Editorial So … Are We Really Safe? Rod J. Rohrich, M.D. Dallas, Texas
When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness. —Alexis de Tocqueville
M
y daughter asked me the morning after the Boston Marathon terrorist bombing: “Dad, are we truly safe in America today?” Frankly, I hesitated to answer her for a while but regained my composure and said, “Yes but … we live in a different world today than before 9/11.” For all of us who live in the United States, the world forever changed on that day. Before that fateful day, many Americans considered themselves impermeable to global events and had an isolated, protected view of the world. Today, our world is not so much one of fear and intimidation but rather one of greater awareness, more realistic in our approach to the threats facing civilized countries. It’s a world of greater uncertainty, but it is also a technologically advanced era of instant communication and constant interaction with our peers globally. Therefore, this makes life more complicated, but we still must live our lives freely each day if we are to remain a truly independent and democratic nation. The following is a list of some of the tragic events, excluding natural disasters, that took place in the United States during the last 15 months: • February 22, 2012, Norcross, Georgia: A 59-year-old man walked into a health spa where he shot and killed four people, then himself. The shooter may have wanted money from the victims. The gun was purchased legally. • February 27, 2012, Chardon, Ohio: A 17-year-old opened fired in a high school cafeteria, killing three of his fellow students. The motive, as well as whether the gun used was purchased legally, is unclear.
From the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Received for publication May 16, 2013; accepted May 21, 2013. Copyright © 2013 by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons DOI: 10.1097/PRS.0b013e3182a805b7
• April 2, 2012, Oakland, California: A 43-year-old man shot seven people at a small Christian college, because he had not been refunded some tuition money. The gun was purchased legally. • May 30, 2012, Seattle, Washington: A 40-year-old man shot and killed four people in a cafe, and then killed himself. No motive has yet been determined. The guns used were purchased legally. • June 9, 2012, Auburn, Alabama: A 22-yearold man killed three people at a pool party after getting into an argument over a woman. It was unclear whether the gun used was purchased legally. • July 20, 2012, Aurora, Colorado: A 24-yearold man killed 12 people and injured 58 others in a movie theater. The weapons used were purchased legally. • August 5, 2012, Oak Creek, Wisconsin: A 40-year-old man killed six people in a Sikh temple with a legally purchased handgun. • September 27, 2012, Minneapolis, Minnesota: A 36-year-old man killed four people and himself at his former workplace. The gun used was purchased legally. • December 14, 2012, Newtown, Connecticut: A 20-year-old man entered an elementary school where he shot and killed 20 children, six adults, and then himself with legally purchased weapons. • April 15, 2013, Boston, Massachusetts: Two brothers detonated two bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring 264. • April 17, 2013, West, Texas: An ammonium nitrate explosion at the West Fertilizer Company killed at least 15 people, injured more than 160 people, and destroyed or damaged more than 150 buildings. An investigation into the explosion is ongoing.
Disclosure: The author has no financial interest to declare in relation to the content of this Editorial.
www.PRSJournal.com
453
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery • February 2014 The above is a sharply abbreviated list of shootings, explosions, and accidents that have recently occurred in the United States. Wikipedia and other Web sites chronicle school shootings and other disasters in grim detail,1 and the full list of documented attacks can become overwhelming. In light of recent events, it has been challenging to see that sometimes things are not as they appear. Dramatic and life-altering changes can happen in the blink of an eye, from the devastation seen in West, Texas (for which, as of this writing, investigators have ruled out terrorism, but not the possibility of a criminal act2), which wreaked havoc and devastation on a quiet north Texas community, to the senseless terrorist acts of two individuals in Boston during the city’s celebrated annual marathon. These events, especially shootings and terrorist acts, seem to occur on an evermore-frequent basis, and they cause us to reflect and perhaps question the principles that matter to us. The United States was conceived and founded on the belief that individuals (and groups of people) were intelligent and would pursue a course of action that was guided by self-interest yet equally informed and properly limited by a shared concern for the welfare of others. Alexis de Tocqueville, a great French political thinker and historian best known for his book Democracy in America (published in 1835), studied social and economic change in America in the early 1800s. He observed that democracy worked in America because there was a balance between individualism and responsibility/concern for the community. Concern for both the individual and the community must be present and balanced for democracy to work; if either element is skewed, democracy itself becomes distorted.3 In the nearly 200 years since the publication of Democracy in America, it seems that our society has held individualism and concern for the community in a relatively good, workable balance. The system has worked. We have not self-destructed and we never will. However, I wonder whether things are beginning to change. Reading about (and hearing first-hand from our plastic surgery colleagues in Boston) the actions of individuals who have no regard for the “community of where they live” may force me to rethink my world view. Bombings and shootings awaken us to consider the wonderful liberties that we take for granted in this country and in all the civilized democracies in the world, including free speech and the ability to worship as we wish and to choose our own paths. But with these freedoms come great personal and national
