American Mass Shootings and American Culture
It can be said that what one does –- whether one is a person, a group or a company or country — is an expression of who that entity is, in essence. Even if they are seeking to lie, their choice of what is said or otherwise expressed is a reflection of their self-identity. Ultimately, you can’t get away from who you are.
In the last several days, two incidents are instructive with respect to behavior and self-identity. At the Louvre, a man smears a piece of cake on the Mona Lisa in an apparent protest against climate change. French pastry is a signifier of France. And French culture emphasizes the conceptual — inasmuch as being is more a symbolic expression of one’s thinking than it is an actual, concrete and culminating aspect of doing. In Texas, a teenager wielding an assault weapon kills 19 elementary school children and two teachers. In America, concrete and absolute results — doing — reigns supreme. In America, ‘Just do it’ is more than an advertising slogan, it is a final state of affairs.
America’s Founding Fathers knew America was not an ideal. To them, America was an idea, and the idea was creativity, creativity in the name of freedom. America is still a unique gift to the world, even though — as in a paradox — America has a downside. America was and still is the ‘Wild West’.
Some years ago, I was asked to speak with a CEO of a major corporation who was thinking about creating a formal strategic function. After I described the why and how of strategy, the CEO responded, “That’s very interesting, but yet in the end I don’t think I really need a strategy department. I have enough resources at my disposal that if anything gets in my way I can mow it down just as America did early in its history with trees and Indians.” (And here let us not forget to mention how Blacks have been treated, since before the Civil War to the vehemently segregated South to the Minnesota Street where Floyd George had a knee and not a lunching rope around his neck.)
From early American history to today, America has loved guns. Guns crunch subtlety and complexity into a data point. Americans like to keep score, especially because, by political doctrine, Americans are created equal and so have to make themselves different.
And as regards who’s the boss, a shootout at the O.K. Corral or a High Noon is, by its very nature, a performance, an exaggerated performance. That ‘s America, too. America is a large and mostly habitable landscape. You have to puff yourself up like a Thanksgiving Day parade balloon to feel adequate. If you are not “Top Gun” you appear to be a loser. The issue now is muskets have been replaced by AK-15 style assault weapons and innocent kids are a repeated target of choice.
No matter, in America, always wanting to quickly get to the finish line first, considering context is viewed simply as an unnecessary diversion. Lobbying proceeds apace as does institutional decay, and this is all supercharged by a leader like Trump who just wants his way and assumes people are just objects. The NRA or many on the Supreme Court (and one Justice’s spouse) seem similar to Trump. Also in their corner are right-wing extremists who can’t tolerate being regulated. They all think they know best and cast an angry eye at change, even when in it’s in the name of freedom. Their assumption being, if you’re not for me, you are against me — a very primitive way of thinking.
All told, maybe a law should be written instituting background checks and outlawing rapid-fire weapons with large magazines, or at least, demanding these types of weapons to be brought in to be destroyed, and In return, you get a piece of baba rhum from Stohrer Patisserie in Paris.
