Yesterday 26 people, including 20 young children, were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut. In addition to being the second worst school shooting in American history, behind only the massacre at Virginia Tech, the shooter's choice of an elementary school (as opposed to the more typical high school or college setting) was particularly shocking and saddening.
Already a common theme in both the media and the general public is the question of "how could somebody do this?!" Indeed, whenever an American citizen performs an unspeakably horrific act to his peers, I have noticed a general trend to immediately dismiss the perpetrator as insane because they cannot think of a single answer to this question. This conclusion would make sense if every shooter had a clinical history of schizophrenia or severe psychological impairment, and perhaps it will come to light that the current shooter did indeed have a medical condition. But from previous shootings, for example Columbine in 1999 and Aurora in 2012, we know that very often the perpetrators came from normal two-parent families, were very intelligent academically, and had no mental condition whatsoever (in the clinical sense).
Therefore it seems very dangerous to me to dismiss all shooters as clinically insane. It may be a comforting thought to many that no sane person could ever shoot innocent people, but I believe we have very clear historical evidence to the contrary. To pass off these perpetrators as merely crazy is to ignore the underlying societal problems and worldviews that cause some people to act like this in the first place. A somewhat related example I can think of is the tendency for many to similarly dismiss Hitler and the terrorists behind 9/11 as insane, when in reality those people were very intelligent and in control of their faculties and simply operating under a very different set of values and worldviews.
If insanity is out of the question for many of these cases, it brings us back full circle to the question: "what could cause somebody to do this?" In this post, I argue that there are 3 things that modern American culture has forgotten about our society and human nature, and only by relearning them can we truly confront the underlying problem.
1) Humans are not intrinsically good beings
I have noticed a recent trend, particularly among secular humanists, to consider all humans as inherently good. To me, this is not only a dangerous worldview to hold, it is laughably out of touch with the reality of the world. Consider just a smattering of evidence. Every civilization in the world, until the past two hundred years, has endorsed slavery. Most superpowers in world history have felt entitled to pillage, kill, and rape indiscriminately upon conquering a new nation. An estimated 1.6 million children are currently being sex trafficked right here in America. I could literally go on for hours, but honestly I think you all get the point. I mean just read the news every day and it gets pretty obvious that we have a selfish and twisted nature. To those who still think that humans are fundamentally good in nature, let me ask you this: if America's entire police force announced it would stand down for a single day, and no laws were enforced, what do you think the American people would do to each other? We need to confront our sinful and selfish nature before we can successfully restrain it. And on that note...
2) Humans need accountability
Because humans have evil tendencies, we need accountability from our family and communities to help restrain our wickedness. An excellent example is pedophiles such as Jerry Sandusky. What many fail to understand is that nobody becomes a pedophile, or even a more conventional adulterer, overnight. It takes years for a person's moral state to gradually decline to the point where even an affair or molestation can be self-rationalized to gratify selfish desires. What is crucial to note here is that this self-rationalization typically only makes sense to the perpetrator when they are able to isolate their thoughts and actions from society. This is why Tiger Woods was so careful to keep all of his affairs secret from absolutely everyone, he instinctively knew that isolation was the only way he could ever continue to justify his actions. As long as everything remained personal and a secret, he continued to act in increasingly debauched ways, it was only when things came to light that he was able to self-acknowledge and confront his demons. The point here is that if people valued openness and accountability from their family, friends, and church, I think we would find a lot less people on a long-slippery slope. I know that I personally have benefited enormously from the accountability given by my wife, my friends, and my church, and seeking out and welcoming this accountability has fought back a lot of personal demons created by my selfishness and sinful nature.
3) Humans need to worship something
I am not just referring to religious people! My point here is that no matter what your worldview is, everybody chooses to worship something in their lives as the ultimate or most important thing(s). The Christian argument, which I firmly believe, is that even good things, when elevated to "God" things, become bad things. Besides the lack of accountability, a major problem in American culture right now is we are worshiping a lot of things that were never meant to be worshiped. For example, many teenagers idolize social popularity and acceptance, to the point where it feels like their life is over if they are socially marginalized. This was likely a key point related to the Columbine shootings, in which the shooters were bullied and social outcasts. If your entire purpose depends on this popularity, then why not end your life if you cannot achieve it? Why not kill those who have socially shunned you? If sexual gratification is the ultimate goal in life, then why not have affairs or engage in prostitution? My point here is that if you idolize worldly things such as popularity, money, power, or sexual gratification, this can actually lead you to horrific acts such as school shootings or sex trafficking even if you are a clinically rational person. It is not insanity that has led people here, it's their idolatrous worldview! We were not designed to worship worldly things: they are not only inherently unstable (how easy it is to lose power, money, and popularity!), but also unable to lastingly fill the God-hole that is in all of our hearts. For that we need Jesus, and I will post a series on the need for grace over the Christmas season.
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