The Atlantic just published a gem of an essay by Elizabeth Bruenig entitled A Culture That Kills Its Children Has No Future which rails against Americans, generally, for being nihilistic trash. It really resonated with me after spending the last 5 years working against fascism and trying (mostly without success) to get liberals to help with that project. As you might have guessed, Bruenig is focused on the truly horrific massacre of children at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas; yes, two adults were killed, too, but it is the children that really get to me, and — I expect — you, too. Bruenig’s position is a simple one we’ve heard before, and unlike the position of conservatives, isn’t completely insane — she wants a gun ban.
What I find interesting about the essay, though, is that it is a window into a moment when a smart, but privileged liberal almost sees through to the core problem and her own complicity. The answer is right there at her fingertips, but she doesn’t seem to quite get it. Let’s look at where she missed it. In a paragraph where she explains that Americans have given up on the future, she says, “Some say the planet is dying and we’re already living on borrowed time.” Some say? This isn’t an opinion anymore. Factually, if we keep living like we are living now, the human race will be destroyed, and it is clear that we will keep living like we are living now — there is absolutely no significant political force in the US or the world that can possibly change either of those facts. This should be the heart of any discussion about American nihilism, but Bruenig hasn’t quite gotten there yet.
But she’s almost got it. “American life isn’t about what is good but is rather about nothing at all (which is, at least, broadly inoffensive and inclusive of most tastes and creeds) or about violence itself.” She notes that mass murder is really a subset of gun violence, but doesn’t expand out far enough to realize that everything we are doing is about the destruction of life, and in that context — where literally Earth’s ecosphere is becoming unbalanced and the entire human species will be destroyed along with most other life — that the nihilistic resignation over 19 children murdered is so very small.
The last children born on this planet won’t live very long. They’ll be born to starving mothers who won’t be able to feed them. In a world where there’s no hope, those mothers will have to make the hardest decisions. It’s probably going to be millions of children. Humans don’t really become conscious until another 2 to 5 months after they are born; maybe, those children won’t ever be aware of what’s happening in the world. Their mothers will be. If you tell one of those mothers about the 19 children killed in Uvalde in 2022, she will be bitterly jealous that those children had so many years of happiness before being snuffed out by psychopathy.
The mainstream Democratic party and mainstream Democratic party voters have consistently mocked and marginalized environmentalists. They’re treated like crazy people and nearly all pro-environment Democratic party policies are merely bait to get “the left” to vote Democrat and are immediately shelved as “not pragmatic”. Because, apparently, ending all human life is way more pragmatic. I’m joking, of course — Democrats, like Republicans, do not understand climate change and therefore do not understand the scale of the predicament.
The environment isn’t the only area where Democrats participate in the culture of death, but it is the most important.
To get back to Uvalde, we’re learning more and more about how the cops completely failed. Instead of doing their jobs — in this case, hunting down the killer and ending him — they chose to stay out of range and spent their time pepper spraying parents who were trying to get into the building to save their children. Based on how they keep changing their story, I think we will find that the police significantly contributed to the body count through their cowardice and incompetence. Meanwhile, Joe Biden — the same Joe Biden who does not care about climate change — is refusing to question the actions of police. Interestingly, Fox News is questioning their actions.
Joe Biden is the manifestation of the Democratic Party’s nihilistic resignation just as Donald Trump is the manifestation of the Republican Party’s fascistic rage. If you voted for either in the primary, you voted for the end of humanity. Some of that end will happen through single bullets launched by psychopaths, some of that end will be through huge, systemic processes — but you contributed to both. A vote for Joe Biden in the primary was actively a vote of nihilistic resignation. That vote told the world that you don’t believe humanity can be any better, that it is inevitable that we will end ourselves.
“But if we just got rid of all the guns–“
I honestly don’t know where to start with that because this fantasy of getting rid of the guns isn’t possible. It’s no more possible than my fantasy of not killing all of humanity with climate change. It’s not going to happen, yet it is simple in terms of what is required. I guess we could start at the (theoretically) most easy and obvious idea: Just making people pass an effective background check for all gun transfers. My reading of the data indicates that this might essentially end school massacres, specifically. However, this misses the whole point where 30% of American adults are actively hallucinating some kind of global conspiracy of non-white people (helmed by Jewish people or possibly Satanists) and have concluded that only multiple genocides will make the world right again. In that context, you are not going to achieve universal background checks. I mean — if you stop allowing dangerous people to buy guns, then how will the Patriots cleanse the nation?
The people who want to give up have been coming up with some really sad “solutions” lately. Dissolving the union — separating the United States into blocks of either red or blue states — is a recurring theme. There’s even talk of relocating people who are in a state of the wrong color relative to their views. This is not going to work. Even if you were to achieve the breakup, the fascists won’t be stopped from coming for you. Moreover, the Democratic Party isn’t that much better than the Republican Party in practice, human rights violations will continue in the red states, the red states would be financially devastated without the flow of tax money from blue to red and would blame the new blue nations, the red states would likely have nukes and a much bigger military. There’s only one way to deal with fascists — you have to fight them.
The Democratic Party is not willing to fight them because they are the party of nihilistic resignation. If you don’t fight fascists, they will inevitably destroy you. “It’s just not practical” is the refrain of the song sung by the resigning nihilist. One of the verses goes, “That’s utopian!” Literally, any suggestion for improving the world is utopian to the resigning nihilist.
Do you want to end violence?
First, end poverty. We can do that any time we want to. Americans just don’t want to because they are equal parts cynical cowards and enraged fascists. Both halves are sprinkled with narcissism.
Second, truly value children and their parents — especially primary caregivers (typically, this means mothers).
Third, ensure that everyone has mental health services and medical care.
Fourth, end state violence. You do realize that most police are fascists and the rest are quite literally going along with fascism, right? You saw how useful police were in Uvalde, right? Though I certainly would not suggest that we completely defund the police today, in the long term, the police are a waste of money at best and truly counterproductive.
There you go. You’ve ended violence. It was much easier (and therefore more pragmatic) than getting rid of all the guns!
Can we save the planet next?
Related: Their Guns Won’t Protect You, but They Can Get You Killed:
Why Neither Policing nor Gun Control Will Suffice to Stop the Shootings (CrimeThinc.com)