CMV: mass shootings are essential to the continuation of American culture

[madd0ct0r]

Tongue slightly in cheek here, slightly.

The USA has a culture of idealizing rugged individualism, military figures and service and a sense of exceptionalism that would be called insular and isolationist if were a smaller landmass.
It has had successive generations of men growing up with military experience, and bringing that experience home in the years afterwards, shaping a macho warrior man culture where you need to have served to be accepted to, to be a real man. WW2, where did you serve? Vietnam? Iraq? Which one?

The military industry complex directly and indirectly shapes the media, with impact ranging from films set on military bases irrespective of genre (Pitch Perfect 3?) to toys for children (GI Joe). Of course, one it a product of the War on Terror, the other the Cold War. There is always space for the hard man soldier in the archetype of Man I'd Like To Be. The rhetoric seeps through. You don't get burgled, you suffer a 'home invasion'. You don't volunteer at a charity, you donate. Volunteering is reserved, and a reserve is not a park, it's a man waiting to be sent to fight for his country while his kids sit at home playing out cold war fantasies on CoD.

And this brings me to the last point. The Cold War shaped a lot of people growing up. They remember duck and cover practice at school, hiding under desks waiting for uncertain oblivion to rain down any moment. Those kids are now caring for families of their own. Their outlook on the world, be it frantic or hedonistic, is shaped by that deeply instilled fear. Without an enemy on the outside, they might look up, take pause, catch their breath and question why their lives are so much worse then elsewhere in the developed world. That's not the american way!

And so we need to ensure the current generation keep that sense of fear, of dread, that other people, somewhere want to kill you for no reason. It is a noble cause that the mass shooters have stepped up for, to lay their lives (and a bunch of other people's) down to ensure the continuation of the american way. To grow up scared and short termistic.

[Gandalf]

CMV?

[madd0ct0r]

Change my View. Reddit slang.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

I'm not arguing with your bigger picture, but a "home invasion" is not the same thing as a burglary, which is a term still used. "Home invasion" is typically used when criminals break into a home while the inhabitants are present and tend to target them to some degree as opposed to only stealing things. Perhaps burglary used to be a much broader term that covered home invasions, but today there is enough of a difference in terms of the crimes and the effects on the victims to warrant another term to differentiate them.

[madd0ct0r]

That is one of the bleaker things ive written

[K. A. Pital]

That is if you think this is culture. It is to me a violent aberration that must go with the betterment of American culture.

[bilateralrope]

That is one of the bleaker things ive written

Do you want bleaker ?

My first thought when seeing the title of this thread was that you had found someone who seriously held the view you outlined in your post.

[SpottedKitty]

Tongue slightly in cheek here, slightly.

So, it's actually a Modest Proposal...?

[Zaune]

That is if you think this is culture. It is to me a violent aberration that must go with the betterment of American culture.

There's no rule that says all cultural traits and practices have to be positive to be an integral part of what makes an ethnic or national group who they are. I mean, I come from a culture that has an inviolable and widely internalised system of classism that is to all intents and purposes a caste system: Would we be infinitely better off if that was forcibly done away with? Yes. Would it also irrevocably destroy a crucial part of who we are and how we understand the world? Also yes.

[K. A. Pital]

I know culture can have negative and yet still irreplaceable elements, the attempt to dismantle which would lead to its cessation.

I just think the US culture is much broader than just guns. This is obvious in the US emigrant communities which can live in cultural enclaves similar to the US itself, but without actual gun violence in Europe.

So I am questioning the essentiality.