With many, I am horrified by the recent actions of Jared Lee Loughner—the young man who chose to respond to the challenges he perceived by killing 6 people and wounding 18 others in what is known as the Tuscan Massacre. Loughner’s method of responding to his negative emotions is not isolated in the American social landscape. Similar massacres happen frequently. Nearly everyday someone is “snapping” and killing others. Sometimes these incidents take the form of “reactions” but more often they a becoming premeditated responses planned out well in advance. The Columbine Massacre, the Virginia Tech Massacre, the Fort Hood Massacre, and now the Tuscan Massacre have caused me to reflect on how people in our society could come to what seems like a reasonable conclusion that killing would be a productive way to respond. In this reflection, I have begun asking the question: are we living in a morally ambiguous society? Or, put another way, is there enough stimuli that can allow one to think that killing is a productive conclusion in one’s dissent from tradition?
Unfortunately, as I have asked this question I have found much evidence that seems to support the assertion that indeed the United States social landscape does support an ambiguous morality that could fuel more peoples desire to respond to the challenges they perceived by the method of killing. As I reflect on such supporting evidence I am again horrified, but this time, at the community I live in. Whereas this community is so quick to maintain that without question Loughner was psychotic: I am left responding, “Yes, but who else was psychotic that taught Loughner that it was productive to be psychotic?” In the set of essays to follow, I would like to once again critically interrogate the “evidence” that seems to support the moral ambiguity of the United States of America. I would like to publicly engage this reflection as to open my writing up the criticisms of all in hope that others can find the errors in my perception; in hopes that these errors can be removed as quickly as possible. If such errors exist, and of course they always do, the journey of my writing will continually correct them.
Currently, my limited view sees seven pillars that seem to support the moral ambiguity of the United States of America. Though, as this journey evolves, the number of such pillars may increase and be interwoven into different connecting webs, I feel that it will be useful to foretell where I perceive the journey, from one pillar to the next, is destined. First, it seems that we have the widely supported immorality of religion. And, such religion, and its valued immorality, and its supposed author God, seems to widely be assumed to be the foundation of our democracy and freedom.
Second, we have the immorality of political leaders. Such leaders, elected by us, appear to set powerful examples of immorality. Though, such leaders may often have the best interests at heart, and may sincerely be trying to protect the American public when they act—some of them do value the immorality of killing and torture as a method of responding to the challenges they perceive. I am convinced, yet will nevertheless again interrogate my convictions, that President Bush is one such leader. Yet I am not without error here because I voted and supported his assumptions for many years.
For the third pillar I posit the multiple forms of media: music, video, and text. In all these categories I find considerable amounts of evidence that supports the moral ambiguity of the United States of America.
The forth pillar kind of runs its way through all the pillars. It goes by the title of “unsound reasoning” or “non sequitur logic.” As I find that the birthplace of this out-of-touch-with-reality method of reasoning lies with the spiritually conservative some of the ideas of the more public supporters of the “Tea Party” will be considered.
The fifth pillar is the general public acceptance of the use of alcohol. It seems that Alcohol destroys people’s ability to change. It seems to retard the progress of tradition and for every 1 person who drinks “responsibly” there seem to be 1 person whose necessary capacity to change is destroyed. Thus, all people who drink alcohol are implicated many people’s inability to change. Similar arguments can be made for many prescription medications and much illegal drug use. But, as alcohol is legal and so easily accessible it seems to be one of the many immoral pillars of the United States of America.
The sixth pillar is Academia, and with pleasure I look forward to demonstrating how their unfortunately sound ideas are extremely dangerous for our traditional immoral climate. While Academic ideas do contain very potent responses to tradition they often strip the meaning of it away such that the ignorance of tradition becomes very obvious. Though such academic ideas may be correct and true, because they often see no value in tradition they either scare people, or for those who embrace these ideas incipiently: publicly ignite much more than they aught to.
The seventh pillar that seems to support our moral ambiguity comes in the limited way our culture allows people to dissent. When a person dissents from tradition outside of an appreciation for traditional clarity, traditional morality, tradition, traditional understanding, traditional continuity, traditional unity, traditional community, traditional honesty, traditional holiness, etcetera: our society most often only opens the door for psychiatry or psychology. And, given, for many, the magnitude of the formidable challenge of making their frustrations clear in a sociable appropriate way with the mouth piece of tradition: dissent seems to currently only be a sociable privilege for the educated. This is a huge problem! In the writing that follows I will critically investigate my assertions with the hope that many will point out my errors.
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