Why Couldn't I Help You?
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
- Chief Seattle
When I see in the news about attacks on our society that come from those “out there” who criticize and blame our American or western ideals, I wonder what ideals are fostered in their environment that they would sacrifice their life for, let alone kill other innocent lives. But when it comes from someone within our community – I’ve got to wonder what is it about our culture, about our society, that drives these persons to the brink of killing others, as well as themselves?
The fodder for this post is a result of my seeking to go within myself to see what could help me understand how someone in my community might get to such an extreme state of mind without my knowing. I wondered…am I too busy to care? Am I so distracted by my cell phone and urgent to do list that I ignore a man’s cries for help? Do I pass his slowing car in an aggravated moment rather than patiently, lovingly follow behind? I hope I will think twice next time I pass a stranger who looks to be alone and offer to be a friend rather than fear his or her rejection. I’d rather be rejected knowing that I tried to help rather than be in a hurry because my to-do list is more urgent than caring for another person. Regardless, I now find myself inconsolable for those tragic deaths and the loss of loved ones, and my heart hurts for all those injured or who witnessed such a horrific and frightening event.
Why Did This Happen?
I don’t know if we will ever know why, but what I do believe is that individuals such as we witnessed today often times act out not as a result of mental instability, as we would like to think, but rather because they are angry at a society who has so much to offer, but instead chooses to no longer value them. They feel abandoned, dismissed, and are angry so they take their skills, volition, and sense of purpose that should have gone into their community – and instead, they unleash it onto their community.
The Navajo Indians have a term for people such as this as this is the sort of person they feared most. The term is called Skinwalker, a name given to people who hold acts of violence against their own tribe. Virtually every culture in the world has some legend, fairytale, or story of Skinwalkers in their culture because all societies fear these people the most. In Europe they were called werewolves, meaning literally the wolf-man in old English. Regardless of what you may call these people, they address a fundamental fear in human society – that we may be able to defend against our external enemies, but we are still vulnerable to the ones inside, especially inside ourselves.
Sebastian Junger writes, in his 2016 book “Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging” (which I highly recommend):
It may be worth considering whether middle-class American life - for all its material fortune - has lost some essential sense of unity that might otherwise discourage alienated men from turning apocalyptically violent.
In his book, Sebastian asks a very poignant and honest question, one which is also at the basis of my Ph.D. research:
How do you become an adult in a society that doesn't ask for sacrifice? How do you become a man in a world that doesn't require courage?
It would appear that for all our wealth, accumulation, and hard work – we are the most depressed nation in the world (read my blog titled ‘A Modern World in Need of Initiation‘). When a human lives his or her life today without any need to rely on the help and resources of her community, they are leading a life in a manner that falls way outside the boundaries of our history. Humans aren’t built to be independent, we are designed for interdependence, a reciprocal balance of giving and receiving. “Financial independence can lead to isolation, and isolation can put people at a greatly increased risk of depression, suicide, or other acts of violence” – and we see this today in our culture already. (Harari, 2016).
Abraham Maslow reminds us that the role of one’s environment is to help him to actualize his own potentialities, not its potentialities.
One's environment does not give him potentialities and capacities; he has them in embryonic form...Creativeness, spontaneity, caring for others, being able to love, yearning for truth are potentialities belonging to his species-membership just as are his arms, legs, eyes...
- Abraham Maslow
Yet we find our contemporary way of being overwhelming in many ways such as the emergence of large nations and cities, the distractions of technology, the influence of media, the distancing from the natural world, the collapse of the basic community social unit, the dehumanizing pressure of modern life, and many other factors – all which contribute to the weakening of traditional values of being human. “The careful, ritual footprints left by our ancestors have been paved over by the traffic of modern civilization…these changes have tended to drain life of meaningful spiritual or mythical content, the “old ways” are glaringly apparent by their absence” (Foster & Little). The longer we live in denial of our individual ways, the more disconnected and frightened from those things around us we become on the collective level and, as Carl Jung points out, “this distress we banish doesn’t go away but rather gets acted out on the stage of history for all humanity”.
So our question ought to not be why did he do it, but rather what did we do or not do which brought him to this point? Most mental disorders are rooted in causes of isolation and fear – most healings and recovery are found in community.
Where was his? Where was I?