454
responsibility. In fact, the greater the freedom we want to enjoy, the greater the obligation that is placed on us. It seems that many individuals in our society have lost sight of their responsibility to the community and focus solely on their own individual freedom. I visited the Holy Land earlier this spring, and I encountered first-hand a similar yet quite different democracy and society than those of the United States. There is a much more intense external personal awareness by the population, which is very transparent, as evidenced by the constant presence of heavily armed police and military personnel---all with automatic weapons--and numerous checkpoints, many with reinforced concrete and some with barbed wire, that dot the streets. In some parts of the Holy Land, people must go through multiple checkpoints every day, where soldiers and police administer their tasks with deadly seriousness. It is a much more selfaware society. How did this occur? It did not happen overnight, but rather after a series of terrorist acts and senseless violence. Is this where the United States is headed, as this similar sense of tension and self-awareness becomes more palpable among our citizens? I think not … yet. In Israel, people keep their eyes more open, take note of those who are around them, make mental notes on their surroundings, develop possible escape routes, and carefully plan everywhere they go. Every parked vehicle they pass could be packed with explosives. Every bus they board could be booby-trapped. Every time they see a person use a cell phone, it could be to detonate a bomb. The overall sense of community is different than in the United States. It is a difficult balancing act to mirror democracy and yet remain fully aware of all that surrounds you in a potentially hostile environment. For a democracy that exists in the modern era, what can be done? Is democracy endangered or about to change? Are we safe? Has the sense of individualism so overshadowed the responsibility to the community that we are ever more at risk of terrorism? Furthermore, what is our response to attacks, to shootings? How then should we live in this day of perceived versus real insecurity and the insanity caused by a few extreme individuals? Although we cannot allow these senseless acts to cause us to modify our entire life behavior, neither can we ignore them. I posit that as individuals and as a society, we need to regain the balance between individualism and responsibility (and accountability) to the community. We need to readjust and
Volume 133, Number 2 • Editorial recalibrate our understanding of freedom to realize that even though we are free to pursue our own goals, we are not free to do so without any restraint or consideration of our fellow citizens. Sometimes (even often), we need to say no to our own interests. Sometimes (even often), we need to hold the concerns and well-being of the community at greater importance than our own pursuits. The limits, boundaries, and constraints that our forebears placed on themselves were good things that enabled them to achieve and pursue the American dream. Those limits gave shape to their behavior, which gave shape to success, which gave us the wonderful country we still have today. Just hours after the bombing in Boston, comedian Patton Oswalt posted a moving and refreshingly hopeful essay on his Facebook page, which quickly went viral as Americans were still searching for motives and who could have carried out such a despicable act. Recognizing that there will always be those who choose to destroy rather than create, Oswalt wrote that “the vast majority stands against that darkness …. So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, ‘The good outnumber you, and we always will.’”4 We all want our personal freedoms to survive and thrive for future generations—our children’s children and beyond. Therefore, we need to revive the wisdom that looks beyond the self and
sees benefit to the whole, and takes care of the future generation. Each of us needs to take this on as a personal life mission and vision. If we do this, we will all indeed be safe. The vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago. —Patton Oswalt Rod J. Rohrich, M.D. Editor-in-Chief Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 5959 Harry Hines Boulevard, POB 1, Suite 300 Dallas, Texas 75390-8820 [email protected]
REFERENCES 1. Wikipedia. List of School Shootings in the United States. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_ shootings_in_the_United_States#2010s. Accessed May 15, 2013. 2. West explosion report to be released. Available at: http:// dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/05/16/west-explosion-report-to-bereleased/. Accessed May 31, 2013. 3. Wikipedia. Alexis de Tocqueville. Available at: http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville. Accessed May 15, 2013. 4. Oswalt P. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/pattonoswalt/posts/10151440800582655. Accessed May 30, 2013.
