This Merry-Go-Round is Making Me Dizzy...and Angry

David Becker/Getty Images

I’m angry. Seething. I’m also sad--heartbroken over yet another instance of dehumanizing violence, stripping the life from those who had much more living to do. We’ve been on this merry-go-round so many times now that it no longer shocks us that much. We are all aghast at the mass killing, offer our prayers and “warmest condolences” (per Mr. Trump), watch the news cycle non-stop, waiting for the crumbs and nuggets of new news that are meted out oh, so slowly and seductively that we are forced to watch more, more, more. Horrendous disaster porn at its finest.

What is it going to take to get our society to step back and take a good long look at what is really important here? There is not a quick and easy answer, I realize that, but when is serious dialog going to commence? Is it an issue of easily accessible firearms? Partly. Is it an issue of mental health? Partly. Is it a growing sense of desperation and societal nihilism? Partly. These and many more interwoven tendrils, so we need to quit arguing among ourselves that a few simple policy fixes will rectify the situation. It’s not just about stricter or more lax gun control laws. It’s not just about treating the mentally ill. It’s not just about addressing grave inequalities in our society. It’s about these things and so much more.

Our policymakers take their moments of silence and offer their prayers after a tragedy such as Orlando or Las Vegas just as easily as they take their campaign contributions from the NRA and corporate lobbyists and offer to uphold the status quo or worse. The media narrative forces us to choose sides--us vs. them, I’m right, they’re wrong. We are immune to nuance, blind to the varying shades of all of the contributing issues, seeing in only the black and white absolutes simply and easily laid out before us, not requiring introspection, soul-searching or even the will to listen to each other.

This reinforces the very dehumanization and objectification that allows these acts of violence to keep happening. The more we are divided, the easier it is for us to hate the other. The more we allow the narrative to be controlled by the corporate media, and I’m talking equally about Fox and CNN and MSNBC and Breitbart and all of the others, the more we allow ourselves to be wedged apart.

I’ve so often heard the claim that the U.S. is “the best country in the world” and that we are somehow morally superior to the rest of the world. If this is the case, why are we suffering from the umpteenth mass shooting perpetrated against innocents when what we consider lesser countries have few, if any? What makes Americans so much more susceptible to unloading magazine after magazine into crowds of their brothers and sisters? What makes Americans so dismissive of calls to look for ways to end such violence? What fundamental flaw do we have as a people where we mourn for a news cycle or two and then move on to the next sensational, salacious extravaganza?

There are no easy answers, but I know I want to hop off the merry-go-round.