"What shall we do now?" (re. the UCSB shootings)

[Laelth]

68. It is not our responsibility to fix all the "broken" people of the world.

The following post is cross-posted from this thread in which two people who acknowledge that men are "fearful" argue, in turn, that it's not our responsibility to do anything about these fears. I cross-posted my response here in order to keep my thoughts on this subject on the same page.

I agree that it is not our responsibility to fix all the "broken" people of the world.

However, putting aside my dislike of the word "broken," and assuming that we're talking about "fearful" men, it may still be in our best interests to address the fears of these men, even if it's not our responsibility. That, in essence, is the argument I make here.

The idea I am exploring is this:

I see this whole mess as a gender issue--as a backlash against the enormous gains in power that women have made over the past century. I see our obsession with guns as a lame and futile attempt to re-assert some kind of "masculine" power. I see the success of right-wing parties in Europe as a product of the same backlash. In fact, I see the political success of the modern Republican Party as a result of the same, underlying issue.

If I am right, and these "fears" we are discussing are part of a culture-wide backlash, then shouldn't we address this, even if it's not our responsibility to do so? That's the strategy I am pondering, in any event. I want to find a way to get people to stop voting against their best interests, and the "fears" we are discussing, according to the theory I am toying with, are the primary cause of the counter-productive voting pattern we see among working class men (and the women who love them) who vote for the o-so-manly Republican Party.

Is it not in our best interests to try to change this voting pattern?

-Laelth