America's Epidemic of Massacres Is a Sign of a Collapsing Society

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://eand.co/the-ultimate-sign-of-american-collapse-489d2f204dd

There are statistics, and there are statistics. Here’s one. America’s had 20 mass shootings since the Uvalde massacre, 10 days ago. That’s two a day.

Americans, I think, see mass shootings as a social problem. They aren’t. They’re something far more abnormal — and telling — than that. Mass shootings — ultra regular ones, more than one a day — are a sign of social collapse. America’s mass shooting problem is perhaps one of the ultimate signs — and forms — of how societies collapse. They encapsulate almost perfectly how societies come undone.

The signs of American collapse are everywhere you look. From its sclerotic politics, where nothing ever gets done — except regress into theocracy and authoritarianism. To its economy — in which the average American struggles to make ends meet, lives and dies in debt — while the ultra rich grow ever richer. To its society, in which young people have little to no chance of a decent life, and downward mobility is now the norm. Right down to its culture, where Instafluencers and comic-book heroes act as numbing, dumbing agents.

It’s in this context that mass shootings should be understood. There are symptoms of a collapsing society, but none quite ring alarm bells like regular massacres.

I’d never say that mass shootings aren’t about guns. Of course they are. But they are also about so much more. They are social collapse in one dismal, gruesome act of ultraviolence.

*snip*