The title is Chris Rock's response to the media's questioning of what role music and film might have played in the Columbine shootings. I like Rock's whole bit, but it recalls a paradigm shift in our culture: modernism to postmodernism, the individual to the environment, nature to nurture.
According to Ken Wilber's Integral Theory, there are four ways of looking at reality. Without delving too much into verbose explanations, I will just say that any particular view only paints a fraction of the picture.
If you haven't figured out the inspiration for this blog post then the words "Arizona" "Loughner" and "Sarah Palin crosshairs" probably have no meaning to you. Yes, I am taking about the Arizona shootings and the left-right blame game that quickly followed.
In addition to Jon Stewart and David Brooks' more eloquent takes on the tragedy, I was really moved by this piece from Robin Wright. Make no mistake, Loughner was crazy and it is hard to find a tie between him and the Glenn Beck's of the world. He made a conscious decision to start that terrible tragedy. This is the modern/nature/personal responsibility side of the argument. But Wright makes an interesting point.
"But it doesn’t matter who Loughner got the idea from or whether you consider it left wing or right wing. The point is that Americans who wildly depict other Americans as dark conspirators, as the enemy, are in fact increasing the chances, however marginally, that those Americans will be attacked."
There is no evidence that Loughner ever watched Glenn Beck's show, or even Fox News for that matter. People are certainly free to watch what they want and believe what they want. That, however, does not absolve Beck from the influences of his actions (I also hold the Keith Olbermann's of the world in the same regard).
Wright Continues:
"My own view is that if you decide to go kill a bunch of innocent people, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re not a picture of mental health. But that doesn’t sever the link between you and the people who inspired you, or insulate them from responsibility. Glenn Beck knows that there are lots of unbalanced people out there, and that his message reaches some of them.
This doesn’t make him morally culpable for the way these people react to things he says that are true. It doesn’t even make him responsible for the things he says that are false but that he sincerely believes are true. But it does make him responsible for things he says that are false and concocted to mislead gullible people."
A year or so ago the following video began circulating around the internet.
In it, we see a young, chipper, gregarious Glenn Beck. So what has changed between that guy and the teary-eyed, big-government-bogeyman, conspiracy-theory pundit we see now? Not much. Glenn Beck is doing what he has always done; utilizing a personality that sells. After seeing this video, I changed my opinion on Beck. I don't think he's crazy or stupid or believes even half of what comes out of his mouth. He's just become a master of demagoguery who knows how to tell a mass market what they want to hear.
When Beck has as strong an influence as he does, he has to be aware of the effect of his incendiary words. What people choose to expose themselves to paints a part of their environment. Not the entire picture but certainly enough to wield an influence. This is the postmodern/nurture view of reality.
So maybe political pundits had nothing to do with any of this and Loughner killed despite the knowledge of their words. Despite his apparent mental illness, however,Loughner got his conspiracy ideas from somewhere. But the question we should be asking is: do pundits give people the tools, metaphorically speaking, to commit violent acts? Is preying on the unreasonable fears and biases of a fringe political group worth the fanfare if it pushes them to hateful crimes.
So why can't he just be crazy? Because his crazy is partly due to his environment. Because we are his environment. Because to ignore our influence, is to distance ourselves from his sins. That would be the convenient thing to do, but rarely is the convenient thing the right thing.
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