President Trump described the horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas as “an act of absolute evil.” For once, I wouldn’t argue with him. To gun people down, with no objective other than to kill or maim as many people as possible, is pretty well the epitome of evil. It is the ultimate denial of the humanity of others, created through the ultimate expression of power and domination. It is incomprehensible.

However, it might not be unexplainable. Now, I don’t know what was going through Stephen Paddock’s mind as he plotted his massacre. I imagine we’ll gain more insights over time. Or not. But I am willing to bet that he was an Angry White Man, aggrieved that things were not going his way (whatever way that was) and convinced that the only way to make things “right” would be through an extreme display of dominance. Read more →

The natural response to seeing video or photos of an angry mob carrying torches and shouting racist, anti-Semitic and anti-gay slogans is a sense of revulsion, and perhaps even panic. These are people who are the philosophical descendants of the folks who killed six million “unacceptable” people. And most of us know that we and/or people we love are amongst the unacceptable. We feel threatened, because we are threatened.

And when we feel threatened, our natural response is fight or flight. Our guts tell us to run away or to engage in combat. That’s our native, instinctual response. But you know who else is operating out of an instinctual response? These white men who feel a loss of power and privilege in our increasingly diverse society and fight back with a testosterone-filled fury against the perceived threats to their “right” to power and privilege. They are, of course, horrifically wrong, but they are going with their guts.

We need to respond, but we need to respond with the full weight of our minds and hearts and spirits as well as our guts. Read more →