“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it…”― Martin Luther King, Jr.
If you’ve ever played Pictionary, you’ve watched (or been) the person tasked with communicating a clue grow increasingly animated and emotionally charged as they try to beat the timer and win points for their team.
What we’ve witnessed in the political spectrum for the last decade or so (and probably much farther back) isn’t very different. Instead of wild hand gestures (although there have been some of those) and physically acting out the hints, politicians, pundits, commentators, and other talking heads have increasingly relied on hyperbole, exaggeration, and inflammatory language to try to sway support to one camp or another. And as political “team-choosing” has taken more of our attention, we’ve followed suit in our own conversations.
Like small children left to their own devices, heated emotions eventually override the capacity for reasonable communication and pretty soon we revert to schoolyard taunts, name-calling, finger-pointing, “locker room” boasts, and threats of violence. Eventually somebody lashes out with physical action.
When it’s a couple of fifth graders on the playground that’s one thing. They’re mentally and emotionally immature, their brains aren’t fully developed, and they lack critical thinking skills. Someone might end up with a bloody nose. The most likely outcome of that altercation is a rebuke by a teacher, after-school detention, and one of those uncomfortable “wait till your father gets home” evenings.
When it’s the adults in the room doing the name-calling, taunting, and half-joking calls for violent action, that’s something else entirely. The stakes are too high to play those kinds of games.
Last Saturday’s event in Pennsylvania was another active shooter incident mirroring the ones in schools, nightclubs, malls, grocery stores, concerts, movie theaters, churches and parades. Two families are mourning tragic deaths, two more people are seriously injured, and one — a former president and current presidential candidate — had a very close call. It could have been much worse.
Correlation is not causation, but it’s time to look at the rhetoric that foments division and discord in a nation that prides itself on its ability to stand united against our external enemies. Have we forgotten that we have external foes and resorted to infighting with one another instead?
There’s a scene in 1991’s “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” where young John Connor sees two kids fighting and asks the Terminator, who is from the future, “We’re not gonna make it, are we? People, I mean.”
“It’s in your nature to destroy yourselves,” replies the Terminator.
Maybe, just maybe, we can do better. At the very least, we have to try. The alternative is unacceptable.
