[or: On the Joys of Senseless Violence]
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We Canadians like to think of ourselves as peace-loving and law-abiding people, as sensible and rational people, as the sort of people who are concerned for the welfare and well-being of others (be they nearby or far away). In short, we consider ourselves to be a civilized people, and not at all a race of barbarians (as is the case in so many other countries). Now normally this vain and comforting delusion abides in relative safety; but on rare occasions an event will occur which undermines the validity of this cherished notion. Indeed the acute thinness of this veneer of general civility was made apparent in June of 2011 when hockey fans in the city of Vancouver rioted for several hours after their beloved Canucks lost the Stanley Cup to the Boston Bruins (who turned out to be the better hockey team after all).
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Yes, many words have already been spilled about this deplorable rioting type of behavior, but precious few of these many words have actually offered a reasonable explanation for the sad event. As a philosopher I feel it is my duty to at least make an attempt to provide such an explanation for those who may be interested in such things. But oh my; where to begin? So it has been observed that most of the rioters were males, mostly young, and mostly stupid. Well, I’ve always thought that hockey fans are semi-morons anyway, but this fact is not much of an explanation in and of itself. It merely raises the question: What causes stupid young men to so easily throw off the burdensome shackles of civilized life for the dubious and transient joys of senseless violence? In a word: opportunity. In a crowd of like-minded fools, the anonymous individual finds a golden opportunity to vent his violent impulses upon unfortunate people and cars and, of course, millions of dollars worth of unresisting panes of glass.
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Oh, the joys of unrestrained vandalism, anarchy, and general yahooism! Who can sing their praises? Who can resist such an intoxicating brew? And why would you even want to? As one rioter put it: “It’s totally awesome, dude!” Which I presume simply means that running wild is great fun. And sure it is; as long as someone else is paying for your fun. Awesome yes, IF you happen to be a semi-civilized barbarian posing as a responsible and mature citizen of an enlightened society. So the question is not so much ‘how could this happen?’, but rather ‘what does all this tell us about ourselves?’ And this latter is an altogether more difficult question. How do we even begin to approach such a problematic social riddle? Well, when in doubt, consult the prophets (I always say):
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“The distinctive trait of civilized man is to obey what the majority of men regard as iniquitous [and] contrary to conscience. I seek in vain in civilized society as it exists today for any clearly formulated moral bases of life. There are none. No perception of their necessity exists. On the contrary, we find the extraordinary conviction that they are superfluous; that religion is nothing more than a few words about God and a future life, and a few ceremonies very useful for the salvation of the soul (according to some), and good for nothing (according to others); but that life happens of itself, and has no need of any fundamental rule, and that we have only to do what we are told to do. […] As to all that constitutes the life of man expressed in action, the members of our modern society depend willingly for guidance upon people who, like themselves, know not why they direct their fellows to live in one way and not in another. This disposition holds good whether the question at issue is to decide whether to kill or not to kill, to judge or not to judge, to bring up children in this way or in that. And men look upon an existence like this as reasonable, and have no feeling of shame” (from ‘My Religion’ by the prophet Leo Tolstoy).
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We do what we are told to do … yes, but only for the most part. Yes indeed, we do what we are supposed to do … except when the opportunity arises to do otherwise. Then we see that beneath the razor-thin coating of civilization we are little more than beasts eager to be unleashed. “Cry havok, and let slip the dogs of war!”