Newtown
The great sadness over the
murders in Newtown leaves us with two questions: why did this happen?
Why is the number of random shootings growing? And the second
question obviously is what can we do about it?
Practical people have all kinds
of answers to that second question: improved gun control, arm
schoolteachers, (arm schoolchildren?), give children bulletproof
backpacks. Make reporting of mental disease mandatory so that we can
better assure that no guns get into the hands of people afflicted by
mental illness. The NRA does not want to limit gun ownership but
places blame on violent computer games. The advocates of these
measures usually understand that they will not put a complete end to
these shootings. But some of them may well help.
But these suggestions do not
answer the first question: why is this happening?
Here we get a range of answers:
America is a violent country. Our murder rate is 3 to 4 times the
murder rate of other developed countries. From the beginning European
immigrants to this continent have practiced ruthless ethnic
cleansing. We kept slaves
for 200 years and for 100 years after that we held African-Americans
in bitter servitude. The 20 odd years between the end of World War I
and the beginning of World War II were the longest peaceful period in
all of American history. As long as we have lived on this continent,
we have been at war with Britain, with France, with Spain, with
Mexico and other countries in Central and Latin America and, of
course, with the Native Americans. We have fought wars in Algeria, in
the Philippines,
in Russia, in the
Carribean. There are few
countries where we have not deployed our violence.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States)
Our economic system stresses
competition: to be sure it would not do for the top management of
Amazon to shoot up the headquarters of Google. But the goal of each
of these companies is to do serious injury to the other, to put the
competitor out of business. Employers constantly try to depress the
wages of their employees. Few Americans are seriously bothered when
Walmart human relations offices explain to prospective employees how
they can get food stamps and publicly financed health care because
their jobs will not support them. Our economy takes cruelty and
coercion in its stride.
Millions of adults watch beefy
men attack each other every weekend on the football field or the
hockey rink. A hockey game without a fight is not worth watching. For
the younger generation, there are computer games where people
massacre each other with a oversized automatic weapons in rivers of
blood. For everyone there are violent computer dramas.
There are other generalizations
about America we could cite here. But it is not at all clear what, if
anything, they explain. Do children who play violent computer games
grow up to be violent adults? Do fans of football and ice hockey
commit more violent crimes? We possess no unambiguous evidence on
these questions.
The English have many sins on
their conscience in their long history of colonialism beginning with
the ravaging of Ireland to their Indian Empire and domination of
Africa. Their murder rate is a third of ours. Germany has a bloody
past. Our murder rate is four times the murder rate in Germany. There
is no simple and clear connection between historical sins and current
gun violence.
We need to admit that we do
not understand the origins of all this violence in our country.
It is not too difficult, to
say, however, what we should be doing to reduce violence in the
future. We must recognize it, resist it, and replace it by nonviolent
means, wherever possible. We must teach our children to avoid being
violent; that there are other ways for solving conflicts and we must
teach our children how to excel in those. We must learn how to avoid
being violent ourselves as we teach our children.
But we must teach non-violence
the right way. School children who, today, are disrespectful to
adults, who bully other children, or who get into fights are likely
to be called into the office of the principal, the guidance
counselor, the coach to be yelled at and threatened with punishment.
That child learns that violence is acceptable as long as the violent
one has permission. They will conclude that they too can be violent
if they become teachers or principals, or, failing that, . . . . . .
procure a gun. Our schools actually teach violence.
But they do not have to do
that. Many schools have chosen a different path. They teach some of
the students to be peer-counselors. These young mediators can, in
many situations, defuse conflicts that arise in the school by helping
their fellow students to talk out their difficulties instead of
threatening physical confrontations. Similarly schools talk to young
men about how being a man does not consist of bullying women. Young
women have opportunities to reflect about their growing up into being
women. Gay-straight alliances strive to gain acceptance for everyone
instead of having gay men and lesbian women fall victim to bullying.
There are many similar projects for teaching non-violence.
Non-violent techniques of
resistance have a long and venerable history dating back at least to
16th century England and beyond. Over the years groups
have developed many different methods of withholding supports from
their rulers who acted against their people. Think of the women
agitating for the vote who chained themselves to the fence of the
White House, of the Montgomery bus boycott, of widespread refusal by
workers to work, or to leave their factories. Our children need to
learn the history of struggles that were not violent. More
importantly, they must be taught how to avoid violence and be
encouraged to make peace.
This is a long path but it is
the only one we have to stem to rising tide of violence.
No comments:
Post a Comment