March for Our Lives Rally in Washington D.C., March 24, 2018. Photo by Mobilus In Mobili (via Flickr), used under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.
By Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi
This essay by our chairperson, Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, offers reflections on the recent outbreak of mass shootings in the U.S. Although the essay is not directly related to hunger relief, the specific mission of Buddhist Global Relief, it does connect to our wider ideal of conscientious compassion. At the heart of the practice of conscientious compassion is the understanding that at times we must bear witness to suffering wherever and however it arises. Our understanding must further motivate us to action. We cannot turn away.
The spate of mass shootings we’ve witnessed over the past few weeks has jolted our minds and broken our hearts. The killings come in rapid-fire sequence, leaving us hardly a pause to catch our breath. In May, at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York; at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas; at a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and a church in Ames, Iowa. Over the first weekend of June, a medley of gun deaths dotting the country’s landscape. Mass shootings, it seems, have become an American pastime.
After each mass shooting the cry rises from the nation for some action to be taken—an urgent appeal for Congress to at last “do something” to stem the epidemic of gun violence. Each time a surge of hope swells up, and then comes crashing down when we realize that the most we’ll get from congressional obstructionists are “thoughts and prayers.”
We now have to face the hard truth that here in America we’re no longer safe anywhere. Not even in the most familiar places, not even amid the most humdrum activities. Our churches, hospitals, parking lots, and workplaces have all become danger zones. We can never be confident that when we go out shopping, we’ll come home alive; that when we drop off the kids at school, we’ll pick them up that afternoon. It hurts me to write those words, but they’re true.
Yes, mass shootings do occur in other stable democracies, but with nowhere near the frequency that we see here in “the exceptional nation.” We must remember, too, that mass shootings constitute only a fraction of gun incidents in the U.S. Every day, more than 110 people in the U.S. are killed with guns. No other economically advanced country has such carnage. Our gun homicide rate is eighteen times the average rate of other developed countries.
While tightening access to guns would undoubtedly help reduce the number of shootings in America, here I want to explore the problem of gun violence from a different angle. What I want to determine is why the volume of gun violence is so high here in America, to seek out the roots of this epidemic, the deeper causes that lie behind it.
I suggest that we view the scale of gun violence in this country in a wider context, as the sign of a deep malaise that has infected the American psyche. The distant background is the social ethos of this nation, which is rooted in individualism, aggression, and cut-throat competition for dominance. This ethos locks us into ourselves, severing the ties of empathy and solidarity essential to social cohesion. As a result, we suffer from a collective sense of isolation and alienation, the sense that we have no one to turn to for support. Rather than feeling connected to others, we find ourselves drifting through life alone, even in our own families.
The self-proclaimed goal of the U.S., as expressed in the Constitution, is “to form a more perfect Union … promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” While we have often fallen short of these aspirations—very far short—until recently, I would say, a widespread conviction prevailed that we were moving in that direction. We rallied behind the New Deal, the New Frontier, the War on Poverty, the Great Society, the Civil Rights Movement. We were moving together, as a nation.
Beginning in the 1980s, however, the bonds of a shared aspiration began to unravel; the social compact split. A resurgent conservatism took hold of the reins of power and replaced the liberal social project of the prior five decades with a neoliberal ideology that saw government action on behalf of ordinary people as a blunder. The idea that we were participants in a shared endeavor aimed at the common good gave way to a rugged, even ruthless version of market capitalism that saw unrestrained private enterprise as the driver of social progress.
The impact of this transformation on our national consciousness was profound. The change started at the level of ideology. The proponents of neoliberalism held that society is a mere abstraction constituted of inherently discrete individuals. They taught us to see ourselves as isolated individuals meandering through life without essential connections with others. We have no obligation to others or the wider community. We were in it for ourselves and perhaps our immediate families.
Neoliberal policies widened the gap between the ultra-rich and everyone else. The rich saw their wealth and incomes soar. The middle class stagnated and shrank. Stable jobs paying good wages vanished as corporations moved their operations overseas. The gig economy reinforced the sense that we are each on our own, entirely dependent on personal initiative to avoid collapse.
The original aspiration of the nation to advance “liberty and justice for all” gave way to a credo of “each against all,” a struggle where naked ambition trumps all other values. But there were some partnerships. A symbiotic relationship emerged between the oligarchs and the political class. Politicians rely on Super PACs for lavish contributions to finance their campaigns; they reciprocate by serving the interests of the rich. The middle class and underclass look on helplessly as more stringent policies drive them downward and cement wealth and power in the hands of the few. For the wider population, cynicism usurps the place of hope.
The discrepancy between the ideals we profess and the harshness of everyday life creates a tension that extends from the economic sphere to the personal. We’re told that anyone who puts forth effort can succeed, yet we’re handed a platter of cutbacks and austerity. We face constant pressure to do better, but when we fail we judge ourselves losers, mere dross and flotsam in a system rigged against us. We plunge into a state of profound inner unease, destitute of a sense of personal agency. We feel we can no longer determine the direction of our lives. A sense of lack gnaws at our self-respect. Distrust, suspicion, anger, and fear multiply, spread everywhere, and infect the entire culture.
