What is the cause of kids commiting mass shootings in school ?

[ding]

Most of this was due to cultural changes in society brought about by increased personal income, automation, demand for higher education, better employment opportunities for women, falling demand for manual labor, increased mobility of the population, falling influence of the unions, competition from abroad as the world recovered from WWII, increased disparity in income, demand for equality in the work place, etc. The reasons for cultural changes are complex and can't be controlled in free society.

IOW: Big government meddling in free markets and civil society.

That would be the view of someone who has an external locus of control.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

We have been granted well-being to the extent previous generations could not even dream about to an almost unlimited freedom in the choice of pleasures. Even biology tells us that a high degree of habitual well-being is not advantageous to a living organism. We are starting to see the cracks in the veneer that have been building for two generations.

Navel gaze much?

No. I study history and behaviors.

Do you believe that the rise and fall of societies are a new phenomena?

Do you believe that societies succeed and fail because of blind luck?

Things don't happen on accident, there is a reason for everything.

Yes, there is a reason for everything. You stated the results of changes, not the causes. But thanks for playing.

But I did state the cause. It was the post you originally responded to my dear.

The cause is us. We have collectively lowered our standard of conduct my dear.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

 

[ding]

I don't want to talk politics or guns on this subject because guns have been around for hundreds of yrs and politics even longer ......when I was in high school kids would drive to school with rifles and shot guns hanging on gun racks and you never heard about someone getting shot much less dozens being injured or killed ......so instead of arguing over the weapons used or not used in these mass killings I would like opinions on what motivates todays kids to commit acts of evil that was unheard of 30yrs ago ? what has changed ? what is different about the way kids think today ?

Differences:

1. Destruction of the nuclear family structure in which boys had dads at home to teach them how to become responsible men.
2. The Great Society programs that encouraged #1 by paying teenage girls to be unwed mothers.
3. Prog takeover of public schools and the ensuing transformation of education programs into Prog indoctrination.
4. Identity politics that have enabled #3 to eliminate proper discipline in schools.
5. The demonization of men which has resulted in treating little boys like deformed girls and drugging them with ADHDs.
6. Social Media which is fucking up children's minds.

For starters.

Most of this was due to cultural changes in society brought about by increased personal income, automation, demand for higher education, better employment opportunities for women, falling demand for manual labor, increased mobility of the population, falling influence of the unions, competition from abroad as the world recovered from WWII, increased disparity in income, demand for equality in the work place, etc. The reasons for cultural changes are complex and can't be controlled in free society.

IOW: Big government meddling in free markets and civil society.

That would be the view of someone who has an external locus of control.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

We have been granted well-being to the extent previous generations could not even dream about to an almost unlimited freedom in the choice of pleasures. Even biology tells us that a high degree of habitual well-being is not advantageous to a living organism. We are starting to see the cracks in the veneer that have been building for two generations.

Navel gaze much?

I actually stated the cause twice, my dear. See?

 

[boedicca]

IOW: Big government meddling in free markets and civil society.

That would be the view of someone who has an external locus of control.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

We have been granted well-being to the extent previous generations could not even dream about to an almost unlimited freedom in the choice of pleasures. Even biology tells us that a high degree of habitual well-being is not advantageous to a living organism. We are starting to see the cracks in the veneer that have been building for two generations.

Navel gaze much?

No. I study history and behaviors.

Do you believe that the rise and fall of societies are a new phenomena?

Do you believe that societies succeed and fail because of blind luck?

Things don't happen on accident, there is a reason for everything.

Yes, there is a reason for everything. You stated the results of changes, not the causes. But thanks for playing.

But I did state the cause. It was the post you originally responded to my dear.

The cause is us. We have collectively lowered our standard of conduct my dear.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

No you didn't. You posted some navel gazing pablum that blamed US Collectively. There is no such thing as the US Collective.

 

[ding]

That would be the view of someone who has an external locus of control.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

We have been granted well-being to the extent previous generations could not even dream about to an almost unlimited freedom in the choice of pleasures. Even biology tells us that a high degree of habitual well-being is not advantageous to a living organism. We are starting to see the cracks in the veneer that have been building for two generations.

Navel gaze much?

No. I study history and behaviors.

Do you believe that the rise and fall of societies are a new phenomena?

Do you believe that societies succeed and fail because of blind luck?

Things don't happen on accident, there is a reason for everything.

Yes, there is a reason for everything. You stated the results of changes, not the causes. But thanks for playing.

But I did state the cause. It was the post you originally responded to my dear.

The cause is us. We have collectively lowered our standard of conduct my dear.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

No you didn't. You posted some navel gazing pablum that blamed US Collectively. There is no such thing as the US Collective.

Whenever a people collectively lower their standard of conduct as we have done, predictable surprises will eventually occur.

You can argue against this all you want but it will never change the reality.

