Statistics and Cold Truth

(Author's note: For one of my classes I had to read this article about the Sandy Hook shooting. You don't have to read the whole thing, but it helps to understand that this a response to that piece. And if this is a sensitive topic for you, either brace yourself or stop here.)

Human minds strive to fill empty space. And there is no larger void than the future. I look at this blank page before me and try to envision how I’m going to fill it, dumping my thoughts out, tiny black letters one by one creating a map of pixels that my brain, and the brain of any literate English speaker, can somehow make sense of. I now look at what I’ve written and wonder exactly how pretentious and full of bullshit I am. For if human beings are anything, if anything separates us from other species, it has to be our capacity to create our own realities. Viewed by some as profound and by others as flights of fancy.

When given a certain set of facts or circumstances, a person will, nearly inevitably, create as coherent a story as possible. It doesn’t matter how complete the evidence is. A young man shoots 28 people, including himself. What narrative gets weaved around that fact, and how does it change as more facts come to life? Such stories evoke powerful emotions, and powerful emotions are the fuel of human belief.

I’m making a lot of claims, claims easily dismissed because I haven’t provided any evidence for them. I could provide that evidence. There are plenty of psychological studies and experiments that would verify my claims. But, in order to be convincing, readers would have to view social science as a valid way of obtaining knowledge. Also, even if readers believed in social science, they would still have to agree with my claims in the first place because social science shows that people’s reasoning is motivated by their emotions. Viewing evidence that opposes their beliefs only solidifies those beliefs.

I believe everything I have just said is true. But I also believe that the chain of reasoning I have used must be faulty because the conclusion is easily falsifiable. People do change their minds. They’re just lousy at using statistics. Groups of people do not change their minds. But individuals can.

Someone might ask what the hell any of this has to do with the Sandy Hook shootings. Not much. This is the second time I’ve read this article, the second time I’ve responded to it. I don’t have the time to waste on such insignificant matters.

That sounds cold. It is. What narrative might someone weave if all they knew about me was that I could care less about mass shootings? Might they call me an asshole, perhaps a sociopath? Would they think that I lack empathy? Probably. 

But I don’t care what they think. I don’t have the time. The world faces far larger problems than the tiny, insignificant number of people killed in mass shootings or terrorist attacks. People say they care. I believe them. They’re just lousy at using statistics.

About 10,000 people are killed in the United States each year by drunk drivers. About 40% of all violent crime in the United States is perpetrated by people under the influence of alcohol. Yet virtually no one demands that prohibition should be re-instated. Nor do I believe it should be. Few things are more dangerous than liberty. There are certainly steps we could take to curb the abuse of alcohol, but if we go too far, it might result in another war on drugs. And that is deadly enough on its own. The number of issues that result in more human suffering than mass shootings or terrorist attacks are innumerable. Yet many of them go ignored.

The American public and the media focus too much time and energy on isolated incidents like school shootings. Our emotional reasoning and inability to conceive of large numbers combine in ways that divert our attention from things that actually matter.

It is cold. I feel dirty. I am an empathetic human being. Even if I have to pretend not to be because I care too damn much. I have to believe that I can reach people, even if it’s just one person, and make them see the problems in proportion to their seriousness. I have to fill that void. 

But that’s just bullshit. I’m a hypocrite. How many things do I do that are sub-optimal? I can’t blame anyone else for doing what they think is right, even if I think it’s misguided. People have to be able to choose their own paths or life would be rote and boring. And given the amount of emotional damage mass shootings cause, can I really say they are less harmful? Emotional damage is real, too. But emotional damage can be healed. Lives lost to these bigger issues are gone forever. I’m not sure how to balance that.