Will we eventually ignore mass shootings like the crazy people in the movie Brazil?

In 1985, the artistic genius behind Monty Python's Flying Circus, Terry Gilliam, launched one of his most successful films ever in the U.S. - Brazil. I watched it the other day as part of cultural research into representations of individualism and the tensions between individual aspiration and modern social structure. Yawn.

An early scene in Gilliam's dystopian critique of failed government bureaucracy depicts a terrorist bombing at an elite, urban restaurant.

The wealthy patrons notice the bombing but ignore the aftermath unless they are injured. Away from the blast, the characters in the foreground wipe the blood spatter off their faces and clothing with their napkins and keep eating their sad ice cream scoops of futuristic, faux dinner food. 

Another bombing? Whatever. Just an irritation. What’s this world coming to?

Viewers start laughing as soon as we see the restaurant staff rush to clean up the mess but do not escort the patrons out and close the restaurant. Oh no, the elite dining show must go on. Just another bombing. Oh well. It is what it is. What a nuisance. Like a loud siren or a bird hitting the restaurant window. 

WTF? Will we ever become this twisted a society?

When the July 4th parade shooting in Highland Park, IL, took place this year, I immediately thought of this scene. I also thought of it after the Uvalde shooting.

I’m really getting tired of thinking about this distasteful fictional satire.

MASS SHOOTINGS DON'T TERRIFY US THE RIGHT WAY

Most of us do not take public terrorism for granted as a part of everyday life like the elitist, self-involved characters in Brazil. When mass shootings happen (almost once a month now), we generally focus our full attention on the victims and spend virtually no time examining how our society contributes to the creation of these events.

Mass shootings are still statistically rare compared to actual homicides (the latter happening ~15,000 per year according to the FBI). When you define mass shootings properly, as public shootings of three or more strangers unknown to the shooter, there have only been six so far this year, not the hundreds you read about in poorly written articles (the numbers explode when you include shootings between gangs and organized crime rivals). As the data compiled by Mother Jones has revealed, the annual mass shootings have increased proportionally in the last twenty years. A lot. So, something is going on. It's not some blip related to a temporary macroeconomic shock or volcanic activity.

Mass shootings rarely happened during the 1980s when I was coming of age, which is why I don't remember reacting to any. The America I grew up in didn't experience public terrorism at all. Interestingly, 9/11 marked the beginning of the acceleration of confirmed mass acts of terrorism aimed at an anonymous American public.

Yet, the homicide rate per capita has declined quite a bit from the violent peak of the 1970s and 1980s (despite a recent, worrisome uptick).  

Homicide per capita declined in the past 25 years.

Mass shootings per capita increased (a lot, actually, despite the small numbers involved).

Not such a simple narrative, Stephen Pinker, now is it?

Mass acts of terrorism are visually gripping. But I suspect that what terrifies us the most is the idea that we, the anonymous public, could be the target whenever we leave the house.

This mass-mediated fear is overblown but is an expanded version of the fear of the serial killer from the 1960s-1990s (also rare and now almost non-existent). 

As usual, we and the media focus on the horrifying symptom we can see, because of its visceral horror, without looking into its sociological origins.

Yes, the easy availability of guns is a huge contributor.

Even with a gun, though, you need a predisposed body to seek one out and use it in a mass shooting.

And the most recent research on mass shootings suggests what should be a more horrifying truth to all of us than our easy access to AR-15 rifles. 

Mass shootings are theatrical acts of suicide, the most extreme possible form of suicide (or suicide attempt) caused by near total alienation and hopelessness. The brilliant work of Jillian Peterson and James Densely has brought this to our recognition from the perspective of psychology.

I want to make a lower lumbar spinal analogy (due to my age) if you don't mind. Suicidal ideation is a bulging spinal disc (common). Mass shootings are a complete slippage followed by spinal paralysis (super rare). 

MASS SHOOTINGS ARE A COLLECTIVE SCREAM FROM AMERICA’S BROKEN MIDDLE-CLASS HOMES

Unlike the authors above, I see the origins of mass shootings in deeper currents of social change, specifically, as the consequence of multiple, converging social trends since the end of World War II. 

I'll leave you with one causal variable to provoke your thought about the rise in suicide more generally and the rise in mass shootings, its most extreme form. 

The rise of the nuclear family and the nuclear family suburban residence; defined here as 4-5 folks living in a wooden/concrete box with lots of accidental soundproofing (insulation).

It's doubtful you will be walking in front of a home precisely when an abusive husband nearby is smacking his wife around the kitchen. You'd have to time it perfectly to catch her initial scream before she becomes so terrified she shuts up. 

If you heard it and didn't know the couple, you'd be tempted to write it off as 'none of your business.' The fact that there is a social category known as "neighbors I don't know at all" is another major social trend since WWII contributing to the problem of abusers who abuse with impunity and no meaningful social intervention.

But, let's face it, you don't walk much in the neighborhood anyways. 

How many minutes per week could such incidental perambulatory surveillance possibly involve vs. the minutes available per week to an abusive man living inside any of the hundreds of homes you walk by?

Scared? More scared of this than being struck in a mass shooting? Yes, you should be because the origin of suicide for most adults is an abusive home. And abuse thrives in isolated nuclear family homes where no one knows what is happening. Even if they care.

Thinking this is a causal stretch?

According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, twelve million adults get physically abused by their sexual partners every year. And this doesn't include the kids in abusive homes.

But it's abuse that generates the kind of hopelessness (often indirectly compounded by poor school performance) that can lead to suicidal ideation. And we are horrible at intervening when red flags appear. Pathetic and cowardly.

Are you tired of mass shootings? You should be wary of the extent of suicidal ideation in our affluent society.

So, get to know your neighbors well. And their kids. Intervene, if necessary. Help kids get help, even if their parents won't. America needs more busybodies, not fewer. And indeed, not the help of the local police department (as currently structured as it is like an anti-riot organization).