Seeking, and Ignoring Evidence

AND SO, ONCE AGAIN, here we go again, with everybody, or at least the media, asking, "why did he do it?" As if we don't know by now. True enough, every human has a unique story, and true enough, all actions have particular causes. That in no way discounts the obvious fact that every few weeks in america, somebody cuts loose in public with an automatic, and wastes a dozen or so innocent people at random, strangers. It almost makes you want to search for similarities among them all. All these mass murders are perpetuated by mentally ill people, say the conservatives, get the mentally ill the treament and confinement they need, and the problem will be solved. Fine, except, how many of us are mentally ill, undiagnosed? How strong does a person's anger have to be before it is considered a mental illness? It almost seemed a little bit amazing that for a brief time we were looking for more than one shooter at the navy yard. Oh, sure, terrorism is always a possibility, or some deragned suicidal mansonistic kind of cult, but....day in, day out, its gonna be an angry, alienated loner. A person with a lot of anger, depression, lonliness, alienation, and so forth. And, truth be told, those states of mind are universal; we have all been subject to them, at one time or another, for whatever length of time, however often. At least, we have if we're human. Its just that in some of us, they combine, reinforce each other, these necessary demons, they grow, and some of us succumb to them. Everyone would agree that we live in, because we have a created, a culture of anger and violence. I had a friend once who, when a bit angered, would jokingly say "I'm fixin' to go on a four state shootin' spree!"..he turned out to be a fine, respectable, productive person.So each time it happens in america, shich, these days is rather foten, the media start to ask "why did he do it?" If we are going to take that question seriously, and try to answer it seriously, let's make sure we're doing so for the right reason; a desier to understand, repair. Not for entertainment or profit. Truman Capote, who wrote In Cold Blood" as if he really understood what happened, as anyone who has read it can attest, believed that all such violence is caused by, and therfore attributable to, society as a whole, rather than individuals. If, by chance, in our continuing search for motive and reason for our never ending lintany of mass murders, we happen to stumlbe upon evidence that we are all somehow to blame for it, let us at least have the courage and dignity to own up to it, rather than distort or ignore the evidence, which is our custom.