preview

Gun Control Vs Gun Control

Decent Essays

America is a special case of male violence dictated by circumstance and society. In no other country is individualism as fetishized and reified into the national identity. The subtext of the American Dream is a story of one person pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. The measure of one’s success is calculated by the difference between the start and end points. Ultimately, the necessity of individual accomplishment undercuts cooperation and nonviolent success. Today more than ever we have the ability to self-segregate from society, and become trapped in an echo chamber of fear. The lone gunman phenomenon has very little tie to genetic success. If anything, the lone wolf adopts his dangerous mindset through shutting himself off from …show more content…

This lack of empathy could easily have manifested itself in acts of physical violence, as one-in-five prison inmates are sociopaths as well. In a society that defines business interaction as simulated war, can we be surprised when we fill our businesses with people who advance their self-interest? The system is not inherently designed to reward violence, but the trend towards competition compounds on itself due to humanity’s intense grudge memory. In general, because of the extreme rewards for competition, it will be hard to turn the opposite direction through merely bringing the point of male violence to light. The ultimate issue with Wrangham’s proposal has nothing to do with the validity of his scientific research, but with the basic value of introducing his ideas into our society at all. As a general rule, public understanding of science is a societal benefit. That being said, introduction of certain ideas can be dangerous when facts are misinterpreted. In the case of Demonic Males, there is a fine line between accepting the genetic roots of violence and constraining the existence of free will. The more emphasis that is placed on the instinct and evolutionary benefits of violence, the easier it is for perpetrators of violence to disown their actions. In addition, many studies have been conducted on how our understanding of free will can affect even our immediate behavior. In one instance, after subjects were shown a paper that discussed the

Get Access