We are the problem and the predictable surprises will continue until we hit rock bottom.

 

[ding]

That would be the view of someone who has an external locus of control.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

We have been granted well-being to the extent previous generations could not even dream about to an almost unlimited freedom in the choice of pleasures. Even biology tells us that a high degree of habitual well-being is not advantageous to a living organism. We are starting to see the cracks in the veneer that have been building for two generations.

Navel gaze much?

No. I study history and behaviors.

Do you believe that the rise and fall of societies are a new phenomena?

Do you believe that societies succeed and fail because of blind luck?

Things don't happen on accident, there is a reason for everything.

Yes, there is a reason for everything. You stated the results of changes, not the causes. But thanks for playing.

But I did state the cause. It was the post you originally responded to my dear.

The cause is us. We have collectively lowered our standard of conduct my dear.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

No you didn't. You posted some navel gazing pablum that blamed US Collectively. There is no such thing as the US Collective.

 

[ding]

That would be the view of someone who has an external locus of control.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

We have been granted well-being to the extent previous generations could not even dream about to an almost unlimited freedom in the choice of pleasures. Even biology tells us that a high degree of habitual well-being is not advantageous to a living organism. We are starting to see the cracks in the veneer that have been building for two generations.

Navel gaze much?

No. I study history and behaviors.

Do you believe that the rise and fall of societies are a new phenomena?

Do you believe that societies succeed and fail because of blind luck?

Things don't happen on accident, there is a reason for everything.

Yes, there is a reason for everything. You stated the results of changes, not the causes. But thanks for playing.

But I did state the cause. It was the post you originally responded to my dear.

The cause is us. We have collectively lowered our standard of conduct my dear.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

No you didn't. You posted some navel gazing pablum that blamed US Collectively. There is no such thing as the US Collective.

"...When the modern Western states were being formed, it was proclaimed as a principle that governments are meant to serve man and that man lives in order to be free and pursue happiness. (See, for example, the American Declaration of Independence.) Now at last during past decades technical and social progress has permitted the realization of such aspirations: the welfare state.

Every citizen has been granted the desired freedom and material goods in such quantity and in such quality as to guarantee in theory the achievement of happiness, in the debased sense of the word which has come into being during those same decades. (In the process, however, one psychological detail has been overlooked: the constant desire to have still more things and a still better life and the struggle to this end imprint many Western faces with worry and even depression, though it is customary to carefully conceal such feelings. This active and tense competition comes to dominate all human thought and does not in the least open a way to free spiritual development.)

The individual's independence from many types of state pressure has been guaranteed; the majority of the people have been granted well-being to an extent their fathers and grandfathers could not even dream about; it has become possible to raise young people according to these ideals, preparing them for and summoning them toward physical bloom, happiness, and leisure, the possession of material goods, money, and leisure, toward an almost unlimited freedom in the choice of pleasures. So who should now renounce all this, why and for the sake of what should one risk one's precious life in defense of the common good and particularly in the nebulous case when the security of one's nation must be defended in an as yet distant land?

Even biology tells us that a high degree of habitual well-being is not advantageous to a living organism. Today, well-being in the life of Western society has begun to take off its pernicious mask.

Western society has chosen for itself the organization best suited to its purposes and one I might call legalistic. The limits of human rights and rightness are determined by a system of laws; such limits are very broad. People in the West have acquired considerable skill in using, interpreting, and manipulating law (though laws tend to be too complicated for an average person to understand without the help of an expert). Every conflict is solved according to the letter of the law and this is considered to be the ultimate solution.

If one is risen from a legal point of view, nothing more is required, nobody may mention that one could still not be right, and urge self-restraint or a renunciation of these rights, call for sacrifice and selfless risk: this would simply sound absurd. Voluntary self-restraint is almost unheard of: everybody strives toward further expansion to the extreme limit of the legal frames. (An oil company is legally blameless when it buys up an invention of a new type of energy in order to prevent its use. A food product manufacturer is legally blameless when he poisons his produce to make it last longer: after all, people are free not to purchase it.)

I have spent all my life under a Communist regime and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society based on the letter of the law and never reaching any higher fails to take full advantage of the full range of human possibilities. The letter of the law is too cold and formal to have a beneficial influence on society. Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relationships, this creates an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity that paralyzes man's noblest impulses.

And it will be simply impossible to bear up to the trials of this threatening century with nothing but the supports of a legalistic structure.

Today's Western society has revealed the inequality between the freedom for good deeds and the freedom for evil deeds. A statesman who wants to achieve something highly constructive for his country has to move cautiously and even timidly; thousands of hasty (and irresponsible) critics cling to him at all times; he is constantly rebuffed by parliament and the press. He has to prove that his every step is well founded and absolutely flawless. Indeed, an outstanding, truly great person who has unusual and unexpected initiatives in mind does not get any chance to assert himself; dozens of traps will be set for him from the beginning. Thus mediocrity triumphs under the guise of democratic restraints.

