When I began this column, I was thinking of the mass shooting that had taken place in Canada. Before I was able to finish this column, there was already another one here in America. Proof that we have become so acclimatized to this kind of monstrosity is how quickly the media has moved on from both incidents. But this “elephant in the living room” is not likely to go away anytime soon.
Those who are still talking about it have focused on the sexual dysphoria the perpetrators shared with many other mass shooters of late, but there is an even larger and more troubling common denominator all of these mass shooters share, and that is extreme isolation.
It has been almost an entire generation’s worth of time since the publication of “Bowling Alone” (Touchstone Books by Simon & Schuster, $18.10) by Robert D. Putnam. An academic by profession, Putnam became a kind of pop star, even earning a spread in People magazine, with his book that chronicled the decline in social associations in our culture and how that decline saw a rise in many anti-social behaviors.
Putnam’s research and data showed how social clubs cut across racial and economic layers of our society and provided friendship, stabilization, support, and even economic opportunity. Bowling leagues were omnipresent in the middle part of the last century, and Putnam’s book explains how those leagues, made up of people from similar social situations — like employees in the same factory, housewives on the same block, or teenagers from the same school — helped these groups forge deeper connections with one another. It was good for the individual and good for society in general.
My dad was the president of the Lions Club in Van Nuys, my uncles were Elks, and just about every male I knew growing up was in the Knights of Columbus. Divorce was not unheard of, but
most families remained intact, and they were generally large enough to field at least a basketball team — and in some cases a football team — with a bench of substitutes. These families served as their own social clubs, composed of varied individuals with different personalities, learning to live under the same roof.
When I grew up, there were other types of social associations just for us kids. Every summer, there would be a meeting of the minds, where we neighborhood kids would decide what was going to be the theme for play during the long days of summer. It usually depended on what action/adventure film we had all seen at the Saturday matinee, another social association that encouraged connectedness.
The Twelve Apostles were a tight-knit bunch of associates. After the risen Jesus appeared to them in a locked room and showed Thomas the wounds in his hands and the spear-shaped laceration in his side, they did not immediately go into the streets and proclaim the Truth at the top of their lungs. Soon after, St. Peter told the only friends he had left in the world, “I am going fishing. They said to him, we also are going with thee. And they went out and got into the boat” (John 21:3).
What happens next is salvation history, but this fraction of social science in Scripture backs up Putnam’s premise that social organizations are important for the mental and even physical health of individuals. I am not qualified to interpret Scripture, but I hope it is not heresy to read that excerpt from the Gospel of John and imagine this was the way these men were trying to figure things out, to go back to what they knew and feel a sense of community — just before the guy on the lakeshore calls to them asking how the fishing is going.
God did not make us to be solitary creatures. That is why monks living as ascetics in caves in the Sinai were seen as making a supreme sacrifice to praise God. Today, we have a different kind of monk. Young men and women now live solitary lives with little or no sense of purpose other than what they derive from constant exposure to online content.
That is another common denominator among mass shooters. They are not getting “marching orders” from some malevolent master, but are receiving motivation and affirmation from whatever dark thoughts have sprouted in the void of their solitude.
Even monks and cloistered nuns who have taken vows of silence live in community and interact daily with one another, while at the same time using their individual private time communing not with a cold and mechanical algorithm, but with the loving Creator of the universe.
As Putnam points out in “Bowling Alone,” many of these now declining social associations still exist, and some, since the publication of the book, are thriving. Still, too many people are islands unto themselves, and many of them have discarded or never had a relationship with God and his Son.
Groucho Marx said he would never be a member of a club that would have him as a member — funny as that line is, he could be talking about the Church. We Catholics have much in common, especially when it comes to our weaknesses. But as badly in need of repair and restoration as we are, we know that in Christ, we are never alone. If only those residing in solitary darkness might learn that as well.