455
When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness. —Alexis de Tocqueville
M
y daughter asked me the morning after the Boston Marathon terrorist bombing: “Dad, are we truly safe in America today?” Frankly, I hesitated to answer her for a while but regained my composure and said, “Yes but … we live in a different world today than before 9/11.” For all of us who live in the United States, the world forever changed on that day. Before that fateful day, many Americans considered themselves impermeable to global events and had an isolated, protected view of the world. Today, our world is not so much one of fear and intimidation but rather one of greater awareness, more realistic in our approach to the threats facing civilized countries. It’s a world of greater uncertainty, but it is also a technologically advanced era of instant communication and constant interaction with our peers globally. Therefore, this makes life more complicated, but we still must live our lives freely each day if we are to remain a truly independent and democratic nation. The following is a list of some of the tragic events, excluding natural disasters, that took place in the United States during the last 15 months: • February 22, 2012, Norcross, Georgia: A 59-year-old man walked into a health spa where he shot and killed four people, then himself. The shooter may have wanted money from the victims. The gun was purchased legally. • February 27, 2012, Chardon, Ohio: A 17-year-old opened fired in a high school cafeteria, killing three of his fellow students. The motive, as well as whether the gun used was purchased legally, is unclear.
From the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Received for publication May 16, 2013; accepted May 21, 2013. Copyright © 2013 by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons DOI: 10.1097/PRS.0b013e3182a805b7
• April 2, 2012, Oakland, California: A 43-year-old man shot seven people at a small Christian college, because he had not been refunded some tuition money. The gun was purchased legally. • May 30, 2012, Seattle, Washington: A 40-year-old man shot and killed four people in a cafe, and then killed himself. No motive has yet been determined. The guns used were purchased legally. • June 9, 2012, Auburn, Alabama: A 22-yearold man killed three people at a pool party after getting into an argument over a woman. It was unclear whether the gun used was purchased legally. • July 20, 2012, Aurora, Colorado: A 24-yearold man killed 12 people and injured 58 others in a movie theater. The weapons used were purchased legally. • August 5, 2012, Oak Creek, Wisconsin: A 40-year-old man killed six people in a Sikh temple with a legally purchased handgun. • September 27, 2012, Minneapolis, Minnesota: A 36-year-old man killed four people and himself at his former workplace. The gun used was purchased legally. • December 14, 2012, Newtown, Connecticut: A 20-year-old man entered an elementary school where he shot and killed 20 children, six adults, and then himself with legally purchased weapons. • April 15, 2013, Boston, Massachusetts: Two brothers detonated two bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring 264. • April 17, 2013, West, Texas: An ammonium nitrate explosion at the West Fertilizer Company killed at least 15 people, injured more than 160 people, and destroyed or damaged more than 150 buildings. An investigation into the explosion is ongoing.
Disclosure: The author has no financial interest to declare in relation to the content of this Editorial.
www.PRSJournal.com
453
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery • February 2014 The above is a sharply abbreviated list of shootings, explosions, and accidents that have recently occurred in the United States. Wikipedia and other Web sites chronicle school shootings and other disasters in grim detail,1 and the full list of documented attacks can become overwhelming. In light of recent events, it has been challenging to see that sometimes things are not as they appear. Dramatic and life-altering changes can happen in the blink of an eye, from the devastation seen in West, Texas (for which, as of this writing, investigators have ruled out terrorism, but not the possibility of a criminal act2), which wreaked havoc and devastation on a quiet north Texas community, to the senseless terrorist acts of two individuals in Boston during the city’s celebrated annual marathon. These events, especially shootings and terrorist acts, seem to occur on an evermore-frequent basis, and they cause us to reflect and perhaps question the principles that matter to us. The United States was conceived and founded on the belief that individuals (and groups of people) were intelligent and would pursue a course of action that was guided by self-interest yet equally informed and properly limited by a shared concern for the welfare of others. Alexis de Tocqueville, a great French political thinker and historian best known for his book Democracy in America (published in 1835), studied social and economic change in America in the early 1800s. He observed that democracy worked in America because there was a balance between individualism and responsibility/concern for the community. Concern for both the individual and the community must be present and balanced for democracy to work; if either element is skewed, democracy itself becomes distorted.3 In the nearly 200 years since the publication of Democracy in America, it seems that our society has held individualism and concern for the community in a relatively good, workable balance. The system has worked. We have not self-destructed and we never will. However, I wonder whether things are beginning to change. Reading about (and hearing first-hand from our plastic surgery colleagues in Boston) the actions of individuals who have no regard for the “community of where they live” may force me to rethink my world view. Bombings and shootings awaken us to consider the wonderful liberties that we take for granted in this country and in all the civilized democracies in the world, including free speech and the ability to worship as we wish and to choose our own paths. But with these freedoms come great personal and national
