Outrage can achieve many things one of which it would seem is to prevent intelligent thinking. Look no further than the front page of the daily papers. They are often full of outrage in relation to the latest murder or threat to life.
Along with such headlines, comes calls for a whole variety of measures to be taken. These measures can range from replacing key figures within criminal justice, building bigger prisons and if this Government is in power for much longer Braverman and her like will be calling for the return of the death penalty. Fact is, such suggestions are nonsensical for the very fact that they are informed by delusion and a distorted belief that the world is a safe place .
The buy in, to the delusional belief that the world is a safe place and, on the occasions when it is not, that we can make it safe is delusional in the extreme. Such, has never been possible and never will be possible. Of course, as with many delusions its seductive, it sounds nice and many buy into big time.
‘See it, Say it, Sort it’ has been brainwashed into our thinking every time we board any form of public transport. In the face of occasions when we are reminded that mass murder can and does happen, ‘See it, Say it, Sort it’ quickly becomes delusion in action. Its purpose, to have us all seduced quickly back into the sense that we were still in control and safe. It does not require much intelligence to recognise that in the face of seemingly random bombing, backed up by a belief system and carried out by those sacrificing their own lives, safety is not possible and we are most certainly not in control. The delusion would, at best, last until the next bomb goes off, as indeed they do and will. The mantra is now so frequent that I doubt if anyone really hears it anymore and given that intelligence gets suspended so readily, they may also have well forgotten what it’s all about.
The expressions of outrage no matter who they are about are so without insight that if applied, then no one, absolutely no one is to be ever trusted again. How mad is that!
There is no analysis in the news headlines of today, just emotive re-action. No invitation to consider how or why people come to be a threat, arrive at being dangerous, and present to the world as high risk. Also fact is, murderousness and other dangerous actions fit totally within the range of the human condition, that also includes you and I.
To refer to recent examples, Lucy Letby and Benjamin Field are not unique or alone. Allitt, Dr Chapman and others all went before and others will be, as I write, engaged in similar behaviour, just not yet known about. Within noble professions the esteemed or in positions deemed less professional odd jobbers like Fred West , will be at it right now…. prepare to once more be outraged.
It is not just the fact that the world is a dangerous place that we are constantly invited to deny. We are also invited to deny the full reality of those who murder. This is especially so when those who murder come into conflict with idealisations and saintly archetypes held within us.
Just because someone is an enforcer of the law, a nurse, a priest, a doctor, a mother, does not mean there are without the capacity and motivation to murder. Some do and some will. Experience tells me also that it is many who are never discovered, that being because our upheld belief which goes something like ‘they could just not’. In terms of permission giving, that is a gift.
A delusion of ‘safety’ rather than connection with reality is not the only investment such denial invites us to make. We are also told to think that those who murder are ‘monsters’. To sight another case, how quickly was the identity of ‘police officer’ removed from Wayne Cousens and replaced by ‘Monster’. You could almost feel the collective relief, with the application of just one word, he was no longer one of us, he was no longer like me. Another lie. Another delusion.
The truth remains that Wayne may have done something monstrous and criminal, but that does not make him a monster. He remains, as you and I, deeply human and with all that implies. I don’t know if I will meet him in the coming years, but I know for certain that, if so, he will sit opposite me in his entirety, the full picture and I will listen to that full story, albeit too late.
The human condition is raw and primitive. Combinations of factors, conscious and unconscious come together in the immediacy of murder and other behaviours. All of us are vulnerable to this. These are the dynamics and features that do not get talked about and for which the media headlines like those of today and no doubt tomorrow do not allow. But the dynamics of murder can be much closer to home that many would like to acknowledge.
Failure to be able to embrace this truth is the greatest danger we face. Such failure gives rise to the delusional thinking writ large in the headlines today. Delusion stops our capacity to see, hear and to discern. We buy into it at our peril and the stories when they need to be told then remain untold, unheard and in time honoured fashion are then tragically acted out.
Br. Stephen Morris FCC
