There's Something about Uvalde: American Patriarchy and the Slaughter of Innocents

Abstract

AbstractAfter every school shooting in the United States both a wish and a fear arise: Will this be the one? Will this be the tipping point for change in a nation so deeply divided over the meaning of “the right to bear arms?” Sandy Hook, Connecticut? No. Parkland, Florida? No. So, why might the killing of 19 children and 2 teachers in Uvalde, Texas, prove different? The American epidemic of mass school shootings betrays a country's willingness to let its children disappear, to sacrifice them on the altar of an archetypally violent ethos. While the internal experiences of alienation, resentment and contempt are often at play in the individuals who carry out such violence, the author suggests that the uniquely American glorification of “the lone wolf”, the “rugged individual” and the “misunderstood hero” fuels a supportive background for mass shooters in a nation that appears to be enamoured of ancient patriarchal attitudes as it doubles down on its valuing of weaponry. Such patriarchal attitudes, underscored by capitalism and the profits of the gun industry, are implicated in the territorial adhesion to American gun rights and in the high cost paid by the blood of innocents. Drawing on Vestergaard & Odde's (2021) concepts of socio‐analysis and sociality, this paper explores the dynamic process of “mass‐character” marked by “contagion, imitation, attraction and repulsion” that convolute cultural values of heritage and freedom into the perverse expression of mass violence.