I'm reviewing the new As I Lay Dying album right now... It's intense, but chapter 5 of this book is possibly even more brutal than the sounds I'm hearing.
McManus talks about how sometimes we feel unloved or that "there is no place for us in the world," we choose isolation. It's a way to "get back" at the world for not loving us or to "get them before they get us." When someone asks themselves, "Does anyone really care?" And if/when they conclude that the answer is "no," then they decide to join those ranks and not care for anyone else, either. "Sometimes we take this so far that we decide the only way not to feel pain is to inflict it."
Wow. That's dark. McManus talks about the Unabomber, who chose a life of isolation and chose to destroy others. Harris and Klebold must've given up on love, to plan on destroying as much life as they could before their own.
"The more we live disconnected lives, the more we become indifferent to the well-being of others." That makes sense. Community programs and reviving the family is really a huge step in the right direction. When someone is really involved in a community (an extended "family") they are much healthier and surely less likely to isolate ourselves and choose violence.
"When there is disengagement from human community,
there is the potential for inhumanity."
That is an understatement. I love his next quote:
"The human heart
was not created
to be a container
for hate."
Wow. Tonight is either the national "Family Night Out" or it's just regional in our area. But there are parties planned in neighborhoods everywhere around here. I plan on taking in a movie at the park. They'll be showing "We Are Marshall" at Fritz Park in Hutto. That will be a community-building event. It's interesting, insightful and practical how having something of interest (a movie) will motivate people to come together.
Treating art like a "tool" or "bait" to bring people together can be taken to an extreme and cheapen art (I guess the error comes in only viewing art and its value through that one lens), but certainly it can serve that purpose, too.
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at August 7, 2007 09:40 AM