggression has become so generalized that an official policy of passivity has been promulgated. Until 9/11, passengers on airplanes were instructed to behave passively to any hijacking attempt. (I do not know if the FAA has changed their policy but I do know that it doesn't matter; no American air plane will be successfully hijacked ever again, the passengers will not allow it.)
Even without a weapon, should our children, for whom violence and danger are so far removed, be continually reinforced in their passivity? Is this truly the best course? Should we begin the difficult process of teaching ACTION as a response to threats, rather than the deeply ingrained passivity, verging on pacifism that has become de rigeur for our culture? Not everyone will be comfortable or should carry a weapon, but running, jumping the attacker, throwing things, all require a mindset that replaces passivity with activity. It is past time we discuss these questions.
The Virginia Tech murderer will not be the last shooter of innocent strangers. We potentially face dangers more significant than a lone, disturbed gunman. Passive defensive maneuvers, when the enemy is so rare as to be impossible to identify prospectively. Ilya Somin has done the work to identify the prevalence of such shootings:
In her 2004 book Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings (pg. 51), Harvard Professor Katherine Newman notes that there was no more than one such case in the entire US for any year between the 1974-1975 and 1991-92 school years. There was a small spike in the 1990s (starting with 2 cases in 1993, and a high of 6 in 1997-98), but falling again to 1 case in 1999-2000 and 0 in 2001-2002. It is likely that there was a brief 1990s spike caused by copycats imitating a few highly publicized cases, such as Columbine. At the same time, the peak years still had such low absolute numbers of cases that it is quite possible that the increase was simply a result of random chance variation.
The population of the United States is ~300,000,000. If we only focus on those who are depressed as potential shooters, we are talking about 60,000,000 people; if we narrow it down to Serious Character Disorders, we can probably narrow the field to 30,000,000 or so. There is no known method for identifying a single disturbed person who is ready, willing, and able to take the step form fantasies of murder to the actuality of murder. Old Spook points this out:
There has been a great deal of hand-wringing about our inability to spot troubled students before they open fire at school. Unfortunately, a detailed study by the U.S. Secret Service finds that there isn't a common profile for campus assassins. Academically, shooters have ranged from failing grades to honor roll students; socially, some were loners, others were popular and well-connected. The Secret Service study concluded that it is almost impossible to "profile" students who might be prone to such violent acts. There are tipoffs (in most cases), but those indicators may prove almost impossible to detect.
Our society can not identify with any certainty individuals who are about to become mass murderers. We also will not be able to bar evil people from access to weapons with any conceivable program that does not threaten to become a form of totalitarianism. Gun control laws that keep law abiding citizens unarmed do nothing to stop criminals from arming themselves, although so many have trouble grasping this basic fact of life; the only way to remove guns from all criminals would be to limit the access by citizens in ways inimical to our constitution and liberties. The conclusion is unmistakable:
We are all "First Responders" now and we had better become comfortable with that role.
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