A Dysfunctional Society - Guns, Violence, Inequality, Incarceration

Murders and violent crime are increasing.  One hears it all around, neighbors voicing their concerns – “The streets aren’t safe anymore”, “I just bought a gun to protect my house”, “The police are afraid to do their job anymore”.

Societal problems are complex.  America has a many times greater percentage of its people in prison than other developed nations.  It has much more gun violence.  It has a greater disparity in wealth and income than other wealthy nations and that disparity has grown rapidly over the last 30 years.

 

The last few years have added other huge problems to our list of woes – the continuing saga of COVID, rampant inflation and the multiplying effects of climate change.  We are not unique in our afflictions.  Every nation is struggling with some mix of problems.  But they seem particularly acute and paradoxical in the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth.

 

When crime increases in the United States, we demand stricter enforcement, more police, longer sentences, less leniency.  We manufacture more guns.  It’s a vicious circle.  

 

Ironically, in recent years we had finally begun to see a bi-partisan effort to address the problems of over-incarceration.  And there seemed to be at least some recognition that we could begin to decrease inequality through investments in infrastructure, education, healthcare and childcare.  But those efforts will probably go dormant now, as fear overtakes reason.   No one will be in the mood for reform.  Indeed, there will be indignant calls for aggressive police action and tactics, and for tightening the belt of government spending.

 

Why is there so much crime here?  Why do we have so many firearm deaths?  Why are we the undisputed world leader in mass shootings?

 

Until we understand and acknowledge that these problems have deep roots in our culture, our economy and our government we are destined to repeat the cycle again and again.   

The Anti-Abortion Movement Reflects a Deep Fear of Changes in Sexual Morality

The abortion rate reached a high in the early 90’s and has been going down ever since.  The increasing effectiveness of new birth control devices, in particular birth control implants, has been accelerating the decline of abortions.  The logical way to minimize abortions would be to encourage utilization of effective birth control methods, make them widely available and disseminate information about them through sex education classes.  Everyone wants there to be fewer abortions.

 

So why is the anti-abortion movement so determined to criminalize abortion, creating a new, never-ending, unwinnable conflict like the Prohibition Era or the War on Drugs and risking all of the horrible consequences that have historically been associated with back-alley abortions?  They will say that is because abortion is murder, but I believe there is another more fundamental fear that motivates this crusade: the rapid changes in sexual morality.

 

Sexual practices and societal views on sex have changed radically since the 60’s due to several factors – introduction of effective contraception, later marriages, changes in women’s role in society, cultural openness and media coverage, scientific understanding of sexuality, etc.

 

These shifting values on sex, sexuality and gender generate a deep unease in fundamentalist Christians (and probably in fundamentalist Muslims and Jews as well). They threaten the very foundation of Christian beliefs for people who crave a very unambiguous definition of proper personal morality and adhere to a non-scientific view of the world.

 

I can understand their discomfort.  In a single generation, or perhaps two, the Christian ideals of marriage, virginity, chastity and gender have undergone radical change.  Casual sexual relations are common; premarital sex is almost a given; homosexuality has become accepted and even mainstream with transsexuality, drag queens, bisexuality and transgender issues surfacing as well.  It is in many respects a strange new world.

 

It was comforting to have a set of well-defined rules to live by, but it was also unrealistic in many ways, and never truly very simple. As our understanding of the human body, sexuality and psychology have advanced, so has our recognition that life and relationships are neither simple nor static.  

 

Has the pendulum swung too far?  Is sex and all of its manifestations such an obsession in our society and our culture that there needs to be a counter-revolution that will bring things back under control?  I believe this is the underlying impetus of the anti-abortion movement.  It is a desperate rear-guard action to hold the line in the evolution of sexual behavior.  

 

This misguided effort to stem the tide will fail.  The genie of sexual openness is out of the bottle.  It will never go back in.  The current wave of experimentation and re-definition of gender and sexuality may temper in the future, indeed there are signs that it already is beginning to do so, but we will never go back to a society where chastity and virginity are prized and homosexuality is condemned and vilified.

 

The biblical literalists have lost battle after battle against the march of science and reason.   It is time for them to join the rest of the world in trying to comprehend what is the most humane and loving way to lead lives in this world.

 

Of course we all want less abortions!  Of course we all want less sexual violence!  Of course we all want to be super careful in how we handle new ideas about gender identity and transitioning. Of course we want to avoid having sex become a damaging addiction or obsession. 

 

We need to view sexuality and gender though the lens of what will make people happy and fulfilled, and most importantly not hurt people.  It won’t be easy or simple, and we will make mistakes along the way, but it certainly won’t be based on arbitrary rules or writings from thousands of years ago.