H2O Man Survey #39

[LWolf]

56. I think it is, for the most part, a cultural problem.

This nation glorifies violence in many different ways. It's embedded. The nation takes pride in our military, expects us to be the big bully on the block globally, likes "action" movies that are almost always violent, likes violent games, and generally takes pride in being bullies while complaining about bullying at school.

We're all about competition. We look down on others, use put downs to put ourselves up, as a matter of course. Put downs are considered jokes, as well, so when we aren't blatant, we're passive/aggressive about it.

We're about the "bootstraps" thing, and expecting people to survive on their own. The only kind of "charity" we approve of is church-sponsored. When something goes wrong, it's always somebody else's fault, unless it went wrong with somebody else, and then it's their own fault.

When I say "we," I don't mean DU or any other individual or subgroup. I'm talking about the attitudes and values saturated so deeply into our culture that it's part of our identity without even being aware of it. Those who are aware are struggling upstream with dam after dam after dam in the way.

There is, for many, a sense of desperation, hopelessness, helplessness, depression and anger that feeds the lashing out. For some, violence is a way to establish a territory and protect it, or to claim existence, to be visible, in a world that doesn't fit or accept them.

Fear and hate are expressed in a myriad of ways, but I think that's at the bottom of our national violent nature.