It is feasible and easy everywhere to undermine administrative power and it has in fact been drastically weakened in all Western countries. The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as to make society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals. It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.

On the other hand, destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society has turned out to have scarce defense against the abyss of human decadence, for example against the misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, such as motion pictures full of pornography, crime, and horror. This is all considered to be part of freedom and to be counterbalanced, in theory, by the young people's right not to look and not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil.

And what shall we say about the dark realms of overt criminality? Legal limits (especially in the United States) are broad enough to encourage not only individual freedom but also some misuse of such freedom. The culprit can go unpunished or obtain undeserved leniency — all with the support of thousands of defenders in the society. When a government earnestly undertakes to root out terrorism, public opinion immediately accuses it of violating the terrorist's civil rights. There is quite a number of such cases.

This tilt of freedom toward evil has come about gradually, but it evidently stems from a humanistic and benevolent concept according to which man — the master of the world — does not bear any evil within himself, and all the defects of life are caused by misguided social systems, which must therefore be corrected. Yet strangely enough, though the best social conditions have been achieved in the West, there still remains a great deal of crime; there even is considerably more of it than in the destitute and lawless Soviet society. (There is a multitude of prisoners in our camps who are termed criminals, but most of them never committed any crime; they merely tried to defend themselves against a lawless state by resorting to means outside the legal framework.)

The press, too, of course, enjoys the widest freedom. (I shall be using the word "press" to include all the media.) But what use does it make of it?

Here again, the overriding concern is not to infringe the letter of the law. There is no true moral responsibility for distortion or disproportion. What sort of responsibility does a journalist or a newspaper have to the readership or to history? If they have misled public opinion by inaccurate information or wrong conclusions, even if they have contributed to mistakes on a state level, do we know of any case of open regret voiced by the same journalist or the same newspaper? No; this would damage sales. A nation may be the worse for such a mistake, but the journalist always gets away with it. It is most likely that he will start writing the exact opposite to his previous statements with renewed aplomb.

Because instant and credible information is required, it becomes necessary to resort to guesswork, rumors, and suppositions to fill in the voids, and none of them will ever be refuted; they settle into the readers' memory. How many hasty, immature, superficial, and misleading judgments are expressed everyday, confusing readers, and then left hanging?

The press can act the role of public opinion or miseducate it. Thus we may see terrorists heroized, or secret matters pertaining to the nation's defense publicly revealed, or we may witness shameless intrusion into the privacy of well-known people according to the slogan "Everyone is entitled to know everything." (But this is a false slogan of a false era; far greater in value is the forfeited right of people not to know, not to have their divine souls stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk. A person who works and leads a meaningful life has no need for this excessive and burdening flow of information.)

Hastiness and superficiality — these are the psychic diseases of the twentieth century and more than anywhere else this is manifested in the press. In-depth analysis of a problem is anathema to the press; it is contrary to its nature. The press merely picks out sensational formulas.

Such as it is, however, the press has become the greatest power within Western countries, exceeding that of the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. Yet one would like to ask: According to what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible? In the Communist East, a journalist is frankly appointed as a state official. But who has voted Western journalists into their positions of power, for how long a time, and with what prerogatives?

There is yet another surprise for someone coming from the totalitarian East with its rigorously unified press: One discovers a common trend of preferences within the Western press as a whole (the spirit of the time), generally accepted patterns of judgment, and maybe common corporate interests, the sum effect being not competition but unification. Unrestrained freedom exists for the press, but not for readership, because newspapers mostly transmit in a forceful and emphatic way those opinions which do not too openly contradict their own and that general trend.

Without any censorship in the West, fashionable trends of thought and ideas are fastidiously separated from those that are not fashionable, and the latter, without ever being forbidden have little chance of finding their way into periodicals or books or being heard in colleges. Your scholars are free in the legal sense, but they are hemmed in by the idols of the prevailing fad. There is no open violence, as in the East; however, a selection dictated by fashion and the need to accommodate mass standards frequently prevents the most independent-minded persons from contributing to public life and gives rise to dangerous herd instincts that block dangerous herd development.

In America, I have received letters from highly intelligent persons — maybe a teacher in a faraway small college who could do much for the renewal and salvation of his country, but the country cannot hear him because the media will not provide him with a forum. This gives birth to strong mass prejudices, to a blindness which is perilous in our dynamic era. An example is the self-deluding interpretation of the state of affairs in the contemporary world that functions as a sort of petrified armor around people's minds, to such a degree that human voices from seventeen countries of Eastern Europe and Eastern Asia cannot pierce it. It will be broken only by the inexorable crowbar of events.

