Mindless violence by children against strangers--this world is becoming a bit harder to understand. There are facile suggestions--video games, bullying, the destruction of the family--but social influences are very hard to isolate as cause. Certain small changes with big impact like the wheel, the stirrup or the short sword can be seen as factors in the movement of peoples but how does one isolate a factor the influences the behavior of an individual?
I have one: What are the implications of a child growing up in a world of complete uncertainity, where norms are discouraged to the point of irrationality and the laws of nature are beyond our reach. Even science hedges. One and one is very likely to be two. There are infinite universes but we cannot see them or examine them and never will. Everyone is equal. String theory. All of these notions might be true but they are equally beyond rational existence. Everyone knows that only five or six people understand string theory; it is not a thought, it is an equation. Everyone knows that equality doesn't exist, even between twins. The enlightenment was supposed to free us from this but we have circled back: The average man sits in a world that is as mysterious to him and as unreasonable as the world of the native worshipping the volcano god but without the reassurance of the god.
Our world is not so horrible as to drive men mad. But other times were. The Black Death, the Mongols, WWI and WWII, extermination camps--we have had a history of horrors that might make any sane man question existence. But these are not new and this behavior seems to be. Perhaps it is nothing more than a statistical blip, a couple of outliers on the bell curve getting publicity. Perhaps this has been a factor in all societies, its just that our wackos are better armed.
But it does not feel that way.
I have one: What are the implications of a child growing up in a world of complete uncertainity, where norms are discouraged to the point of irrationality and the laws of nature are beyond our reach. Even science hedges. One and one is very likely to be two. There are infinite universes but we cannot see them or examine them and never will. Everyone is equal. String theory. All of these notions might be true but they are equally beyond rational existence. Everyone knows that only five or six people understand string theory; it is not a thought, it is an equation. Everyone knows that equality doesn't exist, even between twins. The enlightenment was supposed to free us from this but we have circled back: The average man sits in a world that is as mysterious to him and as unreasonable as the world of the native worshipping the volcano god but without the reassurance of the god.
Our world is not so horrible as to drive men mad. But other times were. The Black Death, the Mongols, WWI and WWII, extermination camps--we have had a history of horrors that might make any sane man question existence. But these are not new and this behavior seems to be. Perhaps it is nothing more than a statistical blip, a couple of outliers on the bell curve getting publicity. Perhaps this has been a factor in all societies, its just that our wackos are better armed.
But it does not feel that way.
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