What Breeds Ongoing Violence in the U.S.?

America hardly recuperates from the shock of a mass shooting in a certain city when a new incident takes place somewhere else. Seven people were killed and more than 30 wounded in the shooting perpetrated by a 21-year-old man at a 4th of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois. Gun violence in America has become no less than a social epidemic, and as with any other illness of such magnitude it is important to find the right treatment from the root cause of the problem.?

Lack of meaning and purpose in life are also key triggers. More and more people have no idea what they live for, and life with no meaning and purpose makes human life lose its importance and preciousness. Mass shooters feel that human life is cheap and worthless, and the more this lack of direction spreads throughout society today, the more mass shooters surface.

Jacki Sundheim, a senior staffer at a local synagogue and Nicolas Toledo, a grandfather from Mexico, were among the fatal victims of the senseless parade attack by a gunman who according to the police acquired the guns legally. Undoubtedly, it is important to keep guns away from unstable, dangerous individuals, but the gun violence epidemic goes beyond laws and regulations since those willing to cause harm will always find ways to achieve their sinister goals.

In order to offer a true solution, we have to go beyond the symptoms of the problem. Human beings are social creatures and individuals cannot be separated from their culture when we are trying to understand a behavior that repeats itself. It is true that in America it is easy to purchase firearms, but what pulls the trigger is the growing egoism and division in American society.

In such a social climate of "every man for himself," tension and frustration accumulate daily until people with violent tendencies explode in cruel ways. In their unbalanced minds a mass shooting is a way to “fix” the system and compensate for their fears and insecurities.

Lack of meaning and purpose in life are also key triggers. More and more people have no idea what they live for, and life with no meaning and purpose makes human life lose its importance and preciousness. Mass shooters feel that human life is cheap and worthless, and the more this lack of direction spreads throughout society today, the more mass shooters surface.

The remedy to this problem is education. America must treat the deep cultural and social conditioning that breeds these events by initiating a massive federal educational program to infuse people from an early age with new examples, norms, and values. They should be regularly trained to cooperate, build trust, as well as develop social sensitivity to each other through workshops, discussion groups, and collaborative projects.

Education does not refer only to formal systems for providing and acquiring knowledge. The aim of education should not be to simply create a workforce of trained individuals. Education must now focus on cultivating the human being. This means building a value system within a person and an adequate social environment around a person to balance the human ego and direct it toward positive realization.

Such a state will never come about by simply drafting new laws, but only through a change in the way human nature operates in society. Instead of relating to each other through egoistic lenses, we need to learn and develop new supportive, encouraging, understanding attitudes to every person. In order to reach that level of positive change, society needs to forge meaningful and healthy connections through a new socio-educational shift, which will become doable and realistic when America realizes that it has had enough suffering and it is time for an integral solution.

-------------------------------------

Business with Friends – a Bad Idea

A viewer of one of my shows sent an email describing the following sad story: Several years ago, I started a business with a childhood friend. Many people recommended that we sign a business contract with an attorney, but it felt strange to involve lawyers in our close relationship so we avoided it and opened the business on the basis of good faith. For the first two years, everything was fine, but then the business ran into trouble and things started to deteriorate. We started blaming each other for our troubles, we lost trust in one another, and today, as much as I hate to admit it, we hate each other. This is killing me, Dr. Laitman, is there anything I can do?

When you mix business with friendship, you expect your partner to adhere to two different codes of conduct: a business code and a code of friendship. When there is a problem, the codes begin to clash, as it happened to this viewer. Then, either the business or the friendship falls apart.

I can understand why this viewer and his friend thought they did not need legal counsel, but their decision condemned their business and their friendship to failure. We are all egoists, and we all deny it. When our ego is happy, we think everything will always be fine. When our ego suffers, we think everything is bad. This is human nature. Actually, this is the nature of all things, but it is most noticeable in human beings.

Therefore, to remain friends, do not start a business with them. A sound business is not based on friendship, but on strict egoistic conditions that satisfy the interests of all the parties involved. A business requires making businesslike decisions, which have nothing to do with friendship, but only with cold, selfish decisions.

The essential role of lawyers, therefore, is not only to determine how a business should operate, but also what to do when things go wrong. If there is a detailed contract, there will be no disputes and the partners will know what to do.

When you mix business with friendship, you expect your partner to adhere to two different codes of conduct: a business code and a code of friendship. When there is a problem, the codes begin to clash, as it happened to this viewer. Then, either the business or the friendship falls apart.

If I enjoyed playing soccer with a certain person as a child, it does not mean I should do business with him. On the contrary, it probably means I shouldn’t.

Since this viewer asked me for advice, I would suggest that he and his friend contact a good lawyer and seek advice on how to rebuild their connection. It is not simple, and it may be too late, but this is my advice now that they have made the mistake and are trying to save their friendship.

That lawyer should rearrange the connection between them on a completely self-centered basis so that both parties can feel satisfied in the situation they are in. If no such arrangement is found, the two should part ways.

It is not as if there is no more room for reconstruction, but there must be a clear and solid egoistic basis for their business and non-business relationship. If they are both satisfied with it, they might be able to rebuild from there.

I hope that in the future, they will learn not to ignore human nature. We are egoists, and we should behave accordingly. Then, above our egoism, we should build connection, but without undermining our basic nature.