454
responsibility. In fact, the greater the freedom we want to enjoy, the greater the obligation that is placed on us. It seems that many individuals in our society have lost sight of their responsibility to the community and focus solely on their own individual freedom. I visited the Holy Land earlier this spring, and I encountered first-hand a similar yet quite different democracy and society than those of the United States. There is a much more intense external personal awareness by the population, which is very transparent, as evidenced by the constant presence of heavily armed police and military personnel---all with automatic weapons--and numerous checkpoints, many with reinforced concrete and some with barbed wire, that dot the streets. In some parts of the Holy Land, people must go through multiple checkpoints every day, where soldiers and police administer their tasks with deadly seriousness. It is a much more selfaware society. How did this occur? It did not happen overnight, but rather after a series of terrorist acts and senseless violence. Is this where the United States is headed, as this similar sense of tension and self-awareness becomes more palpable among our citizens? I think not … yet. In Israel, people keep their eyes more open, take note of those who are around them, make mental notes on their surroundings, develop possible escape routes, and carefully plan everywhere they go. Every parked vehicle they pass could be packed with explosives. Every bus they board could be booby-trapped. Every time they see a person use a cell phone, it could be to detonate a bomb. The overall sense of community is different than in the United States. It is a difficult balancing act to mirror democracy and yet remain fully aware of all that surrounds you in a potentially hostile environment. For a democracy that exists in the modern era, what can be done? Is democracy endangered or about to change? Are we safe? Has the sense of individualism so overshadowed the responsibility to the community that we are ever more at risk of terrorism? Furthermore, what is our response to attacks, to shootings? How then should we live in this day of perceived versus real insecurity and the insanity caused by a few extreme individuals? Although we cannot allow these senseless acts to cause us to modify our entire life behavior, neither can we ignore them. I posit that as individuals and as a society, we need to regain the balance between individualism and responsibility (and accountability) to the community. We need to readjust and
Volume 133, Number 2 • Editorial recalibrate our understanding of freedom to realize that even though we are free to pursue our own goals, we are not free to do so without any restraint or consideration of our fellow citizens. Sometimes (even often), we need to say no to our own interests. Sometimes (even often), we need to hold the concerns and well-being of the community at greater importance than our own pursuits. The limits, boundaries, and constraints that our forebears placed on themselves were good things that enabled them to achieve and pursue the American dream. Those limits gave shape to their behavior, which gave shape to success, which gave us the wonderful country we still have today. Just hours after the bombing in Boston, comedian Patton Oswalt posted a moving and refreshingly hopeful essay on his Facebook page, which quickly went viral as Americans were still searching for motives and who could have carried out such a despicable act. Recognizing that there will always be those who choose to destroy rather than create, Oswalt wrote that “the vast majority stands against that darkness …. So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, ‘The good outnumber you, and we always will.’”4 We all want our personal freedoms to survive and thrive for future generations—our children’s children and beyond. Therefore, we need to revive the wisdom that looks beyond the self and
sees benefit to the whole, and takes care of the future generation. Each of us needs to take this on as a personal life mission and vision. If we do this, we will all indeed be safe. The vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago. —Patton Oswalt Rod J. Rohrich, M.D. Editor-in-Chief Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 5959 Harry Hines Boulevard, POB 1, Suite 300 Dallas, Texas 75390-8820 [email protected]
REFERENCES 1. Wikipedia. List of School Shootings in the United States. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_ shootings_in_the_United_States#2010s. Accessed May 15, 2013. 2. West explosion report to be released. Available at: http:// dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/05/16/west-explosion-report-to-bereleased/. Accessed May 31, 2013. 3. Wikipedia. Alexis de Tocqueville. Available at: http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville. Accessed May 15, 2013. 4. Oswalt P. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/pattonoswalt/posts/10151440800582655. Accessed May 30, 2013.
455
