Active shooter drills burden teachers emotionally, impacting school environment.
Neoliberal market shifts blame to individuals for safety, perpetuating inequality.
Promoting individual responsibility in gun violence overlooks systemic issues and fosters blame culture.
Deep dives
The Emotional Toll of Security Measures at Schools
Schools implementing active shooting drills place emotional burdens on teachers who are now responsible not only for fostering learning but also for being prepared to use a gun against potential threats, even their own students. This emotional toll affects teachers and students, creating constant fear and stress within the school environment.
Neoliberal Framework in Response to Gun Violence
The neoliberal framework shifts political problems into market issues, making individuals responsible for their own safety and choices. This leads to efforts to monetize safety measures like bulletproof products and self-defense training, perpetuating inequality while blaming individuals for their circumstances.
Individual Responsibility in the Face of Violence
The new liberal approach emphasizes individual responsibility in handling acts of violence like mass shootings. Focus on market choices and blame culture ignores systemic issues and promotes a culture where individuals are held accountable even for extreme sacrifices.
Impact of Market Solutions on Social Welfare
The market-oriented responses to gun violence lead to monetizing safety efforts and promoting solutions like arming individuals for protection. This approach perpetuates emotional distress, inequality, and shifts the burden of safety and security onto individuals, creating a system where human lives and social welfare are undermined in favor of market solutions.
Responsibility and Hope
The speech by Tony Morrison emphasizes the importance of taking responsibility for one's actions and decisions. Morrison's parable of the bird in the hand highlights the idea that individuals have the power and responsibility to determine the outcomes of their choices. This notion challenges the notion of shifting blame or avoiding accountability, pointing towards the significance of personal agency and ownership in shaping one's future.
Challenging False Choices and Seeking Alternatives
The podcast conversation delves into the concept of false choices and the importance of seeking alternatives in societal decision-making. It critiques the tendency to frame solutions within narrow parameters and highlights the need for expanded perspectives and conscious choices beyond conventional narratives. By examining the exhaustion produced by current patterns and advocating for a more inclusive and multifaceted approach, the discussion underscores the potential for transformative political and social shifts towards a more sustainable and empathetic future.
Matt and Sam's first ever guest, Patrick Blanchfield, is an Associate Faculty member at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and author of the forthcoming book Gunpower from Verso books, which you can and should pre-order here. In the wake of the massacres in El Paso and Dayton, we turn to Patrick—a truly brillant writer and thinker—to help us understand how these traumatic reptitions of spectacular violence are rooted in American history and ideology.
PS If you haven't already, please subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon! For $5/month, you get additional episodes and other subscriber-only content. For $10/month you get the bonus content + a digital subscription to Dissent magazine!
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