A confluence of three things: the latest mass shooting at Parkland High School, reading the introduction and initial chapter of How Democracies Die, and the news cycle. First things first, the school shooting at Parkland hit home, or perhaps more precisely, very nearly hit home. The Parkland school district is contiguous with our grand daughter's school district, and Bella had just recently engaged in a color guard competition with them. On the day of the shooting, our son had felt it necessary to call, fearing that my wife, Lora, would think it was Bella's school and become frantic. Unlike many of the other mass shootings, this one had the aura of a catastrophe barely averted. It's a cliché, of course, to say that "I can't imagine the anguish of the victim's parents and grandparents," because I can, of course, imagine it, but for many reasons simply choose not to do so. Perhaps because this was a catastrophe that nearly struck home, perhaps because she simply cannot help herself, Lora does imagine it and the shooting colored her mood for two days running.
There is a question of just how to understand the shooter. The major news outlets tend to psychologize the shooter's motives -- I don't have a better term for it than "psychologize," but it is the attempt to find "explanations" for the shooter's present actions in his past, an abusive childhood being the hands on favorite explanation, the second favorite being social changes -- e.g. the emergence of violent "shooter" video games. The difficulty with all such explanations is that they're not "causal," not in the sense that an explanation in physics or chemistry or even physiology is causal -- a sense of this enters the common parlance in statements like, "not every abused child grows up to be a school shooter." At best, there are statistical correlations, and they don't allow us to predict the emergence of school shooters in individual cases. We would have to say, this individual has had an abusive childhood, has indulged excessively in violent shooter games, along with other so-called "risk factors," and so has an xx% chance of becoming a school shooter. Even accepting the notion that our predictions are not "causal," but rather "statistical correlations," it is questionable whether we could act on the predictions. What degree of predictive "certainty" would be necessary to elicit a social response, a cure if it can be cured, incarceration if it can't? 80%? 90%? 99.99%?
There is also a felt sense that abusive childhoods, violent video games, and all the other risk factors serve less as "explanations of," more as "excuses for" the behavior. They tend to imply that the individuals are the way they are because of factors outside their control, and so are not morally or ethically culpable for their actions. Indeed, such "explanations" tend to suggest, if nothing else, that the shooter is as much a victim of unfortunate circumstances as his targets -- that we should look at the whole incident in much the way we look at any other "natural" disaster. We do not blame the hurricane for its devastations, nor should we "blame" the shooter. Both are unfortunate, but also, heavy sigh, both are unavoidable. For many, this amounts to "letting the shooter off the hook," along with the felt sense that he should "held accountable" for his actions. We want to believe, in other words, that individuals have "free will," that they make "choices," and consequently that the shooter could have followed another path. Even if the individual himself, as such, is not evil, his actions were nevertheless evil and he should suffer retribution for his crimes. Our legal system is more or less predicated on this notion, and of course because the shooter has "broken the law," to use the catch phrase of Law and Order, the police will investigate the crime and the legal system will prosecute the crime, all to affix culpability.
Of course, affixing culpability offers too little too late. While it provides some social remedy and removes at least one shooter from the streets, it does nothing really to solve the problem -- if, that is, we define the problem as dead children. In this particular case, the FBI has received some heat because they didn't follow up on leads that might have prevented the shooting. As if to demonstrate, the media has reported on another case where a wary grandmother reported the "suspicious" behavior of her grandson, who was subsequently arrested and a "tragedy" was averted. We have to ask, however, what kind of society would it be if we followed through on the suggestions of law enforcement, if we were all wary grandmothers reporting suspicious behavior, if all such reports were investigated and prosecuted? On the assumption that law enforcement has other priorities and that every tip cannot be thoroughly investigated, it raises the question of what sort of tips would be investigated? Or, perhaps more to the point, whose tips would be investigated? It also begs the question of motivation, not only of the potential shooter, but of the "tipster." One can easily imagine "tips" being made as a prank, as a way of bringing trouble to a rival, et cetera. Then too, when does a threat become credible enough to merit actual prosecution? A few Facebook posts? The purchase of materials and weapons to carry out the Facebook fantasy? One might add that this particular shooter purchased his weapon legally, in full view of the world, and it is only the failure to correlate the Facebook threats with the purchase that comes into question. We are back in the realm of predictive validity, and what degree of certainty would go beyond "reasonable doubt" to merit conviction. It doesn't take much second order imagination to understand that it would only serve to multiply the number of accusations against law enforcement for failing to act effectively.
Lurking behind all of this is another question. Is it better to bury two children or 17 children? The answer is at once obvious and unsatisfactory. Of course, it's altogether human (and humane) to respond that it would be best if we buried no children whatsoever. No one can disagree, and so we rend our garments and gnash our teeth at the inadequacy of response after the fact and the impossibility of preventing attacks altogether. Nevertheless, the answer is obvious. While we cannot predict and prevent with certainty, we can mitigate the results of an attack. One thing can be done, immediately. We can limit access to the semi-automatic weapons that wreck havoc on a mass scale. While it is not a perfect solution, for those who slip through the cracks of our burgeoning surveillance state, it would limit the number of casualties in any particular "tragedy." We seem, however, politically incapable of doing so, and it begs the question why?
