In the mid-nineteen-eighties, while contemplating two post-graduate opportunities, I needed to earn some fast cash so I thought I’d give selling cars a try. Why not? From a young age I had a love of cars, motorcycles, and airplanes. And camping. In fact, I’ve traveled through 41 of 50 states, camped in a fair percentage of them, and once even worked at a motor-home dealer in the Pacific Northwest detailing rigs. After a few months, I worked my way up to sales and sold my first motorhome to some Seventh Day Adventists on my eighteenth birthday.
Oh man. I have so many stories. My coworkers were mechanics who were Hells Angels. I stopped two of them one day from abusing a stray cat that I later adopted, even though I hated cats at the time. Although I earned the respect of those bikers, I’m sure things would have escalated if they didn’t have more respect for my older brother, an ex-jungle fighter who’s crazy like a fox and quicker than a Puff Adder.
A portrait of James Holmes is beginning to reveal itself. Personally, I feel what has been revealed about his life should make people more worried. At least with the Tucson murders we could comfort ourselves with the fact that Jared Loughner was clearly a crazed lunatic and his background revealed multiple signs that he would eventually do something crazy. We could blame the system, his parents, drugs, or mental illness. It made us feel safer to rationalize the behavior of a lunatic. But this time something is different.
This kid was brought up in a normal household in San Diego with what appear to be normal parents. He was an athlete who played on the football and soccer teams in high school. He was on the quiet side, but had friends. He worked as a counselor for underpriveleged kids. He liked video games. He was very smart. He graduated from college at the top of his class with a degree in neuroscience, not some worthless liberal arts degree that we like to scorn. But he couldn’t find a job after college. He was forced to work at a McDonalds. Then he tried to hide out in Grad School in Denver, far away from his family and friends.
Now this is why you should be worried. How many young people fit this description? My guess is hundreds of thousands. They did everything right. They listened to their parents. They didn’t get into trouble. They did well in school. They had pretty high self esteem. Then they graduated from college and the real world beckoned. But the country has been gutted by the warfare, welfare, Wall Street policies over the last three decades. There are few if any decent jobs for even the brightest young people. Over the last two years this kid has been holed up in his tiny apartment, accumulating more student loan debt, and getting progressively more depressed and bitter at the world. He’s done everything he thought he needed to do to become successful, but he’s a failure. He keeps asking himself why, but there is no logical answer. The anger against society builds until his mind is overwhelmed with thoughts of revenge against somebody and everybody. Something snapped after months of depression, anger and disillusionment with our unfair system.
There are reports that he was dressed like the Joker. The Dark Knight series of movies are particularly bleak, dark, violent, and not particularly optimistic about our future. People are desperately seeking some sort of logical motive for this mass murder. They will not find one. There is a scene in the first Dark Knight movie that captures the essence of what James Holmes did. This quote from Alfred says it all:
“Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
No comfort can be gained by categorizing James Holmes as a lunatic. He wasn’t a lunatic for the first 22 years of his life. Did our warped society create the lunatic? Did our economic system that rewards financial criminals, corrupt politicians, and mega-corporations create the lunatic? Did our suburban sprawl, faceless, nameless, materialistic, greedy society create the lunatic? Admit it. The biography of this kid matches many 24 year olds that you know. It might even match the biography of your own son. That is why you should worry. It seems the discussion is already centered around gun control and whether someone with a gun could have prevented this tragedy. I’m not surprised. These are things that we have control over. No one wants to talk about why a seemingly normal young person could snap. We better get a handle on that question, because there are hundreds of thousands of men like James Holmes out there facing the exact same circumstances.
So much for funny Friday. I woke up to the news below. A crazed gunman methodically and systematically slaughtered 14 young people and wounded 50 others at the midnight opening of The Dark Knight Rises. He had multiple weapons and used tear gas to disorient his victims before murdering them. It was clear that he planned this well in advance. The authorities have not released his name or any details about his motive. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess his background. I bet he is a 20 year old white guy. We will find out he was a loner in high school. He never had a girlfriend and had few or no friends. His parents are probably divorced. He doesn’t have a job. He’s felt alienated from society and has been living in a fantasy world for years. Somebody probably assessed his mental state within the last two years and concluded he was a danger to himself and others, but the system did nothing. In retrospect, there will be a list of clear signs that he would eventually go off, but no one wanted to get involved.
I think his choice of this movie was purposeful. He didn’t choose Hangover 2. He chose a movie about alienation, pain, societal collapse and darkness. This was done as a statement about our increasingly degenerative society. People communicate on electronic devices. We hole up in our houses or apartments, cut off from human contact. There are evil villians sucking the last vestiges of wealth from the lowly serfs. The anger, pain and disillusion are palpable throughout society. People are confused. They can’t figure out the enemy. Government can’t protect you. Government is the main reason for this alienation. The kneejerk reaction of the liberal dogooders will be to ban guns, as if guns caused this slaughter. Banning guns will not stop the slow methodical decline of our society. It is much larger than guns. It is our entire culture. Materialism, greed, selfishness, profit at any cost, isolation, lack of personal responsibility, and delusional willfull ignorance have overwhelmed our country.
Fourth Turnings always reach a climax when those on the perceived side of good have a final showdown with the perceived side of evil. We are likely a few years from this showdown, but there is no guarantee that good will vanquish evil. A revolution is on the horizon. Everyone will need to choose sides. There will be no one allowed to stand on the sidelines.
My son and his friends went to the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises last night. He arrived home safely. My heart goes out to the mothers and fathers in Colorado whose children will never return.
