ffwhite | On Pathos, making art to solve a problem, and actually solving a problem

I have experienced school violence. In 1994, a concrete drinking fountain packed with explosives detonated in the quad of my high school. I was walking onto campus at the time, and watched the plume of smoke rise from behind the science building. (see Explosion at Gunn injures 18) People I had been in class with for many years, even though I was a drop-out, were badly burned. Robby Roberts, the kid we all knew would do such a thing, advertised the chemical formula for his bomb in his senior box in the school yearbook. We all noticed him, knew he might do something crazy, and missed our chance to avert tragedy. The circumstances surrounding the explosion were quite subtle and complicated, but the fact remains. We failed. We failed despite many suicides on the Cal train tracks. We failed despite the unrest in our student body with the school’s policies. We failed to recognize what the mounting racial tension at our school meant. We failed to intervene. As students, we were all competing to graduate with honors or get that guy or girl of our dreams, and as educators we were busy keeping our jobs and maintaining the high level of academic competence Gunn is known for.

When I wrote Gospels of Rage, I was attempting to humanize people who, by virtue of circumstance, tragedy, madness, or difference, were so desperate that they became murderous, suicidal, abusive, destructive, or self-destructive. This art was meant to make them relatable so that the reader would be exposed to and contemplate the internal life of addicts, criminals, assassins, suicide bombers, terrorists, and other people who have such a negative effect on humanity, just like the kid who blew up the quad at my high school. I thought that if people started thinking about it, someday they might apply themselves to handling it.

The pathos of such a work is that it is necessarily disturbing and Americans do not like to examine these things, and when they do, their judgment easily becomes clouded by their emotions. While I agree that it is nearly impossible to face an event like the mass killing yesterday morning and think rationally about how to prevent something like that occurring again, it is precisely because these tragedies are so horrific that each of us must apply ourselves to the solution ourselves rather than be duped by someone exploiting tragedy to further their own agenda, which ultimately solves nothing.

It is even further unfortunate that, like in the failures of our public health programs, we know of other countries that grant private gun ownership and yet manage not have the highest homicide rate in the world of any developed nation by over ten times. The problem, you see, is that America does it wrong. Our penal system does not rehabilitate. Our early education does not recognize those who are suffering until after their suffering becomes unbearable. We do not love our neighbor. We are not kind to those who fail, and everyone fails at some point in their lives. We, as a nation, suck at addressing negativity or realities that we find distasteful. We are the problem, because we think mental illness, poverty, inequity, and difference are not our problem.

The innocent suffer for this failing.

Now, I could harp on these failing for the length of my life, for they are so numerous, but that doesn’t solve anything either. It merely points at the solution, which I shall now address. It comes down to this – we have become complacent and fearful of involving ourselves in the woes of others. I am not suggesting that everyone start sticking their nose into everyone else’s business, but we should not be so focused on ourselves that we stop paying attention to those around us.

Guns aren’t going to disappear any more than abortions are, so stop hoping they will go away and start treating them like the machines of death they are. Educate yourself. Start taking stock of who has a gun and ask them about it. Be aware of those around you and protect them and yourself.
Mental illness is not a choice, or something someone can just decide to fix; even temporary conditions require a lot of work to cure and we need to pay attention to others, what they say, how they act, and how they feel in order to see the symptoms and help them. A mental illness is not someone else’s problem, it is everyone’s problem, sooner or later.
Our connection with our children needs to be resilient, particularly when they are difficult to handle. It is the moment that a child is at its worst where a parent’s responsibility and sensitivity is most needed. It is not easy to know when to hold em and know when to fold em, but every child should know with absolute certainty that their parent is in the game.
And, most difficult of all, we must value compassion, loyalty, bravery, and ingenuity more than we value wealth, beauty, fame, and comfort. For when the later list are our priorities, persons espousing the former list will be few. If you are too afraid, too busy, or too happy to care about anyone else, you might want examine your priorities. It is not easy to be a participant in other people’s lives, but you are a part of other people’s lives, so make something of it.

To summarize, we need to stop being children, and start trying to be the better person though it may not reward us or be convenient. We have far more power to change ourselves than change reality.

-F. F. White