It’s time for us to take a good, hard look in the mirror.
You, as a representative of humanity, ask yourself where we’re headed and what you’re doing right now to contribute to our movement.
It has been more than a month since the Newtown school shooting, and just this week there was a shooting at a community college in Houston.
If you watch or read the news, it can seem that things are getting worse all the time.
But are they really?
Harvard University professor Steven Pinker argues that we are probably living in the most peaceful times ever, and he uses plenty of statistics to support his argument.
Assuming Pinker is right, why is it that things seem to be getting worse?
Part of it might have to do with the news.
Professor Graham C.L. Davey of the University of Sussex argues that the TV news sensationalizes its reports in order to compete with entertainment programs. However, such sensationalization can produce negative effects. Davey found that negative broadcasts cause sadness and anxiety.
These findings have severe implications.
The negative effects of stress on the body have been widely studied and found to contribute to all kinds of undesirable conditions such as obesity, diabetes and Alzheimer’s.
Perhaps worse than that, though, is the moral effect of any rapid-fire media. A neuroscience group at the University of Southern California found that certain emotional responses, such as compassion, can be dulled when the brain is faced with continuous snippets of data.
Given the research, how might our media affect not only our sense of right and wrong, but our overall empathy?
How might they affect the impressionable, developing brains of children?
Might our culture contain elements that work to create tragedies?
Whether you agree with the current or proposed gun policies, we must come to terms with the fact that every shooter is a product of our own culture, a culture that each of us, knowingly or unknowingly, contributes to.
Are we living in a culture that is fertile for the creation of healthy minds? Is our civilization a shining example of what flourishing humans can look like?
Are guns and anything having to do with guns the only factors contributing to the creation of killers? Are gun killings the only fatal problems facing our species?
I’m not trying to detract from the importance of considering guns. Rather, I am attempting to draw some attention away from those we seem so fixated on and contribute attention to what may be root causes.
I’m not saying that we should delude ourselves, either.
No rose-colored glasses are preferable to the bare truth.
However, perhaps there is a healthy degree of moderation that we should pursue when engaging in any behavior, be it reporting a killing on the news, interacting with our neighbors or contacting our Congress members.
Every action plays its own role in creating the cultural zeitgeist, no matter how inconsequential the action may seem.
A product of living in large communities can be a feeling of social alienation and a feeling that the individual is powerless.
Remember, though, that societies are just groups of many individuals and that every individual adds to the whole.
So, which way are we headed? I don’t know the answer.
But, if we’re to thrive, it will only be when every one of us takes personal interest and responsibility for our own actions to create a better future.
Brandon Lee Gagne is an anthropology senior at UF. His column runs on Fridays. You can contact him via opinions@alligator.org.
