Mumbai (update here). Baltimore. D.C. New Orleans. The ABLA Projects in Chicago. Philly. Peshawar.
Don't underestimate the power of nihilism. Oh, they claim Jews have starved and murdered their people. Or white people won't hire me. Or I'm poor. Or my program's been cut and I haven't anything to do. Or a Hindu farmer shot my goat. Or I'm just "angry." Oppression and poverty cause this? No. Nihilism. Utter disregard for anything. Not even "anger." You destroy your own community by selling drugs, you Deebo someone out of their school books for trying to advance themselves, murder someone walking by for disrespecting you, shoot up a restaurant, take hostages...
Nihilism in the dictionary: a doctrine or belief that conditions in the social organization are so bad as to make destruction desirable for its own sake independent of any constructive program or possibility.
Nihilism in practice: a destructive, ultimately self-destructive form of self-pity, self-indulgence, selfishness. Not cowardice or anger. Or even revenge. No: self-pity. Like Lucifer the Son of the Morning, shoved into Hell. God chucked me out. Woe is me. Let me mess shit up, then
I'm sorry. I see no difference between some teenager we're urged to mentor shooting another teen, or murdering an old couple for their car, and a fool who decided to hurl grenades in a hotel lobby yesterday. Listen to the justifications and rationalizations they spout. Listen to the ambivalence of families, communities (e.g. yes, they are destroying themselves, us, others...yes we march in defiance and to show we are fearless...but they are our sons...and well, if they only had love/jobs/respect...and we weren't oppressed...). No difference. If Kashmir was autonomous and Islamic. If the halls of every inner city school were sheathed in gold and classrooms stocked with laptops, if Israel was plain gone. If a black man was President--would things change? A Scripture-centered life? The Quran as lodestar? All that providing a purpose, an aim? I dunno. Perhaps there's only A Clockwork Orange's cure: Drugs and aversion therapy.
Thoughts?
