I share our French cousins’ pain and fear. Nonetheless let us not react in a manner that renders us police states. Greater death tolls are caused daily by extreme weather and despotic regimes supported by the forces and institutions of globalization. Let us correct the underlying social and economic conditions that render young men alienated, powerless, and not feeling adequate as men, in a game they cannot win.
A final act of desperate suicide, “protesting too much” their sense of powerlessness, choosing to go down superficially powerful and glorious must not fool us and pull us into feeling and reacting powerlessly as well. The power of social media broadcasting their acts of false “power” (e.g. with beheadings), attracting others in this unfortunate state is obvious and sad. Let us deflate this false sense of power and see it for what it is: desperation and suffering all the way around.
Andre C. Piver, Procter