Wherever we find ourselves, we look around for feedback about our personal standing, anxious we might be spurned as failures. All that remains to boost our sense of self-worth is our heritage, skin color, ethnicity, or religion, but these are losing their currency in a multiracial, multicultural society. These strange “others,” we think, are cheating us of the status and perks we assume are rightfully ours.
The resentment builds upon the sense of an aggrieved identity, generating an identity crisis. The crisis can be either collective or private. When it acquires a collective dimension, it becomes a crisis of group identity, which may easily push one toward right-wing extremism. The rhetoric of would-be autocrats and right-wing media personalities whips up hate against other groups seen to threaten one’s endangered status. White supremacy rears its ugly head, targeting people of color, immigrants, Muslims, or people who don’t fit into neat binary gender types. If the hatred becomes strong enough, it might explode in a mass shooting rooted in the fear that one’s group identity is in peril. Witness the Mother Emanuel AME church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina; the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburg; and the Tops Market shooting in Buffalo.
For others, however, the sense of a wounded identity festers in private, directed against the self rather than toward a group. Those afflicted with this type of identity crisis feel devalued, diminished, and abandoned. They may resort to alcohol, drugs, pornography, or violent fantasies to assuage the pain. But if the hurt crosses the bounds of rationality, it can lead to attempted suicide or the urge to take revenge against a society that denies one’s self-esteem. A rude word, a mocking smile, a family dispute, or a failed romance might push one over the edge. And with guns so easy to purchase, the outcome might be random homicide or, even worse, a massacre. Witness the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut; the Aurora movie theater shooting in Colorado; and the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
At bottom, I would contend, it’s the wounded sense of identity, inflicted by the stark individualism of our social ethos, that breeds the type of mind capable of committing mass murder. From this perspective we can see these massacres and random shootings, not simply as manifestations of ordinary mental health problems, but as expressions of the aberrant, dehumanizing, dysfunctional values of our culture. This is the social pathology from which we suffer, the malaise that gives rise to mass shootings.
If this analysis of the roots behind our epidemic of mass shootings—as well as other types of gun violence—is anywhere near correct, then the remedy must include a far-ranging reconfiguration of our social ethos. Certainly, immediate practical steps are needed to reduce the number of deaths. The evidence is overwhelming that gun laws work. We need a comprehensive ban on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. We must make it more difficult for people with mental issues to get their hands on guns. We need rigorous universal background checks, training and tests for gun ownership, and red-flag laws to restrict access to guns for those with troubled histories.
But these measures, as critical as they are, treat the symptoms of gun violence, not the root causes. They don’t address the factors that incline people to commit random acts of murder, whether individual homicide or mass shootings. Tackling the problem at a more fundamental level calls for a radical transformation of our social ethos from one built on stark individualism to one that promotes a shared dedication to the common good. We might start with the economy. We need an economy that takes as its polestar, its inspirational ideal, the flourishing of all. We must ensure that everyone has access to the material requirements of a healthy life, that no one falls through the cracks. We’re not a poor country. We can easily provide everyone with a basic level of material security.
But beyond this, what we require is a profound transformation of the reigning moral paradigm from one that valorizes competition, status, and material success to one that extols collaboration and cooperation. A change in values hinges upon a change in our views, our understanding of ourselves and our relationship to our communities and the world. We must come to see ourselves not as isolated individuals pitted against others in a relentless struggle for dominance, but as interdependent, interconnected beings whose happiness is closely connected with the happiness of others, whose flourishing depends on greater equity and a thriving biosphere.
The current social ethos that encourages the narrow pursuit of self-interest must give way to one that inspires empathy and compassion, that sees the good of self and others as inseparably intertwined. Such an ethos must expand the selective focus on material prosperity to encompass all the domains of value that enrich and ennoble human life. This includes the natural world, now being pillaged to expand corporate profits.
The movement toward such a transformation might start in our schools. There’s no reason the school curriculum can’t educate students in altruistic values, with courses on the ethics of empathy and compassion. Such courses, drawing from the teachings of the great religions and the world’s foremost moral philosophers, can inculcate in schoolchildren the values critical to a harmonious society. The curriculum should also include courses in civics, teaching the duties of responsible citizenship.
While we have no guarantee that such a seismic change in our social paradigm will put a complete end to murder, suicide, and other criminal activities, there is clear evidence that countries with greater social equity and economic equality have less crime, less alcoholism and drug use, higher levels of trust, and higher levels of life satisfaction than those with less equity and more glaring economic disparity. If we want to see whether such a change can work here, we need to put it to the test.
This is a task of government, which remains the expression of our collective voice. For all its drawbacks and inefficiencies, government is the only means available to us for ensuring the common good.
You might cry out that our politicians will never agree to any substantial change in the social order. Indeed, with our present crop of politicians, such change is near impossible. But we should remember that we’re the ones who put them into office in the first place, with our votes. They’re in office to represent us, and thus the burden of change ultimately rests on us. If we see clearly enough that our destiny, as a people and a nation, lies in our own hands, we might find the will power to take the steps needed.
