More than 12 hours after a Muslim family was struck by a truck in London on June 6, 2021, their accused killer sat shivering in a police interrogation room, telling a detective he didn’t have particularly strong connections with anyone. The police video was shown Monday at the murder-terror trial of Nathaniel Veltman in an Ontario court in Windsor.
I researched and wrote a causal essay about mass shootings for school a few years ago and feelings of alienation and intense loneliness were the most commonly shared traits across all shooters.
We’re an increasingly isolated global society, divided by extreme groups, and constantly bombarded by negativity online. It’s incredibly unhealthy. Since the advent of social media, the lives a lot of people live are no lives at all, compared to what they used to be.
We are taught how to suspend our empathy from a very early age. We are never encouraged to use it. This is necessary because we live in a culture that partakes in casual cruelty and violence at every single meal. People with empathy have to suffer the pain that we inflict on others. Rather than teaching people how to cope with that suffering, or how to live in a way that doesn’t inflict suffering on others, we teach our children how to maim their own compassion.