There are no words…

Another day waking up to horrendous news…

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What is it about our times? How many individuals are prepared to commit suicide, if they can take others – many others – with them? What is this urge to go out and murder people who have done you no harm? How much anger can their heart contain?

Fanatics, I hear you say. Of course, fanatics were always dangerous – loose cannons who feel they have nothing to lose. Once they have decided on martyrdom, nothing can stop them.

But it is not only fanatics. There have always been people who are suicidal, but they went off into the woods and shot themselves, or stuck their heads in the oven. Now some feel they have to shoot down a whole classroom, or smash a plane against a mountain.

 

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Is it the fault of chemicals in the air? The influence of violent video games? The availability of guns? The unfairness of capitalism? How can this be explained in terms of human psychology? I wish someone would tell me.

Meanwhile I am thinking about so many lives shattered, and taking solace in nature.

40 thoughts on “There are no words…”

  3. I think that there are many answers, and our violence-based entertainment – whether video games, songs, books or whatever is there everywhere offering up models and ideas for what murderous humans can do to others. Unleashing violence becomes the normal way to get back at society for real or imagined reasons. I read my only Stephen King ever this year, exclusively as an exercise to study his writing style, and made it to the just to understand why his books sell so well. It was “Mr Mercedes”. Anyone read it? The deranged main character does a first mass murder by plowing his heavy car into a crowd of people waiting to go to a concert. He plans his second one with an ice-cream van – which obviously gets through police lines …

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  6. I think all what you wrote, they may effect…. ( “Is it the fault of chemicals in the air? The influence of violent video games? The availability of guns? The unfairness of capitalism?”)…..and especially the “unfairness” of our human mind.

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  11. I have a theory, which is that the stress of so many people forced to live and work closely adversely affects our psyches. People in our personal space for prolonged periods is aggravating, stressful and leads to aggressive behaviours. Add to that the ‘fear of the other’ which is also a natural reaction (but one which we suppress and overcome if we are civilised), and you have a witches brew of stress, aggression, fear and distrust coming to the boil. And of course, an ethical system which says that dying and taking as many infidels with you as you can will guarantee you a place in heaven doesn’t help…

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  13. I believe many of the reasons have been mentioned. Fear of the unknown and lack of understanding shared widely because of modern technology tops my list: if the Allies had not forced into Syria in search of imaginary weapons, would it be as bad? Xenophobia?? The unfairness of capitalism, certainly AND the availability of guns: the very strict Australian gun laws come under criticism: yet we have had no such happenings for two decades. Yes, video games . . .I can see the violence as numbing the conscience . . .I remember the two Bastille Days I happened to spend in Nice in bygone years in such a happy frame of mind being one with the French watching fireworks over the harbour: days of innocence . . .

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  14. I would imagine it is the same thought in everybody’s mind night and day. Thinking where would I spend my holiday this year that I would come back home alive? Where in the world something wrong is going to happen next? More and more question keep coming without answers. Is just a sad world that have forced itself to be against us. We are running out of time really, and everyone wants to change the world, but no one wants to change themselves.

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  16. There have been excellent evaluations of the kind of people who do these horrendous acts, but nothing that adequately describes how to stop them.
    I suggest we begin by remembering the names of the innocents who were murdered and forget the names of the perpetrators. They want attention – give them NONE.
    The flowers are gorgeous – thank you.

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  19. There has always been violence, but instant global communication means that we now know about it wherever it happens as soon as it happens. 50 years ago Nice, or Turkey or Baton Rouge were a very long way away and you might not hear about events there until the next day, if at all. All of these events are more immediate than they ever were before.
    Suicide is not the act of a sane person, so we’re not going to understand, and the more suicide killers there are, the more there will be, I’m afraid.
    Thank you for the flowers.

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  22. It’s terrible. I often wonder, though, what part the internet plays in it. Not that these people are influenced by the internet’s content to take their dire actions, but because they know that their acts will be shared around the ‘net in a matter of minutes, thereby ‘spreading the word’.

    I’m unable to blog about this stuff (as I wrote on my ‘about’ page recently) but I do appreciate others like yourself who are able to do so. I just wish it wasn’t there to be written about.

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