Texas Massacre: Life as a Video Game

Each time there is a shooting in our neighbors to the south, we relaunch the eternal debate on firearms.

Texas Massacre: Life as a Video Game

Each time there is a shooting in our neighbors to the south, we relaunch the eternal debate on firearms.

Certainly, the rules concerning access to firearms must be tightened.

But you also have to go back to the roots of the problem and ask yourself, "What makes a man pick up a semi-automatic weapon and shoot innocent people?" »

The terrorist has a cause. As stupid as she is. But the sociopath? What drives him to turn into a killing machine?

ULTRAMODERN SOLITUDE

In 2000, American sociologist Robert D. Putnam published an important essay on urban loneliness and the dislocation of the social fabric: Bowling Alone.

Using graphs and statistics, he demonstrated that since the 1950s, the quantity and frequency of interpersonal relationships had plummeted.

The title of his essay came to him when he noticed that, in the town where he lived, more and more people were going bowling alone.

He wondered: how can this social phenomenon be explained? And what are the long-term impacts of loneliness and alienation on a human being? He discovered that there was a direct link between a person's sociability and their physical and psychological health.

The human being is a social animal (“No man is an island”, said the poet John Donne).

The more an individual has the feeling of belonging to a community, the better he feels. But who knows the names of his neighbors now?

Which families still respect the Sunday supper tradition?

We are each in front of our screen, the parents don't really know their children's friends and have never met their parents, the old people are parked in houses on the edge of town, people don't talk more on the church square, citizens are less and less politically involved, we only meet our cousins ​​and uncles at funerals.

We go from one job to another, from one relationship to another... We masturbate in front of a screen, telecommute, exchange small talk with people we've never seen and that we will probably never see, and who will never lift a finger if we ever find ourselves in trouble.

Our social fabric is breaking up at breakneck speed... Our social life is so poor that we have come to say that Facebook is a "social" medium!!!

ALL ALONE TOGETHER

Before, work was a place of socialization.

It is now rendered a jungle. Same for school. Everyone judges each other, everyone competes with everyone else... Life is a video game, you run at full speed trying to avoid the rocks falling from the sky and the pits opening up ahead your feet...

And if you're too stressed, there's the SQDC.

The phrase that best sums up our times is Michael Douglas' line in Wall Street: "You want a friend? Buy a dog! »

Afterwards, we wonder why so many people freak out...

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