As I do every morning, I was reading the news, or what the media calls news, anyway. There are the expected political scandals, sex tape releases, the economy tanking here or over seas; you know, the usual "news". Perhaps not the best way to start the day, I suppose, but when you can edit out the extra and exaggerated drama, there is typically a shred of some news within most stories. Still, not the greatest start to the day, but I usually store the information away as fodder for some future fiction piece.
However, there are the stories that make you stop and take notice: children committing savage crimes; abductions and murders committed by seemingly average members of society that are heinous; the crimes committed by individuals who are successful, well-to-do, upper class members of society which seem to attract our attention even more. All of which make us wonder what exactly would cause such an individual to commit such a crime, what possible socioeconomical depravity fed their ill behavior, or in some cases you have to wonder if they are not simply mad.
I am fascinated by the human psyche, all the pitfalls and weaknesses we seem to continue to endure as we "evolve" in to a more enlightened version of ourselves; something better, more civilized than our ancestors. Well, at least that sounds really good and looks even better on paper. But to some extent it is true. We tend to hold ourselves in higher regard than we should, we idealize our grand intellectually driven consciousness, and only when such an heinous crime as a child's murder do we question if there is in fact something wrong with society.
Yet, I feel once we begin to address society's ills, we often, quickly turn our attention back on the individual who committed the crime and focus on what is wrong with them, giving society a free pass at times.
When Caylee went missing, we were frantic about pedophiles being released too soon from prison; yet, her own mother was the culprit. When Columbine happened, we looked at gun laws, school safety, Internet access and information, then we moved to the parents and then finally the boys who committed the crimes. Without doubt the responsibility falls on the boys who committed the crimes, but my point is that we focused on so many issues before we figured out there was something wrong with those boys, which, incidentally does reflect on society, as there were many warning signs.
While these are high profile cases, there are hundreds of similar stories, sometimes on the local level, that bring emotions to boil. In the past year, there were two horrible, unbelievable crimes committed by people I knew as acquaintances. Even though I had limited contact and interaction with these individuals, I immediately felt as thought there was something that I missed, or could have done to save the children that were murdered. Then I thought of the families that survived, the parents, the aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents. I thought about their social network, their friends. Then, as I did with the stories above, I wondered if there was something people missed, something that should have warned someone that these individuals were headed for trouble; either harming themselves or someone else. I can't say if there were or not, but for one of the individuals there were signs for years, and most of us thought they were being addressed. Little did we know.
I keep coming back to that as a society, we are often so busy with trying to maintain that we can glaze over others warning signs. We have increased technology, television, and work hours to distract us, keep us away from our loved ones enough to not be able to pick up on the subtleties of their body language; their hints, silent cries for help. Perhaps our idealized society does indeed need some attention, and we all must begin to give that attention in our own homes.
This is not a simple solution, nor is there a nice and simple solution. It takes great effort to take care of our loved ones, day after day, but selflessness is not exactly a favored approach to life in our "me" driven society.
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