I have mentioned a few traits of Western life which surprise and shock a new arrival to this world . The purpose and scope of this speech will not allow me to continue such a survey, in particular to look into the impact of these characteristics on important aspects of a nation's life, such as elementary education, advanced education in the humanities, and art.

It is almost universally recognized that the West shows all the world the way to successful economic development, even though in past years it has been sharply offset by chaotic inflation. However, many people living in the West are dissatisfied with their own society. They despise it or accuse it of no longer being up to the level of maturity by mankind. And this causes many to sway toward socialism, which is a false and dangerous current.

I hope that no one present will suspect me of expressing my partial criticism of the Western system in order to suggest socialism as an alternative. No; with the experience of a country where socialism has been realized, I shall not speak for such an alternative. The mathematician Igor Shafarevich, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, has written a brilliantly argued book entitled Socialism; this is a penetrating historical analysis demonstrating that socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death. Shafarevich's book was published in France almost two years ago and so far no one has been found to refute it. It will shortly be published in English in the U.S.

But should I be asked, instead, whether I would propose the West, such as it is today, as a model to my country, I would frankly have to answer negatively. No, I could not recommend your society as an ideal for the transformation of ours. Through deep suffering, people in our own country have now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive. Even those characteristics of your life which I have just enumerated are extremely saddening.

A fact which cannot be disputed is the weakening of human personality in the West while in the East it has become firmer and stronger. Six decades for our people and three decades for the people of Eastern Europe; during that time we have been through a spiritual training far in advance of Western experience. The complex and deadly crush of life has produced stronger, deeper, and more interesting personalities than those generated by standardized Western well-being. Therefore, if our society were to be transformed into yours, it would mean an improvement in certain aspects, but also a change for the worse on some particularly significant points.

Of course, a society cannot remain in an abyss of lawlessness, as is the case in our country. But it is also demeaning for it to stay on such a soulless and smooth plane of legalism, as is the case in yours. After the suffering of decades of violence and oppression, the human soul longs for things higher, warmer, and purer than those offered by today's mass living habits, introduced as by a calling card by the revolting invasion of commercial advertising, by TV stupor, and by intolerable music.

All this is visible to numerous observers from all the worlds of our planet. The Western way of life is less and less likely to become the leading model.

There are telltale symptoms by which history gives warning to a threatened or perishing society. Such are, for instance, a decline of the arts or a lack of great statesmen. Indeed, sometimes the warnings are quite explicit and concrete. The center of your democracy and of your culture is left without electric power for a few hours only, and all of a sudden crowds of American citizens start looting and creating havoc. The smooth surface film must be very thin, then, the social system quite unstable and unhealthy.

But the fight for our planet, physical and spiritual, a fight of cosmic proportions, is not a vague matter of the future; it has already started. The forces of Evil have begun their decisive offensive. You can feel their pressure, yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?

How has this unfavorable relation of forces come about? How did the West decline from its triumphal march to its present debility? Have there been fatal turns and losses of direction in its development? It does not seem so. The West kept advancing steadily in accordance with its proclaimed social intentions, hand in hand with a dazzling progress in technology. And all of a sudden it found itself in its present state of weakness.

This means that the mistake must be at the root, at the very foundation of thought in modern times. I refer to the prevailing Western view of the world in modern times. I refer to the prevailing Western view of the world which was born in the Renaissance and has found political expression since the Age of Enlightenment. It became the basis for political and social doctrine and could be called rationalistic humanism or humanistic autonomy: the pro-claimed and practiced autonomy of man from any higher force above him. It could also be called anthropocentricity, with man seen as the center of all.

The turn introduced by the Renaissance was probably inevitable historically: the Middle Ages had come to a natural end by exhaustion, having become an intolerable despotic repression of man's physical nature in favor of the spiritual one. But then we recoiled from the spirit and embraced all that is material, excessively and incommensurately. The humanistic way of thinking, which had proclaimed itself our guide, did not admit the existence of intrinsic evil in man, nor did it see any task higher than the attainment of happiness on earth. It started modern Western civilization on the dangerous trend of worshiping man and his material needs.

Everything beyond physical well-being and the accumulation of material goods, all other human requirements and characteristics of a subtle and higher nature, were left outside the area of attention of state and social systems, as if human life did not have any higher meaning. Thus gaps were left open for evil, and its drafts blow freely today. Mere freedom per se does not in the least solve all the problems of human life and even adds a number of new ones.

And yet in early democracies, as in American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted on the ground that man is God's creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding one thousand years. Two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an individual be granted boundless freedom with no purpose, simply for the satisfaction of his whims.

Subsequently, however, all such limitations were eroded everywhere in the West; a total emancipation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. State systems were becoming ever more materialistic. The West has finally achieved the rights of man, and even excess, but man's sense of responsibility to God and society has grown dimmer and dimmer. In the past decades, the legalistic selfishness of the Western approach to the world has reached its peak and the world has found itself in a harsh spiritual crisis and a political impasse. All the celebrated technological achievements of progress, including the conquest of outer space, do not redeem the twentieth century's moral poverty, which no one could have imagined even as late as the nineteenth century.