One answer, of course, is money. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Sportsman's Warehouse, for example, offers 257 different types of MSR or semi-automatic weapons for sale. In this regard, it's no secret that mass shootings are good for business, insofar as gun sales spike anticipating that this particular shooting will be the straw that breaks the camel's back and leads to a ban. It's not the biggest business, but it is a big enough business -- big enough that the NRA donated what? 21 million? 35 million? to the Trump campaign. To be honest, I don't know the exact number, but I am reasonably sure it's more money than I'll ever see in my lifetime. Before we cluck disapprovingly over the influence of money on politics, however, we should take a step back. Yesterday, my wife spent an hour "unfriending" people on her Facebook page that had immediately jumped to the defense of the guns. One such friend had passed on a picture of a 15 year old boy holding an AR-15 rifle that, ostensibly, he had bought with money earned at his part time job. Apparently, his father owns one as well. All this to say, there is a demand for such weapons, and satisfying that demand keeps business booming despite the individual and social costs, and the booming business generates the excess capital needed to hire advocates like the NRA, and for that matter Trump and the other politicians who accepted the NRA donations. If there were no demand for such weapons, there wouldn't be 257 different models available from Sportsman's Warehouse, and there wouldn't be an NRA protecting the "interests" of the gun industry, all of which begs the second level question, from whence the demand?
That, I cannot answer. I understand hunting, and really have no objection to responsible hunting, but the AR-15 is not a weapon designed for hunting deer. I also, to a lesser degree, understand the felt need for self-protection, but protection from what? invading Russians? the encroachments of the federal government? If the American people feel the need for the AR-15 rifle, then the paranoia runs deeper in the American psyche than even Richard Hofstadter imagined. Having said that, I'm no doubt missing the point entirely, and I have this vague suspicion that testosterone and the psychology behind the masterbutory violence in first person shooter games. I don't "get" first person shooter games either. Aside from any moral objection, I find them, well, boring. So, suffice it to say, all in all, I have no personal desire to own such a weapon, and to be honest, have little inclination to understand those who do have such desires -- those who repost Facebook memes showing a 60s style poster of Obama with a caption that reads, "How many of these shootings must I orchestrate to get rid of your guns?" Regardless whether they believed it, or just thought it clever, it was in extraordinarily poor taste, and I wonder if they would be so quick to chuckle if they were the parents of the shooter or one of the 17 slain children?
My lack of understanding, along with my lack of any desire to understand, brings me round to Levitsky and Steven's How Democracies Die. Though my every instinct pushes me to be "reasonable," to understand and even accommodate the views of others, to play devil's advocate even with myself, more and more I find myself a partisan as extreme as those I've been discussing above, which leads me to believe our democracy has already received a terminal diagnosis. Levitsky and Stevens write, that "democracies work best -- and survive longer -- where constitutions are reinforced by unwritten democratic norms." They highlight two such norms, "mutual toleration, or the understanding that competing parties accept one another as legitimate rivals, and forbearance, or the idea that politicians should exercise restraint in deploying their institutional prerogatives." They go on to write:
The erosion of our democratic norms began in the 1980s and 1990s and accelerated in the 2000s. By the time Barak Obama became president, many Republicans, in particular, questioned the legitimacy of their Democratic rivals and had abandoned forbearance for a strategy of winning by any means necessary. Donald Trump may have accelerated this process, but he didn't cause it. The challenges facing American democracy run deeper. The weakening of democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization -- one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture. America's efforts to achieve racial equality as our society grows increasingly diverse have fueled an insidious reaction and intensifying polarization. And if one thing is clear from studying breakdowns throughout history, it's that extreme polarization can kill democracies.
Of course, in the way of such things, both sides of the divide see themselves "saving" American Democracy, although the conservatives would place much greater emphasis on the "American" in American democracy, and would see themselves as the saviors of a "true" America, an exclusive white Christian nationalist version of America. Those on the so-called liberal side, like me, would place much greater emphasis on the "democracy" in American democracy, and would take a more technocratic view -- that is to say, would see democracy as a network of institutions and programs designed to serve inclusively an increasingly multi-ethnic, multi-racial people.
There's a back and forth implicit in this.
One article from The Federalist, for example, asks the question "what kind of society condemns people for praying after a school shooting?" They go on to write "When it comes to mass shootings today, public expressions of sympathy and calls for prayer are increasingly answered with scorn and derision. In the hours following yesterday’s tragedy, thousands of people took to social media denouncing prayer. As of the time of this article, #ThoughtsAndPrayersDoNothing is trending." To be fair, I have heard a bit of mocking, but it is not aimed at the prayer itself, and certainly not at the public expressions of sympathy. It has been aimed at the hypocrisy of those who are positions of power and can do something (anything?) more than call for prayer and make public expressions of sympathy, but then do nothing. The article hints at this, writing, "it will probably not surprise readers that most of the attacks on 'thoughts and prayers' come from the left, particularly those who advocate tougher gun laws as the primary (or exclusive) solution to gun violence." The writer then goes on to offer a defense of religion for several paragraphs, as though the "left" were engaged in an attack on religion itself. I won't repeat his argument, in part because it would only convince the already convinced, and ultimately he actually concedes the "left's" point, writing, "when president Roosevelt took the oath of office at his 1905 inauguration, the Bible upon which he placed his left hand was opened to James 1:22-23, which read: "but be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." He goes on to affirm that "we must not simply speak and hear. We must act -- especially when it is within our power to do so." Even granting that "tougher gun laws" may not be the primary, and certainly not the exclusive, solution -- even granting that "to act on an issue as important as reducing gun violence in America (especially mass shootings at schools) would be foolish without guidance from above" -- the article ends without affirmative solution.
