Given the history of our species, it is not at all surprising that there is still violence and tragedy in the world. Destruction and hatred and suffering do not require an explanation. What is surprising however, is that given our ability to destroy, there is so much peace in the world.
In the face of tragedy, it is sometimes worthwhile to remember that we are living in the least violent time in the history of the world. Unfortunately, this makes the tragedies and atrocities that do remain even more glaring and even more sad.
But peace, coexistence and cooperation: Those are the things, the scale of which is unusual—and unique—to our time. That is what requires both explanation and appreciation. Violence begs for neither.
Because of this, our thoughts belong with victims of this senseless tragedy, and not with their killer. Our focus belongs on the peace to come, not on the violence that has happened.
So if you want to help, please consider contributing to The Mother Emmanuel Hope Fund, which is collecting donations for the families of the victims of yesterday’s shooting in Charleston, SC.
And if you have not read it, today is a good day to read The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker. (Any revenue collected through this affiliate link will be donated directly to The Mother Emmanuel Hope Fund.)
I suggest that we remind ourselves of what we have to be grateful for, not to diminish the fate of yesterday’s victims or the suffering of their families. Rather, I suggest it because that is what I imagine they would have wanted.
Of course, no one can know precisely what goes on in the minds of others. But what I do know is that if I or a loved one was killed in a senseless tragedy, I’d want you to think of all the good that people can do, and to try and think of ways to do even more of it. That is where I would want people’s minds to go—as soon as they were able to go there.
I am nowhere near able to speak for any silenced victim, and make no claim that I can. All I know is that humans the world over have far more in common than they carry in difference. (And that agents of hatred win only when they succeed at driving us apart.)