As humanism in its development was becoming more and more materialistic, it also increasingly allowed concepts to be used first by socialism and then by communism, so that Karl Marx was able to say, in 1844, that "communism is naturalized humanism."

This statement has proved to be not entirely unreasonable. One does not see the same stones in the foundations of an eroded humanism and of any type of socialism: boundless materialism; freedom from religion and religious responsibility (which under Communist regimes attains the stage of antireligious dictatorship); concentration on social structures with an allegedly scientific approach. (This last is typical of both the Age of Enlightenment and of Marxism.) It is no accident that all of communism's rhetorical vows revolve around Man (with a capital M) and his earthly happiness. At first glance it seems an ugly parallel: common traits in the thinking and way of life of today's West and today's East? But such is the logic of materialistic development.

The interrelationship is such, moreover, that the current of materialism which is farthest to the left, and is hence the most consistent, always proves to be stronger, more attractive, and victorious. Humanism which has lost its Christian heritage cannot prevail in this competition. Thus during the past centuries and especially in recent decades, as the process became more acute, the alignment of forces was as follows: Liberalism was inevitably pushed aside by radicalism, radicalism had to surrender to socialism, and socialism could not stand up to communism.

The communist regime in the East could endure and grow due to the enthusiastic support from an enormous number of Western intellectuals who (feeling the kinship!) refused to see communism's crimes, and when they no longer could do so, they tried to justify these crimes. The problem persists: In our Eastern countries, communism has suffered a complete ideological defeat; it is zero and less than zero. And yet Western intellectuals still look at it with considerable interest and empathy, and this is precisely what makes it so immensely difficult for the West to withstand the East.

I am not examining the case of a disaster brought on by a world war and the changes which it would produce in society. But as long as we wake up every morning under a peaceful sun, we must lead an everyday life. Yet there is a disaster which is already very much with us. I am referring to the calamity of an autonomous, irreligious humanistic consciousness.

It has made man the measure of all things on earth — imperfect man, who is never free of pride, self-interest, envy, vanity, and dozens of other defects. We are now paying for the mistakes which were not properly appraised at the beginning of the journey. On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility.

We have placed too much hope in politics and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. It is trampled by the party mob in the East, by the commercial one in the West. This is the essence of the crisis: the split in the world is less terrifying than the similarity of the disease afflicting its main sections.

If, as claimed by humanism, man were born only to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to death, his task on earth evidently must be more spiritual: not a total engrossment in everyday life, not the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then their carefree consumption. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become above all an experience of moral growth: to leave life a better human being than one started it.

It is imperative to reappraise the scale of the usual human values; its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President's performance should be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or to the availability of gasoline. Only by the voluntary nurturing in ourselves of freely accepted and serene self-restraint can mankind rise above the world stream of materialism.

Today it would be retrogressive to hold on to the ossified formulas of the Enlightenment. Such social dogmatism leaves us helpless before the trials of our times.

Even if we are spared destruction by war, life will have to change in order not to perish on its own. We cannot avoid reassessing the fundamental definitions of human life and society. Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior Spirit above him? Is it right that man's life and society's activities should be ruled by material expansion above all? Is it permissible to promote such expansion to the detriment of our integral spiritual life?

If the world has not approached its end, it has reached a major watershed in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will demand from us a spiritual blaze; we shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life, where our physical nature will not be cursed, as in the Middle Ages, but even more importantly, our spiritual being will not be trampled upon, as in the Modern Era.

The ascension is similar to climbing onto the next anthropological stage. No one on earth has any other way left but — upward."

Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn -- A World Split Apart — Commencement Address Delivered At Harvard University, June 8, 1978

 

[ding]

We are the problem.

 

[otto105]

I don't want to talk politics or guns on this subject because guns have been around for hundreds of yrs and politics even longer ......when I was in high school kids would drive to school with rifles and shot guns hanging on gun racks and you never heard about someone getting shot much less dozens being injured or killed ......so instead of arguing over the weapons used or not used in these mass killings I would like opinions on what motivates todays kids to commit acts of evil that was unheard of 30yrs ago ? what has changed ? what is different about the way kids think today ?

The one variable in the equation is our culture itself. By that I mean both society, the schools which have vastly changed, and the children which are the outcome of all of this. Society has become degenerate, the schools are dehumanized and uncaring (read: zero tolerance), and children as a biological organism respond to this as only they can, in revolt. Revolt can only take two forms: inward withdraw/obsequiousness or outward hostility/resistance. Children are becoming cruel, unfeeling, self-centered, depersonalized, particularly as their world is increasingly all on their smartphone and computer, not with real people (including their parents). And we must ask what "zero tolerance" is? You're not allowed to make a mistake anymore? No second chances? No consideration of the situation? Just the robotic execution of rules, saying "it's not me, I'm just following THE RULES?"

