Spree Killers

This is obviously in response to a recent event, but unfortunately, what I'm going to say is pretty timeless, so I won't bother linking to the specific stories that inspired this post, since it's almost certainly going to apply equally well to whatever recent mass murder has captivated the public eye at the time a reader finds this. 

I have something of a history of empathizing with the manifestos of spree killers more than most folks are willing to admit.  I look at their arguments and say, "that all sounds reasonable up until the point of the random mass murder".  Over and over again.  Makes a person a bit paranoid when no one else around you seems to think there's anything but crazy and evil in there. 

I have never gone on a killing spree.  I have fantasized about doing so.  I've been tempted numerous times.  The world isn't a just place, and it's easy to just say "fuck it, let's burn the whole thing to the ground" rather than commit to the impossible Sisyphean task of fixing everything that's wrong with the world. 

I'm the sort of person who thinks the world ought to be reasonable, equitable, and just.  That belief crops up in almost every one of these spree killer manifestos that I see.  They look at the world, see that it isn't fair, and can't deal with that fact.  This isn't about entitlement, at least as far as their writings go.  They don't just think the world's unfair TO THEM, though that's usually what made it impossible to miss that the world was unfair.  They think the world's unfair to whole categories of people, and once those proverbial scales have been ripped from your eyes, it's a long journey of seeing all the ways the world is unfair and unreasonable. 

I was in elementary school when I got my first taste of this.  I noticed age based discrimination.  It was compulsory education I noticed first.  The problem, as I saw it, was not that I was being forced to attend school.  It was that people who lacked the knowledge base that I was supposed to be aquiring in school were not being likewise forced to attend simply because they had passed an arbitrary age line.  I considered violent revolution as a potential solution to this problem, since history classes had made it clear that was how you accomplished change on that scale.  I lacked both the martial skills and the personal charisma to organize such a revolution while in elementary school, so that plan didn't get anywhere. 

The problem I was looking at wasn't just childishy whining that I was being forced to go to school.  It was recognizing that an entire category of people, of whom I then happened to be a member, were being systematically discriminated against, and deciding that something needed to be done.  I was repeatedly told I'd change my mind as I got older, but the fact of the matter is, I'm still that young boy who saw a problem, and occasionally toys with the idea of violent revolution in order to fix it. 

The reason I never went on a shooting rampage is that I came to the conclusion it wouldn't be effective.  I've seen so many of these spree killers over the years, and each time it's the same thing.  People handwring over "what could have brought this on" and then people utterly ignore the efforts those killers made to explain exactly that, instead preferring to cynically exploit the killing spree as a means of advancing their own pet issues. 

I'm still looking for a way to fix the obvious injustices in the world.  I've eliminated random mass murder as a likely avenue.  Irrationally, I hold out hope that one of these days I'll find a tool that will work. 

Reasoning or Rationalizing

There's a difference between reasoned positions and rationalizations. Most of has have both in our mental baggage, myself included.

A reasoned position is one that you take after looking at the evidence and bowing to what the evidence tells you.When you decide on a course of action based on a reasoned position, you combine the knowledge of what the likely consequences of that action are with your own fundamental principles telling you which outcomes you'd prefer to have happen.

A rationalization isn't precisely the opposite of a reasoned position, though it's often presented as such. A rationalization happens when you pick your course of action, and then look at the evidence selectively to find things that tell you that this course of action is in accord with your fundamental principles.

These two modes of thinking can quite often lead one to the same conclusion, but rationalizations suffer from a serious risk that your actions will lead to a world that isn't as closely in accord with your fundamental principles than you would like. On the other hand, establishing reasoned positions is exhausting, requiring constant re-examination of your chosen courses of action, and the occasional devastating moment when you realize that you've been on the wrong path for some time, doing more harm than good, and needing to reverse course.

The saying "you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into" is about this divide between reasoning and rationalization.

I try to limit my rationalizations, even if I'm occasionally guilty of them. I try instead to keep my actions and principles in proper alignment, and often challenge others to do the same. One of the biggest rationalizations I've still got rattling around in my psyche is this one: I didn't reason my way into the position that I shouldn't have sex with kids. I adopted that conclusion then came up with rationalizations for why that is the correct course of action.

The evidence tells me that if I want to normalize adult-child sexual relationships, the most effective way to do so is for as many people as possible to engage in them. Stygma is removed by familiarity, and the world as a whole benefits from the progress made. If those of us who care, and who want compassionate, consensual, loving relationships weren't the ones avoiding relationships, we wouldn't have seceded the field to those individuals who don't care about love, consent, and compassion.

But to follow this course of action requires a sacrifice, and it isn't one I'd be making alone. My hypothetical lover would be put through the wringer along with me, and the idea of asking someone I care about to do that causes a nearly instinctual recoil.

But to shine the harsh light of reason on my rationalization once again, I hold as a principle that competent human beings have a right to make their own decisions, and the evidence tells me that young people are quite competent to do so. They certainly would for anyone I would consider entering into a consensual physical relationship with. So do not my principles demand that I let them agree or not based on their own will, rather than attempt to shield them from such a relationship out of a misguided protective impulse?

I don't have all the answers. I'm still struggling to put words to some of the questions. I know there's something wrong with my thinking on this one, and until I've got it sorted out, I'd rather not act. But isn't that just one more rationalization for what I was going to do anyway?

The Oppression Olympics

The perfect is the enemy of the good. 

We all see different injustices in the world.  And we all have the right and responsibility to speak out against those injustices that we see, and that are important to us.  I care a great deal about the social and political disenfranchisement of minor children in the western world. 

There are other problems in the world.  Wars, genocides, slavery, rape, starvation, epidemic diseases, as well as workplace sexual harassment, artistic censorship, and outdated traffic laws being enforced as a revenue instrument. 

We are allowed to talk about what matters to us as individuals, even if what matters to us isn't "the worst problem in the world" by whatever standard you'd care to measure it.  We're allowed to push for change on a "less important" issue even if we've never done anything to attend to a "more important" issue.  And we should all feel absolutely zero shame in doing so. 

Time spent figuring out what "the worst problem in the world" is, is time not spent fixing any problem.  Fixing even the most trivial problem in the world is more important than wastefully arguing about who's problem is worse.  Worse, by trying to draw people who are trying to fix a "minor problem" into that wasteful argument and force them to justify the time and resources they're spending on an issue, you're impeding someone who's trying to fix a problem, and making that problem harder to fix. 

People can bring different levels of commitment and effort to different causes depending on how they feel about those causes and how those causes have impacted their lives.  I can tirelessly advocate for youth rights even in the face of entrenched opposition, but my resolve gets drained quickly speaking out against a particular war. 

That isn't to say we shouldn't try to convince one another that our causes matter, or that we shouldn't oppose those advocating causes we believe are harmful or evil.  I just think it's high time we acknowledge that when we're trying to make the world a better place, following our passions and advocating for causes that matter to us personally gets more done than telling each other how unimportant the other person's cause is.