iGary said:
I'm the guy sitting next to you.
Aw, iGary, come on over to the dark, bitter, and cynical side. Jump on in, the water's nice and warm (or freezing cold). I can't be the only one on MR with no hope for society...
I sometimes wonder: Here in the U.S., there are all kinds of right-wing nutjobs claiming that the sky is falling for reasons that seem utterly benign - yet, they're tapping in to something, a deeper fear that people have about the direction of things. I read something like what happened to these ducks and say, "well, that makes sense, humans in general are nothing but a self-serving sadistic lot in the first place." I remain horrified by the action, yet accept that things like this happen because of the nature of society.
But, someone who has honestly been born and raised to believe deep in their soul that people are essentially good would, in addition to being shocked as I was upon reading this, also have their foundation rattled a little. Like, not everyone out there is looking out for the best interests of peace, love and the Golden Rule. After a while, their exact memory of what happened would fade, but the fear remains that this could happen to them or their pets, and is easily manipulated by other social and political forces for gain. "I'm vaguely afraid, and someone is telling me it's those damn gays getting married, or immigrants, or whatever is the reason - they're right!!!"
For the optimist, I would venture a guess that reading something like this is much more of a system shock than the pessimist. I'd also posit that deep pessimists like myself are largely outnumbered in society by the optimists - heck, I even have my days where I can see iGary's fence back on the horizon of optimism from which I departed long ago. Because people want to believe in people, and people want to believe that they personally are fundamentally good, and therefore so are other folks.
I suppose this is a long-winded way of saying, what's the chicken and egg here? Is the perpetrator of this crime someone who fits part of the "holy trinity" of a sociopath (as someone mentioned above), or were the actions of this person symptomatic of a greater societal ill: someone who honestly believes that because of the self-serving and sadistic nature of American society (and how it expresses itself domestically and globally) that doing this to a bunch of ducks was A-OK?
I dunno. I'm glad to see a reward set up, though, it's a shame that domestic violence, gaybashing, corrupt government deals, and losses of civil liberties don't also motivate folks the same way. We Americans are fickle about such things - we'd rather see someone made an example of than cure the illness, be it the duck-murderer, Terry Shivo (sp?), Martha Stewart, or Iraq.
