As you know I am reluctant to comment on other cultures and nations given that the UK has nothing to boast about. I have, however, been reflecting on the concept of socialisation in the aftermath of the Las Vegas tragedy. Very little shocks me but I listened in disbelief to the arguments of several defenders of the American gun culture and they struck me as being so irrational that they verge on the insane. What was completely unacceptable was the response of the 45. In terms of leadership, people like 45 will go to any length to defend the rights of people to bear and carry arms, but stay completely silent on the right to life, and the right to be safe in your daily life from indiscriminate murder. In addition, if that was not an act of terror, then nothing can be designated terrorist, but then again the terrorist in this instance was white, so that makes this crime something else. The United States is not alone in this racist view of course. White Anglo-Saxons can never be terrorists and the British share that view. It is helped of course that they claim to be Christian.
Many people have made the point that the Second Amendment to the Constitution must be viewed in its historical setting and should not be taken literally. Guns didn't even have rifling when that was written and were incapable of firing 100 shots per minute, which brings me back to socialisation because all of the evidence I have seen over many years appears to suggest that Americans are impervious to any nuance or relativist argument. We have a right to as many guns, of whatever make and calibre and an inexhaustible supply of ammunition for them as we can afford, simples. American culture is radically different from European in this respect and so there is simply no comparison, nor genuine understanding of this fundamental cultural and normative difference towards guns, mass murder and the seeming indifference in the USA to the psychopathy involved in gun culture. I actually thought that the killing of their children at Sandy Hook would permeate the American consciousness to the extent that they would be motivated by that most fundamental human instinct, the protection of one's offspring, but their dedication to guns has proven to be a greater force than their dedication to their children. A report on CNN noted that more Americans have been killed by their fellow Americans than all of the Americans killed in all of America's wars. That should surely give pause for reflection. More Americans have died than were victims of the Wehrmacht and the Vietcong combined without considering any other conflicts. Perhaps it is time that the Second Amendment was amended?
This cultural aspect of American life strikes me as a form of addiction, an illness that plagues the body politic. Socialisation is an extremely powerful human phenomenon that can blind us to many things, but particularly to reality. That was one of the lessons of Plato's analogy of the Cave and was famously characterised by Francis Bacon in his theories about the idols of the mind, as he tells us that "the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence, nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture" What is of great concern to me is that, as Britain becomes more and more a reflection of the United States, we fall under the same perverted fascination with guns and they become more and more normalised until we too claim a 'right' to bear and carry them. If the reality that the consequences of a literal translation of the Second Amendment are a far greater threat to America's future than either Hitler or Ho Chi Minh does not begin to register with the American consciousness then they are indeed facing a truly dystopian future. You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
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