Violence is omnipresent. It feels like every day I awaken to see a new horror, some new offense against humanity itself. Go online and you will find people in front of green screens going off on righteous polemics and sharing kitschy infographics, outraged by the tragedy, only to drop it within a week. We have unconsciously developed a ritualized outrage cycle about as helpful as stabbing a voodoo doll. Apathy seems to win over indignation at every turn.
It feels inherently silly to need to say things like, “we shouldn’t be needlessly killing people.” Revulsion to murder is the level of obvious moralizing I was taught as a 6-year-old in Sunday school. But for a nation with the awesome power to prevent mass death, the United States sure seems to be nihilistically apathetic to human life.
- Aiden Williams
In our pursuit of politics, our goal is life and dignity. And it seems we’ve grossly lost our way. American politics and government are born out of our respect for protecting rights and dignity. But when we name-call, attack and flip every tragedy into political gain, we lose our way.
And we’re just tired. College students are emotionally exhausted by the never-ending news feeds of death and fear, with images depicting injury and captions telling me I’m complacent in its death and fear. We unite in protecting our right to life, and yet, I feel marginally sidelined for my irrational anger and annoyances at the constant media plague of death and destruction.
From the exhaustion of constant guilt for the seemingly weekly mass shootings to the baseless killing of Charlie Kirk, the defenses and ammunition I thought I had against moral and political talk have proved limp against my emotional exhaustion, fueling an endless cycle of guilt. Kirk’s death was the blazing tip of a monstrous iceberg. The grossness of the finger-pointing and shaming in the comments of the unnecessary, amoral video left me ill.
America is not at war, yet we’re under attack. Sooner or later, the growing, suppressed anger of political engagement would bubble over into civil chaos. We must start now before more words become larger bullseyes.
Let this death be a reason for us to put down our pitchforks and torches and realize there is a life behind the eyes you seethe.
- Zaina Jasser
The most obvious example on the global stage right now is the U.S.’s ongoing support and funding of the Israeli government’s bombardment of Gaza.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that there have been over 64,000 fatalities in Gaza and that millions are without water or shelter as they face a famine. More bluntly, a UN commission found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a conclusion also reached by the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
Which makes it all the more baffling that for two years now, I have heard a smorgasbord of apologetics, both moral and political, to excuse the actions of the Israel Defense Force. It is insane. There is no possible justification for the massacre of 18,500 children in Gaza. A number of casualties so staggering that it took Catholic Cardinal Matteo Zuppi 7 hours to read 12,000 of those names aloud. How anyone with a functioning conscience can try to deny, let alone support what is happening in Gaza is beyond me.
The only explanation I can muster is that we must live in the nightmarish bizarro world, as somehow the Israeli government has received bi-partisan support from Democrats and Republicans. We’re currently in our second presidential administration that has supported Israel’s bombardment.
We’ve been trained our whole lives to look at mass death in a political sense and suppress our natural gag reflexes. Acknowledging that Palestinians are human beings endowed with the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is treated as some sort of contentious political hot-take. But I want to hold out hope that we aren’t so apathetic and blinded by our binary political system that we have lost our natural capacity for empathy.
- Aiden Williams
In the era of excess connection, sometimes disconnection is best. I choose to disconnect from the angering news feeds; I disengage from “did you see what happened?” conversations that want me to think and feel some way. For the sake of my own emotional health — for the sake of my clarity, protection and individuality, I extend my opinion only after long thought and knowing my audience.
Social media inherently fuels a short, sound-bite-esque narrative: you’ve got a few characters and as much emotional charge as possible to get traction. Politics is impeded by character limits. We throw gasoline into a fire of rage as we turn deservingly complex, multifaceted arguments about the world’s affairs into character limits of emotional baiting. Not only is this an injustice to the complexity of politics, but it fuels rage, anxiety, fear and even depression among college students who look upon the cynical valley of a burning adulthood that they enter anew.
Learned helplessness: when the emotional exhaustion of trying becomes pointless as one realizes there is no point in trying. I do not want to let this define me.
- Zaina Jasser
Even domestically, Americans are willing to overlook the mass death of our fellow countrymen.
What type of first-world country has an endemic gun violence problem? I can remember exactly where I was when Sandy Hook happened. I was in math class when my teacher, for reasons I still cannot discern, broke the news to the room of 10-year-olds. In my naive protoplasmic soup brain, I believed the government would do everything in its power to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. But nope, not even remotely close. There is no sanctuary from firearms, as now our schools and houses of worship are target ranges for deluded monsters.
Gun violence is an issue that affects every American of every sexual orientation, gender identity, race, ethnicity, ability, age group and income bracket. It does not matter if you’re Catholic or a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you’re an atheist, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim or Wiccan, bullets do not discriminate. And what have we done in recent memory to stop or even minimize gun violence? Nothing.
As we are all well aware, right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk was shot and killed in Utah with video of his final moments being widely circulated. A common refrain I heard both in person and read online was something along the lines of “I thought I was pretty desensitized to violence, but then I saw the video.” It was the most straightforward admission I have ever heard that we as a society are perfectly willing to overlook violence so long as we are not personally affected. But the horror of the video was undeniable; no sensible person could deny Kirk’s humanity.
Hearing and reading about violence is abstract. That’s why it’s so easy for people to justify and overlook. When actually confronted by the reality of what violence looks like, it reminds us that actual, unsimulated violence is worse than you could possibly imagine.
- Aiden Williams
I may sit in the guilt of inaction; where others see cowardice, I see strategic protection. I am not giving up on my country; I do not give up on my voice and my democracy. For now, I simply choose myself and my life in a state of online rage-baiting and a disgusting lack of dignity for a gorgeous life.
When war and death happen incessantly and grossly indignified elsewhere, my heart aches beyond the debilitating feeling of helplessness. And still, at the end of the day, when I’ve said my peace and given my arguments, I disengage from the shame, guilt, fear, embarrassment and exhaustion. I give my so-called bloodied hands to those elsewhere. So, please, let us stay informed and impassioned but never fearfully exhausted. I cannot defend you if I am exhausted.
- Zaina Jasser
Seemingly, Kirk’s assassination has reminded a lot of Americans that human life has inherent value. 63,000 people turned up for Kirk’s memorial service, with an outpouring of grief that seemed to try to elevate him to sainthood.
Human life is not a game. Civilians are not pawns you can afford to lose to get a clearer shot at the king piece. Every death I have mentioned so far has been entirely preventable. But so long as our leadership favors realpolitik over humanity, needless death will continue.
- Aiden Williams
I enact a form of political dignity: I think on my values, enact where I can make change and when nothing fits, I allow myself to disengage. I end up with a cycle of respecting others’ dignity and then placing my own in place when stakes reasonably exceed my wellbeing. I encourage you to consider doing the same. The worth of human life deserves more.
- Zaina Jasser
