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Key points
- One way to look at the gun violence problem is to note that destruction and tolerance are sorely out of balance in the current milieu.
- Pragmatism is asking the right questions to find reasonable solutions.
- To increase tolerance that could impact the imbalance with destruction, we can practice patience and cultivate centeredness.
More than 50 people are murdered daily with guns, and another 1,100 are threatened during a violent crime.
There have been over 300 mass shootings so far in 2022. As a result, the United States has the highest level of gun violence among developed nations, with mass shootings occurring daily. Institutions and gatherings that foster tolerance for diversity, such as churches, schools, and parades, are no longer considered safe havens.
Patty Davis, President Ronald Reagan’s daughter, noted in a recent New York Times opinion piece:
You wonder when it will happen again; there is a part of you that’s always watchful, always suspicious of strangers. You get jumpy when someone reaches into a backpack. Increasingly, because shootings have become so common in America, almost all people carry around that fear, even if their own life hasn’t (yet) been touched by gun violence.
But why are we mired in a gun violence crisis? And can we do anything about it?
Couples’ Relationships and Wisdom Give Us a Clue
It is a given that destruction is as much a part of the human psyche as is growth. Both of these forces are involved in human relationships. Couples fight, tear down relationship patterns that no longer work and hopefully build anew. As a result, those who are in good long-term relationships report they are not in the same relationship in which they started.
There is a balanced desire to destroy patterns that no longer work and keep the patterns that foster intimacy and growth. When the push for destruction so outweighs the desire for healthy connection, the relationship falters and, oftentimes, results in divorce.
Wisdom is rooted in pragmatism and a balanced paradox. To be pragmatic is to stop asking unhelpful questions that get eyes off the central problem. One example involves mental health and gun violence.
According to research reported in the Annals of Epidemiology, mental illness contributes to only 4 percent of all violence, and the contribution to gun violence is even lower. All countries have mentally ill persons yet do not have the same level of gun violence that we suffer from here. Pragmatism is to ask the right questions and come up with reasonable solutions.
In my wisdom research, I found that tolerance is an essential ingredient in good human relations.
One way to look at the gun violence problem is to note that destruction and tolerance are sorely out of balance in the current milieu. As intolerance has risen, so too has destruction. The rhetoric of intolerance feeds destructive impulses. We are not helpless in this regard. For our mental health, we need to find ways to move from passivity to activity.
Ways to Increase Tolerance
We can impact the imbalance by working towards increased tolerance so that the fulcrum moves towards the middle.
- Support political candidates that espouse tolerance rather than intolerance.
- Put aside raw emotional reactions when dealing with frustrating disagreeable situations. Attachment to the feelings behind an experience allows it to linger. Use the Law of Opposites and bring your emotional temperature down rather than up.
- Be curious: Adopt a more open-minded outlook and expose yourself to views and cultures that are different from your own
- Practice patience, and cultivate centeredness.
- Call intolerance out in a respectful non-shaming manner to those who espouse intolerance.
- Find the value in difference and diversity.
- Accept uncertainty: Stay open-minded and curious; this leads to a greater tolerance of ambiguity.
- Look inside: Understanding the context and roots of your intolerant feelings may help you to recognize and challenge them. Become your own best diagnostician.
To shrink inside in fear or to feel helpless to do anything will not move the dial. We need to learn acceptance of the other who does not perhaps sound or look like us.
As the now-deceased psychoanalyst Gerald Stechler said:
If over the course of human evolution, cooperation did not in some way outbalance competition, we wouldn’t be here. And in the end, we’re here. Generosity is an infinitely wise thing to do. We need the benevolence of others to survive. So like Blanche, we rely on the kindness of strangers…We are all Blanches.
Be kind, even to someone you may not want to tolerate. It just might help to save your life or someone you love.
References
Baum-Baicker, C. (2018). Defining clinical wisdom part II: Quotes, the qualitative underpinning of the research. Journal for the Advancement of Scientific Psychoanalytic Empirical Research. JASPER International, 2(1), 105-118
Center for American Progress analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(2020). Injury prevention and control: Data and Statistics: Fatal injury Data.
Davis, P.(2022) How Gun Violence Changed My Father, Ronald Reagan, and Our Family. New York Times, July 6, 2022.
Ledur, J., Rabinowitz, K., Galocha, A. There have been over 300 mass shootings so far in 2022. Washington Post, July 5, 2022.
Swanson, J. McGinty, E. Fazel, S., Mays, V. (2015) Mental illness and reduction of gun violence and suicide: bringing epidemiologic research to policy. Annals of Epidemiology, May 25 (5), 366-376.