No one has authority anymore, everything is decided by committee. Parents are being phased out of their childrten's lives as the schools push more and more to do the raising themselves and instill the State's set of values. No one WANTS authority anymore because with it comes responsibility. Children come into this now dysfunctional, conflicted world helpless and feel the victim of a system they cannot fathom as fair. Take your hat off to the great social experiment: Progressivism-- -- -- -- we have "progressed" from the traditional family, we have progressed from morality, ethics, patriotism and spiritual / religious values, we have "progressed" from where now, kids are even confused about their country, its history, its rightness, and even their own sexual identity, and we are trying to turn our kids into little Stepford machines--------- unfortunately, they still just want to be little kids. And you wonder why some of them are pulling out a gun and shooting everyone? It is a CRY FOR HELP---- ---- PLEASE, someone, please fix the insanity that Liberals call "progress."

You had me till the end when you blamed it on liberals.

Well just who did you think is trying to implement all of the changes that progressivism dictates?

Ya got yerself one giant pantload there toobfreak.

Can you put a date on those traditional values that that traditional family was espousing?

 

[otto105]

IOW: Big government meddling in free markets and civil society.

That would be the view of someone who has an external locus of control.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

We have been granted well-being to the extent previous generations could not even dream about to an almost unlimited freedom in the choice of pleasures. Even biology tells us that a high degree of habitual well-being is not advantageous to a living organism. We are starting to see the cracks in the veneer that have been building for two generations.

Navel gaze much?

No. I study history and behaviors.

Do you believe that the rise and fall of societies are a new phenomena?

Do you believe that societies succeed and fail because of blind luck?

Things don't happen on accident, there is a reason for everything.

Yes, there is a reason for everything. You stated the results of changes, not the causes. But thanks for playing.

But I did state the cause. It was the post you originally responded to my dear.

The cause is us. We have collectively lowered our standard of conduct my dear.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

What standards have been lowered? Racism? Bigotry? Misogyny?

Seems to me that the kids at the wrong end of a barrel in Florida showed the type of guts and civic responsibility that kids of 50 years ago were incapable of.

 

[boedicca]

That would be the view of someone who has an external locus of control.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

We have been granted well-being to the extent previous generations could not even dream about to an almost unlimited freedom in the choice of pleasures. Even biology tells us that a high degree of habitual well-being is not advantageous to a living organism. We are starting to see the cracks in the veneer that have been building for two generations.

Navel gaze much?

No. I study history and behaviors.

Do you believe that the rise and fall of societies are a new phenomena?

Do you believe that societies succeed and fail because of blind luck?

Things don't happen on accident, there is a reason for everything.

Yes, there is a reason for everything. You stated the results of changes, not the causes. But thanks for playing.

But I did state the cause. It was the post you originally responded to my dear.

The cause is us. We have collectively lowered our standard of conduct my dear.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

What standards have been lowered? Racism? Bigotry? Misogyny?

Seems to me that the kids at the wrong end of a barrel in Florida showed the type of guts and civic responsibility that kids of 50 years ago were incapable of.

That's his problem. He can't think as an individual. He blames the Mythical US Collective. The JROTC boy who was killed while holding the door open so that his classmates could escape did not create the cultural trends which led to his death.

dinq looks at symptoms but is unable to identify the real causes.

 

[PredFan]

I don't want to talk politics or guns on this subject because guns have been around for hundreds of yrs and politics even longer ......when I was in high school kids would drive to school with rifles and shot guns hanging on gun racks and you never heard about someone getting shot much less dozens being injured or killed ......so instead of arguing over the weapons used or not used in these mass killings I would like opinions on what motivates todays kids to commit acts of evil that was unheard of 30yrs ago ? what has changed ? what is different about the way kids think today ?

That is THE question we need to ask if we really want to stop that kind of thing. Why are we so violent? Why do we value life so little, why are we raising kids who are willing to kill?

Until we spend time and money trying to get answers, people will continue to die.

The politicians on the left say to ban guns, the politicians on the right say to arm teachers, no one is looking for answers.

People have been asking those questions for decades. The answers have very little to do with government and lot to do with how we raise children, how we treat each other, and our personal sense of value.

Maybe that’s true, I don’t know. But people are asking but no one is trying to answer the question.

 

[ding]

That would be the view of someone who has an external locus of control.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

We have been granted well-being to the extent previous generations could not even dream about to an almost unlimited freedom in the choice of pleasures. Even biology tells us that a high degree of habitual well-being is not advantageous to a living organism. We are starting to see the cracks in the veneer that have been building for two generations.

Navel gaze much?

No. I study history and behaviors.

