|
What are Americans afraid of? Why do they need
so many guns? The American military, undoubtedly
capable of repelling any invaders, is free to spend
most of its time policing other parts of the world.
So who are all those guns necessary to defend against?
Why does America love guns so much? It's a question
which demands to be asked in the light of the latest
mass murder in an American school. And it's a vexing
question indeed. How is it that a nation that is
so vocal about how much it loves its children is
so irresponsible when it comes to making firearms
available for those same children to use on each
other? The two don't add up.
It's difficult to understand when observing from
another country where gun violence is virtually
nonexistent. But one question always arises: why
do they need so many guns? What deficiency are Americans
trying to make up for through their obsession with
guns? Have Americans not yet matured beyond their
wild west history? Or is it a result of a national
siege mentality?
Most Americans when asked to speak on the subject
of the need for guns will say that guns ensure their
freedom. From the outside looking in though it's
easy to see through such a flimsy statement. Americans
are not free. They are free to call their politicians
bad names. Free to choose which cola to consume,
but Americans do not enjoy true freedom. On the
contrary, Americans are prisoners of their own ideology.
And that ideology takes the form of fear. And that
incarceration as it were, makes them not a lot unlike
Communist China or Soviet Russia. Ironic.
The fact is that Americans, through their heralded
freedom, have created a nation whose intituitions
increasingly resemble a prison. In fact the American
mind seems to increasingly resemble a prison.
It would seem that there are two possible ways (surely
there are infinitely more) to deal with the world
and all its inherent complexity. The first would
be to open up and embrace the universe accepting
it for what it is and loving it.
The second would be to close oneself to the complexity
and let fear, loathing and hatred dictate one's
thoughts, beliefs and actions.
Judging by the phenomenom of American children murdering
each other with guns in so-called safe places like
schools, and American adults' seemingly ineffectiveness
in dealing with such a phenomenon, America has chosen
the latter.
Or perhaps Americans simply can't visualize a world
without guns.
And fear.
Copyright
1999 by Nicolai Tostoy All Rights Reserved
Nicolai
Tolstoy was born in the United States in 1966. He
has lived in Europe, Africa, Russia and South America.
At university he studied philosophy. He currently
spends his time in North America photographing the
Atlantic Coast.
What
do you think? Are Americans crazy? Discuss Here
|
