The Most Disturbing Video I've Come Across Recently
In the wake of the latest mass shooting in America, like many, I was less stunned and more numb to the bloodshed and tragedy that has sadly become an inexorable facet of American life.
How are you supposed to feel when this happens time and time and time and time and time and time again? If anything, one speedrun through the emotions of shock, anger, grief, numbness, acceptance, and dread till the next mass shooting occurs.
It's become a Pavlovian response. American society became conditioned to brutality through non-stop exposure, once unthinkable in a wealthy, developed society.
Yet there was one video that I came across while scrolling through my Twitter feed that shocked me.
"Run. Hide. Fight." Four minutes at thirty-six seconds about how to survive a mass shooting.
I don't know what's more shocking - that this video exists in the first place or that it came out over two years ago.
This video's implicit, unintentional point is that mass shootings are a permanent feature of American society.
It's the metaphorical waving of a white flag. It's civilizational apathy in its purest, most cynical form.
(Take a closer to the publishing date - September 21st, 2020 - does anyone remember what was happening then? COVID! Remember? The virus that kept everyone indoors, away from one another, where one wouldn't have the opportunity to murder their fellow Americans in cold blood? If you don't see the irony here, I don't know what else to tell you!) No one talks about this. We are free to, of course, but no one bothers to anyway. I can't help but notice that one is extremely discouraged from asking pointed questions about what goes on on a societal level. I get this feeling all the time - knowing that something is off but fear expressing such sentiment publicly. When I was younger and lacked wisdom, I would talk about these things more openly with people. All I got back were blank stares of bewilderment. Deer-in-the-headlights type looks. My questions made people uncomfortable. (My answers would set them off.) "Bro, you're scaring the hoes" would be an accurate summary. I digress.
Back to the video, it normalizes the deadly, dysfunction that is intrinsic to American life in its bid to help people survive it. American social norms discourage us from asking questions, which encourages apathy on an individual and societal basis.
If such violence becomes a common occurrence rather than a rare tragedy, then what's the Point of society in the first place?
(Answer: there is no Point. That's the Point! Maybe I'll expand on this in a future article.)
It's totally fine to talk about how to survive mass shootings. But to engage in sober discussion about what would be needed to stop them? I'm old enough to know it's inappropriate to discuss such things in 'polite' society.
Soda