In the meantime, as the Washington Post report, "the Florida House of Representatives was in session on Tuesday, considering several issues," one a "motion to consider a bill banning the sale of assault weapons," and one a "resolution declaring pornography a public health risk." As they go on to report, "the House chose not to consider the bill that would lead to stricter gun control," but did pass "a resolution claiming that porn is dangerous." In some respects, their inaction follows the same pattern. Even on the issue of pornography, "a resolution claiming that porn is dangerous" is not affirmative action to mitigate that danger. While it's easy enough to condemn pornography -- both the religious right and the feminist left would have something to say on this matter -- it's always trickier to offer a concrete action, in part because any proposed action will quickly reveal its imperfections. Had the Florida legislature been confronted with a motion claiming that assault weapons are dangerous, they may have had some luck in passing it, but a ban on sales is an affirmative action which quickly reveals its imperfections. No one really believes, for example, that such a ban would eliminate school shootings altogether, and its an open question whether a state ban would even help mitigate the damage, when the same weapons can be purchased out of state and imported. Still and all, the technocratic left wants to do something, whether guidance on the issue comes from above through prayer, or preferably through research, and the inability to do anything leads to palpable frustration. “Unfortunately, just five days after 17 people were gunned down at a Florida school, the Florida House just passed a bill that declares pornography a ‘public health risk,’” state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D) told the Independent. “Basically, what they have determined is that these are the Republican priorities in 2018: Wasting our time with debate and legislation that declares porn as a health threat, meanwhile we can’t even get a single debate, vote, or hearing on anything related to assault weapons."
In some respects, I am saying both sides are to "blame" for the "extreme partisan polarization," and it does occur to me that the AR-15 (and gun stockpiling in general) was, for many extreme conservatives. a symbolic act of resistance to the increasing hegemony of the technocratic and multi-cultural state epitomized by Obama. In this regard, the election of Trump represents a counter-coup, an attempt to reinstate the cultural hegemony of white, mostly protestant, mostly evangelical values of heartland America. Having said that, however, there is an asymmetry that is more deeply troubling, and why, more and more, I find myself increasingly partisan in my rejection of the impulses motivating conservatives and the conservative movement. There is another norm, foundational to "mutual toleration" and "forbearance" -- human (and humane) kindness. Increasingly, the conservative party would extend kindness, but only to their kind. Some of our "unfriended" Facebook friends, for example, don't really object to the technocratic state, per se -- they collect their disability, their workman's comp, their social security, their Medicare, even their Obamacare. They do object, however, to undeserving others receiving the same benefits, and often the undeserving are blacks, Hispanics, immigrants. Increasingly, one hears in the rhetoric of the so-called conservatives, the sort of language that dismisses, demeans, dehumanizes not only those who do not share their racial, ethnic or cultural background (which is bad enough) but also those who do not share their world view and do not offer blind idolatry to their current standard bearer. Trump's obsessive "nick-naming" is a case in point. One might dismiss it as adolescent posturing, but ultimately it is the rhetoric of warfare -- where the German people become "krauts," the Japanese people become "nips," the Korean and Vietnamese people become "gooks," and the various middle eastern people become "rag heads" -- and it is aimed, not at a foreign enemy (which is bad enough) but at other Americans. It is, perhaps, not surprising that the shooting at Parkland, which is located within an affluent district, provoked student activism from the survivors, who were not content with prayers, sympathy, and counseling. The Week, for example, reports "at far-right Gateway Pundit, Lucian Wintrich managed to ... [cast] aspersions on 17-year-old survivor David Hogg by noting his father is a retired FBI agent, and accusing him of having been coached on 'anti-Trump lines' due to being suspiciously articulate and repeating himself a few times in a taped interview." They are calling him, among other things, a shill. There is little in the way of mutual toleration or forbearance, much of what, under other circumstances, could at best be called bullying.
It's not a far step from language that demeans and dehumanizes to actions that demean and dehumanize. Perhaps that is another understanding I've been searching for -- the AR-15 is not an instrument or tool, but the symbolic representation of an emergent culture of cruelty. Publishing a photo of a 15 year old boy, about the age of the shooter in Parkland, brandishing the weapon that killed 17 students, expresses an indifference to cruelty and suffering. Possessing an AR-15, regardless of one's intent for it, is a profession of allegiance to a cultural vision that, I feel, must be rejected out of hand and resisted.
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