Do you believe that the rise and fall of societies are a new phenomena?

Do you believe that societies succeed and fail because of blind luck?

Things don't happen on accident, there is a reason for everything.

Yes, there is a reason for everything. You stated the results of changes, not the causes. But thanks for playing.

But I did state the cause. It was the post you originally responded to my dear.

The cause is us. We have collectively lowered our standard of conduct my dear.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

What standards have been lowered? Racism? Bigotry? Misogyny?

Seems to me that the kids at the wrong end of a barrel in Florida showed the type of guts and civic responsibility that kids of 50 years ago were incapable of.

Adversity tends to do that.

I couldn't be happier for you to ignore the decline in our standard of conduct and the warning signs of a deteriorating society. These things have a way of working themselves out.

 

[ding]

Navel gaze much?

No. I study history and behaviors.

Do you believe that the rise and fall of societies are a new phenomena?

Do you believe that societies succeed and fail because of blind luck?

Things don't happen on accident, there is a reason for everything.

Yes, there is a reason for everything. You stated the results of changes, not the causes. But thanks for playing.

But I did state the cause. It was the post you originally responded to my dear.

The cause is us. We have collectively lowered our standard of conduct my dear.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

What standards have been lowered? Racism? Bigotry? Misogyny?

Seems to me that the kids at the wrong end of a barrel in Florida showed the type of guts and civic responsibility that kids of 50 years ago were incapable of.

That's his problem. He can't think as an individual. He blames the Mythical US Collective. The JROTC boy who was killed while holding the door open so that his classmates could escape did not create the cultural trends which led to his death.

dinq looks at symptoms but is unable to identify the real causes.

I have identified the causes. I couldn't care less if you agree or disagree.

At any point in your life you are the sum of your choices.

 

[otto105]

Navel gaze much?

No. I study history and behaviors.

Do you believe that the rise and fall of societies are a new phenomena?

Do you believe that societies succeed and fail because of blind luck?

Things don't happen on accident, there is a reason for everything.

Yes, there is a reason for everything. You stated the results of changes, not the causes. But thanks for playing.

But I did state the cause. It was the post you originally responded to my dear.

The cause is us. We have collectively lowered our standard of conduct my dear.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

What standards have been lowered? Racism? Bigotry? Misogyny?

Seems to me that the kids at the wrong end of a barrel in Florida showed the type of guts and civic responsibility that kids of 50 years ago were incapable of.

Adversity tends to do that.

I couldn't be happier for you to ignore the decline in our standard of conduct and the warning signs of a deteriorating society. These things have a way of working themselves out.

Again, what decline are you referring too?

 

[boedicca]

No. I study history and behaviors.

Do you believe that the rise and fall of societies are a new phenomena?

Do you believe that societies succeed and fail because of blind luck?

Things don't happen on accident, there is a reason for everything.

Yes, there is a reason for everything. You stated the results of changes, not the causes. But thanks for playing.

But I did state the cause. It was the post you originally responded to my dear.

The cause is us. We have collectively lowered our standard of conduct my dear.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

What standards have been lowered? Racism? Bigotry? Misogyny?

Seems to me that the kids at the wrong end of a barrel in Florida showed the type of guts and civic responsibility that kids of 50 years ago were incapable of.

Adversity tends to do that.

I couldn't be happier for you to ignore the decline in our standard of conduct and the warning signs of a deteriorating society. These things have a way of working themselves out.

Again, what decline are you referring too?

I'll hazard to guess his personal decline in cognitive function.

 

[ding]

No. I study history and behaviors.

Do you believe that the rise and fall of societies are a new phenomena?

Do you believe that societies succeed and fail because of blind luck?

Things don't happen on accident, there is a reason for everything.

Yes, there is a reason for everything. You stated the results of changes, not the causes. But thanks for playing.

But I did state the cause. It was the post you originally responded to my dear.

The cause is us. We have collectively lowered our standard of conduct my dear.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

What standards have been lowered? Racism? Bigotry? Misogyny?

Seems to me that the kids at the wrong end of a barrel in Florida showed the type of guts and civic responsibility that kids of 50 years ago were incapable of.

Adversity tends to do that.

I couldn't be happier for you to ignore the decline in our standard of conduct and the warning signs of a deteriorating society. These things have a way of working themselves out.

Again, what decline are you referring too?

Moral standards; conduct; behaviors; values.

The problem is systemic. The signs are everywhere. All one has to do is look at the last two candidates we chose to run for the presidency.

 

[ding]

Yes, there is a reason for everything. You stated the results of changes, not the causes. But thanks for playing.

But I did state the cause. It was the post you originally responded to my dear.

The cause is us. We have collectively lowered our standard of conduct my dear.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

What standards have been lowered? Racism? Bigotry? Misogyny?

Seems to me that the kids at the wrong end of a barrel in Florida showed the type of guts and civic responsibility that kids of 50 years ago were incapable of.

