Is Elliot Rodger Our 21st Century Version of Holden Caulfield?
Of course, our modern day version has to include a gun. Holden with a gun where instead of holing up in a hotel room with a prostitute, he holes up in his BMW with his laptop and plans mass carnage because he can’t get a girl.
Of course, our modern day version has to include a gun. Holden with a gun where instead of holing up in a hotel room with a prostitute, he holes up in his BMW with his laptop and plans mass carnage because he can’t get a girl.
An expert I saw on one of the many news channels analyzing this mentioned something about young men and testosterone; the idea that our behavior is driven by our physiology, by our biology, and as much as we may want to completely dissociate ourselves from the fact that we are animals, that we share our DNA, about 90% of it, with our closest primate ancestor, the chimpanzee, I attest that as long as we continue this strange disconnect between our biology and our behavior, as a species, we will never be able to find resolution for our natural violent tendencies.
What if we are just stuck in this condition because of the state of our evolution? What if we fully acknowledge that we are animals, our behavior is driven by many things, including our physiology; that our culture which is based on narcissism, feeds on and into our more ancestral “primitive” behaviors, even encouraging these primitive behavior in order to fuel our economic system which is capitalism—and we now have a new form of capitalism, namely predatory capitalism, that thrives on unbridled/unchecked cultural narcissism and greed? What would happen if we put this all together and acknowledged it as the truth? That our culture rewards and even promotes our most primitive human behaviors (because it does).
I cannot posit on this young man, obviously a psychopath in the making, except that the extreme version of a narcissist is a psychopath. What could counter a psychopath’s desire to carry out his plot? Nothing. Nothing when our culture is also primitive—and in near perfect alignment with primitive human biology. Aptly, when I got online to write this, I had to first observe a Yahoo ad of a white male, dressed in black, of course, pointing a gun at me (an ad Yahoo made money off of—and is now forcing me to look at as the “price” I have to pay for free email service—an ad testifying to our now fully institutionalized culture of gun violence that also drives my country’s economic system).
So let’s do the math: what do you get when you take a species that THINKS it is intelligent and evolved but it is not; it is still driven by primitive biological behaviors + a culture that is equally if not more primitive. Tie this to its economic system that promotes and rewards greed and narcissism=more of the same. More of the same. More of the same.
Our only hope as a species is if our culture, including our economic system which is profoundly based on greed and narcissism, counteracts our primitive biology.
Based on this, it is any wonder I question if Elliot Rodger does in fact symbolize the 21st century version of Holden Caulfield? Will there be more? Yes, until we acknowledge and manage ourselves as the biological animals we are.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.