Guns don't kill people ....

[Ibby]

you don't even have to agree with my assessment that it's the nexus of white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and the basic belief that straight cis white men deserve to rule the world and always get their way is the root cause of how fucked up America is. I'm 100% certain that Flint, as a right-libertarian (i think that's a broadly fair assessment of your politics, as i understand them, taking into account the fact that I'm a left-libertarian/socialist), thinks that white men (and their systemic exploitation and abuse of everyone else) are the core problem with this country.

That doesn't change the fact that we have a violence problem in this country that kills more people every day than a whole year of soldier deaths in our two wars, in domestic violence situations, in robberies, in murders over sex and drugs and money, in accidental shootings, in escalated fights, in gang warfare in and out of prison.
if you don't believe America has a violence problem, you're fucking stupid.
a violence problem is inherently cultural in nature because we're talking about our culture, in which it occurs.

there is room for a very healthy debate on why we have a violence problem - why our country is death-fetishizing (i bet every one of you can talk about the final minutes of at least one victim of this shooting; i bet almost everyone can name the shooter; i bet almost everyone has had the number of victims drilled into their head... that's death-fetishizing, guys), sensationalist (again...), and destructive (thousands of violent deaths sounds destructive to me) - but to argue that it isn't even a problem is disgusting.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by Ibby

if you don't believe America has a violence problem, you're fucking stupid. a violence problem is inherently cultural in nature because we're talking about our culture, in which it occurs.
...
there is room for a very healthy debate on why we have a violence problem ... but to argue that it isn't even a problem is disgusting.

I keep thinking, every time I see the media pundits and armchair quarterbacks rehashing the same, pointless factoids in relation to this latest, inevitable-seeming event, that isn't gun control and/or mental health services, aren't these things a "band-aid" solution to a sick, misguided society, driven by extrinsic happiness, short-term gratification, and completely disconnected from the rich cultural heritage of our evolutionary forefathers, now isolated in a confused, disconnected wasteland of cheap thrills, awash in misdirected neurochemical responses which have no mechanism of purposeful self-regulation, given the novelty of our daily circumstances, and the completely artificial and contrived system of arbitrary moral standards which we must perform constant logic cartwheels in order to even stand living under the thrall of?

Please, "god" or whatever, tell me I'm not the only one drawing a larger lesson from this. This isn't a "quick fix" --we can't shuffle a few resources around to make this go away. Our culture is sick, and dying. Our humanity, in a thousand small ways or a handful of big ones--take your pick--is on the ropes. This is it. We've got to decide what's important.

Why are we here? What's the meaning of it all? These are no longer questions which it is okay to simply say "we may never know" --we've got to DECIDE that there ARE some meaningful answers. It may not be a big black book, or a kind old white-bearded man in the clouds, but it's got to be SOMETHING.

If you don't even know why you're alive, aren't you part of the commoditization of human beings?

Do we intrinsically have value, or not? If so, what is it? To have a good credit score? To go to church on Sunday?

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by Flint

... Please, "god" or whatever, tell me I'm not the only one drawing a larger lesson from this. ... Why are we here? What's the meaning of it all? ... Do we intrinsically have value, or not? If so, what is it? To have a good credit score? To go to church on Sunday?

Oh all right. I can tell you that you're not alone and answer a few questions. Your raison d'être is to learn that there is no raison d'être. Life is as life does. While you're alive you make things. After you're gone, I get to keep your stuff. Somehow stuff is always more enjoyable when somebody else makes it. Your intrinsic value really depends on how much I enjoy your stuff and that won't be determined until after you've gone bye-bye; so, don't worry about it. The violence is there both for people who won't be making any good stuff and for people who have already made good stuff so that I can have it sooner. Oh yeah, only support churches that have good stuff. I don't have time for anymore questions as I'm busy evaluating stuff I've already acquired. All earthly opinions about the meaning of life are a red herring. Bonne chance.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Flint

I keep thinking, every time I see the media pundits and armchair quarterbacks rehashing the same, pointless factoids in relation to this latest, inevitable-seeming event, that isn't gun control and/or mental health services, aren't these things a "band-aid" solution to a sick, misguided society, driven by extrinsic happiness, short-term gratification, and completely disconnected from the rich cultural heritage of our evolutionary forefathers, now isolated in a confused, disconnected wasteland of cheap thrills, awash in misdirected neurochemical responses which have no mechanism of purposeful self-regulation, given the novelty of our daily circumstances, and the completely artificial and contrived system of arbitrary moral standards which we must perform constant logic cartwheels in order to even stand living under the thrall of?

This is why I read the Cellar. In one run-on sentence flint has relentlessly circled in on the problem. The modern American man and the modern American culture are incompatible. Our culture is tribal. It became obvious to me while watching the cheering drunken males watching the televised bombing of Afghanistan at a child's birthday party. We can argue about from where this culture is derived. I've read good arguments that it is borderlander (dispossessed Scotch-Irish) expressed through Appalachian culture. We've long harnessed those attributes when killing needed doing but I'd say without a new frontier we're the ones in harness now.