Adversity tends to do that.

I couldn't be happier for you to ignore the decline in our standard of conduct and the warning signs of a deteriorating society. These things have a way of working themselves out.

Again, what decline are you referring too?

I'll hazard to guess his personal decline in cognitive function.

Making fun of me won't solve our problem, nor will it alert you to your problem. In fact, it will do the exact opposite.

 

[ding]

No. I study history and behaviors.

Do you believe that the rise and fall of societies are a new phenomena?

Do you believe that societies succeed and fail because of blind luck?

Things don't happen on accident, there is a reason for everything.

Yes, there is a reason for everything. You stated the results of changes, not the causes. But thanks for playing.

But I did state the cause. It was the post you originally responded to my dear.

The cause is us. We have collectively lowered our standard of conduct my dear.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

What standards have been lowered? Racism? Bigotry? Misogyny?

Seems to me that the kids at the wrong end of a barrel in Florida showed the type of guts and civic responsibility that kids of 50 years ago were incapable of.

Adversity tends to do that.

I couldn't be happier for you to ignore the decline in our standard of conduct and the warning signs of a deteriorating society. These things have a way of working themselves out.

Again, what decline are you referring too?

This sums up our problems better than I ever could.

Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn -- A World Split Apart — Commencement Address Delivered At Harvard University, June 8, 1978

 

[Inmar]

I don't want to talk politics or guns on this subject because guns have been around for hundreds of yrs and politics even longer ......when I was in high school kids would drive to school with rifles and shot guns hanging on gun racks and you never heard about someone getting shot much less dozens being injured or killed ......so instead of arguing over the weapons used or not used in these mass killings I would like opinions on what motivates todays kids to commit acts of evil that was unheard of 30yrs ago ? what has changed ? what is different about the way kids think today ?

The one variable in the equation is our culture itself. By that I mean both society, the schools which have vastly changed, and the children which are the outcome of all of this. Society has become degenerate, the schools are dehumanized and uncaring (read: zero tolerance), and children as a biological organism respond to this as only they can, in revolt. Revolt can only take two forms: inward withdraw/obsequiousness or outward hostility/resistance. Children are becoming cruel, unfeeling, self-centered, depersonalized, particularly as their world is increasingly all on their smartphone and computer, not with real people (including their parents). And we must ask what "zero tolerance" is? You're not allowed to make a mistake anymore? No second chances? No consideration of the situation? Just the robotic execution of rules, saying "it's not me, I'm just following THE RULES?"

No one has authority anymore, everything is decided by committee. Parents are being phased out of their childrten's lives as the schools push more and more to do the raising themselves and instill the State's set of values. No one WANTS authority anymore because with it comes responsibility. Children come into this now dysfunctional, conflicted world helpless and feel the victim of a system they cannot fathom as fair. Take your hat off to the great social experiment: Progressivism-- -- -- -- we have "progressed" from the traditional family, we have progressed from morality, ethics, patriotism and spiritual / religious values, we have "progressed" from where now, kids are even confused about their country, its history, its rightness, and even their own sexual identity, and we are trying to turn our kids into little Stepford machines--------- unfortunately, they still just want to be little kids. And you wonder why some of them are pulling out a gun and shooting everyone? It is a CRY FOR HELP---- ---- PLEASE, someone, please fix the insanity that Liberals call "progress."

You had me till the end when you blamed it on liberals.

Well just who did you think is trying to implement all of the changes that progressivism dictates?

The Ukrainian immigrant, who lives in Russia and shits on Russia. Mom paid you for the Internet?

 

[Flopper]

I don't want to talk politics or guns on this subject because guns have been around for hundreds of yrs and politics even longer ......when I was in high school kids would drive to school with rifles and shot guns hanging on gun racks and you never heard about someone getting shot much less dozens being injured or killed ......so instead of arguing over the weapons used or not used in these mass killings I would like opinions on what motivates todays kids to commit acts of evil that was unheard of 30yrs ago ? what has changed ? what is different about the way kids think today ?

That is THE question we need to ask if we really want to stop that kind of thing. Why are we so violent? Why do we value life so little, why are we raising kids who are willing to kill?

Until we spend time and money trying to get answers, people will continue to die.

The politicians on the left say to ban guns, the politicians on the right say to arm teachers, no one is looking for answers.

People have been asking those questions for decades. The answers have very little to do with government and lot to do with how we raise children, how we treat each other, and our personal sense of value.

Maybe that’s true, I don’t know. But people are asking but no one is trying to answer the question.

I think we have the answer to why? We just can't come up with an answer to how that will work in our society?

We love violence. We spend billions of hours viewing it and glorifying. We have more firearms than people. In fact, there seems to be a fairly large segment of society that would be happy to return to frontier justice, where the law of the gun rules.