I woke up this morning to the news that nine of my fellow Americans were murdered at a Bar in Dayton, OH while I slept peacefully in my bed last night. The Dayton shooting comes less than twenty-four hours after the El Paso Wal Mart shooting that killed 20 and injured more than forty others. And of course, the Wal Mart shooting comes less than a week after the Gilory, CA shooting killed three and injured twelve Americans.
The question is not who to blame like some many people rush to do every time one of these things happens. The question is what to do about it. To me, I think that good people need to do more. This isn’t a blog about gun control and I’m not going to blame Trump even though it’s tempting. I want to write about what WE can do on an individual level.
I think WE have lost our sense of community and it’s killing us slowly. It’s no secret that the world moves faster than ever before. There’s no arguing that less people go to church, or talk on the phone to one another. There’s evidence that young people date less and interact with their phones more than ever before. The tragic substitute for these dwindling interactions is of course, more time at your job, more text messages and more social media involvement.
Now I’m not vilifying technology here. No way. Technology is here to stay and is a clear net positive if used responsibly. It’s us that needs to change, which includes setting the technology aside in lieu of interacting on a human level more often than we’re currently doing. These real interactions not only include more involvement on the community level, but less interest and time spent on national politics. Our country’s national politics is so toxic and is perpetuating the killings at the ground level right now. It’s up to the communities across the nation to counter the nonsense.
We have to accept that the internet, despite all of it’s amazingness, can be a dangerous place. Young men, who are often outcasted, probably not even on purpose, by their own local communities and schools are finding sanctuary online in chat groups, where they receive that missing sense of community. And the internet is indeed radicalizing them. The radicalization is made possible by these young men yearning for a sense of belonging. A search for a community that will accept them.
Now I said I wasn’t going to blame Trump but I cannot avoid mentioning that his rhetoric is part of that radicalizing. Don’t believe me? Go on 4Chan or read the QAnon threads and you’ll see that I am right. It’s easy to vilify these folks, but we should resist the temptation to do so. Instead, we need to bring them back to the local community and away from the online forums made up of people from all over the world. They’re in the forums because they are yearning for that sense of belonging because people like you and I are failing to provide that for them.
You and I are too busy getting angry that some Congresswoman didn’t denounce ANTIFA or because Trump said something true about Baltimore, but because Trump said it in the context of a black Congressman’s alleged dereliction of his duties, it was somehow racist. I don’t have many Trump supporters as friends. But the few that do support Trump are lawyers – like most of the people in my life. And they share these stupid memes that display some emotional message built on a lie or without context. Or my Trump hating friends (they are numerous) who lose their shit every time Trump says anything or does any policy. At this point, Trump being Trump shouldn’t matter to you anymore. JUST STOP. There’s more at stake here people.
This country is going to be around long after Trump. Long after Obama is gone. We don’t have to live this way.
If you think of yourself as a good person, it’s time that you do more than root against the other side. It’s time that you do more than cheer for or against Trump as if this is some kind of sport. If you think you are a good person, you need get off cable news and focus on improving your community. You need to volunteer. You need to pick up the phone and talk to people. YOU need to interact on a human level with others who truly need to feel like they belong. This is about being part of the problem or the solution.
If you refuse to do these simple things, you are not part of the solution. We have to adjust our behavior accordingly with the changing world. We will collectively do this eventually. The country always adapts, but the question here is when and how much damage will be done before the adaptation occurs?
The Reasonable Man Standard 