Desensitization and the Coronavirus: How Mass Shootings Have Molded the American Psyche
Everyone has an opinion on how we should reopen the country, but are we approaching this decision with a healthy lens?
If you were to rank the impact of all major world conflicts on the United States, as indicated by US troop death toll, the list would look as follows: World War II, World War I, Vietnam War, Korean War, American Revolutionary War, Iraq War, War in Afghanistan [2–5]. Now, without doing a google search, if you were to add the Coronavirus US death toll to this list, where would it place?
In the Fall of 2016, I was studying abroad in Ireland for my first semester of college. After class was dismissed one day, I stayed behind to ask my professor some questions about an upcoming assignment. Eventually, she asked me how I was adapting to living in Ireland, followed by her condolences regarding a recent mass shooting in America. “What shooting?” After a short pause, she told me there had been a mass killing at a mall a couple of days prior in Burlington, Washington… I had seen something about that on my Facebook feed the day before but barely registered it. The deep concern my professor expressed drew a stark contrast to my apparent apathy for the event. How could I not have remembered this? Why do I not have the same concern about the event — which happened in the US — as my Irish professor? I think the answer is simple; many Americans are highly desensitized to death — and we are currently reaping the rewards of this detachment.
Growing up 30 minutes away from Columbine high school, I was terrified of school shootings, yet somehow that fear has dwindled. With the advent of Instagram, hoverboards, and Minecraft, the last two decades have also seen the rising frequency of gun violence headlines on national television. The sad fact is that the problem has only been getting worse, and unfortunately the public seems to have given in to this metastasizing monster. “The rate of mass killings has tripled since 2011… [From 1982 to 2011], mass killings occurred every 200 days on average. [From 2011 to 2014], mass killings occurred every 64 days on average.” (analysis by Harvard School of Public Health and Northeastern University, mass killings defined as public shootings with four or more deaths unrelated to gang or drug violence) [6]. “A recent FBI report [7] on “active shooters” found that the number of incidents more than doubled from the first to the second half of [2000 to 2015]. Four of the five deadliest shootings in American history happened in the past five years, and 2017 already far exceeds any previous year for the number of casualties.” (Wall Street Journal, 2017) [8]. “Somehow this has become routine. The reporting has become routine. My response here, from this podium, has become routine… We’ve become numb to this.” (President Obama, October 2015) [9]. “There have been at least five mass shootings in America in the past five days, and the best this beleaguered nation could offer is a collective shrug.” (Sophia Tesfaye, Jan 2019) [10]. Since Columbine, there have been 118 mass killings in the US alone (public shootings with four or more deaths unrelated to gang or drug violence) [11]. The fact of the matter is that recent years have been plagued by increasingly frequent headlines of moviegoers, college students, and schoolchildren being gunned down in a completely incomprehensible manner.
There comes a point when, after being constantly berated with information contradictory to what we would like to be true, that humans tend to adopt a degree of cognitive dissonance for the severity of that information [1]. This cognitive dissonance is not new. For example, German Holocaust deniers and American internment camp deniers emerged following WWII. Unfortunately, our society has been slowly adopting the poisonous principle of cognitive dissonance for gun violence in America. I argue that the problem here is a processing issue. The American public has no idea how to reconcile horrible deeds (like mass shootings) with everyday life. So, when we see mass shooting headlines perpetually plastered on our television screens, we become desensitized to the constant bewildering death and violence around us. We can’t help but veil the actual state of the world in favor of what we are comfortable with — and that’s where the Coronavirus comes in.
Personally, I’ve noticed that the increasing severity of mass shootings in America has directly correlated with my personal normalization/desensitization of the issue. Even those around me who care deeply about gun violence in America (as I do) often reluctantly admit that the constant influx of terrible news headlines is demoralizing. Additionally, if President Obama’s October 2015 speech (quoted above) is any indication of national attitude, I would say I’m not alone. Further, I think this desensitization has manifested itself in a hidden way during the current pandemic. I’d argue that this widespread growing apathy towards consistent incomprehensible violence has crippled our ability to fight COVID-19. When I heard about people dying in China because of a new virus, I was unphased. I thought “people die all the time for crazy reasons. Why should I be concerned now?” Then I heard that the virus was impacting Italy, and — if I’m being honest — I was only slightly concerned. As the virus spread further, I started to realize this could be an issue. Then, like a freight train, it hit my front door. Classes were moved online, college graduation was canceled, and my dad was turned away from his cancer treatments for a short time as he waited for virus test results to come back negative so he could enter the infusion facility. Others have lost work, financial assets, and even their lives. Yet, despite all of this, many blatantly ignore government regulations set in place to fight the virus. Despite the severity of the situation rapidly inflating, public apathy toward the situation has steadily grown. Hm, where have I seen this before?
Massive, horrible events initially spark outrage and action, as both mass shootings and the Coronavirus has. But, over time, the continual presence of Coronavirus headlines has resulted in the same kind of cognitive dissonance the public currently harbors for mass shootings. Social distancing guidelines are being broken; those on the coast have been returning to the beach; young adults are once again organizing parties, and people are protesting for the reopening of nail salons and barbershops. Because we fail to understand the severity of the situation and slowly become desensitized to it as a result, much of the American public would rather veil reality in favor of a more comfortable and familiar lifestyle.
I don’t mean to say the country should stay shut down forever, or even that those who want to reopen the country quickly are wrong. I understand that every second we remain shut down amounts to massive long-lasting financial burdens for many Americans, which propagates to issues much more severe than lost profits (like homelessness, depression, and suicide) [12]. Because of this, the negative fiscal impact of shutting down deserves a seat at the table, but so does another player that is not currently discussed in mainstream media. What I am trying to convey is that we are not just fighting a battle against a virus; we’re fighting a battle against our own psychology. In this piece, I don’t aim to make any arguments for how we should reopen the country; I aim to elucidate a confounding psychological factor that impedes our ability to rationally make decisions about how we should fight the virus. Years of the constant bombardment of mass shooting headlines has made us numb to the idea of widespread, incomprehensible death — hindering our ability to fully grasp the impact of this virus. Without knowing it, our own psychology is weighing down our ability to appropriately understand and fight the virus. If we don’t wake up and realize we’re running a race in concrete shoes, we won’t get anywhere; we will be in the same situation we are in currently come 2021. So how do we fight?
Cognitive dissonance works by eating away at your rationality in favor of your confirmation bias and creature comforts, resulting in desensitization [1]. We don’t fully understand the Coronavirus and we would rather not; we would rather go to the beach, party, barber, or nail salon. So, if we want to adequately and clearly approach the decision-making process about how we should fight the Coronavirus, we have to first address our underlying desensitization to widespread, seemingly mindless death. The answer here is simple; we have to learn how to properly comprehend this horrible situation. This means two things. The first is that we have to logically understand the facts about the virus, how we can fight it, and what the best route forward is, and the second is that we have to emotionally understand the impact of the virus. While these things might seem obvious, we also have to recognize that we are preconditioned to fail in these areas; we come into the race with concrete boots molded by our predisposition to desensitization of continual horrific events.
Logically understanding Coronavirus
I certainly am not an expert on the matter, so I won’t pretend to give you immunological information about the virus. But something we should all do is question ourselves and how much we really know, beyond interpretations by whatever our likely somewhat biased news source of choice focuses on. How much do you actually know about the Coronavirus? What do current projections look like for virus growth/decline? What is the doubling time of the virus in your area? What is the doubling time of the virus in the town adjacent to yours? Which areas are hit the hardest and what do ICU and ventilator availabilities look like in these areas? Can this information be found online? Could your area be hit as hard as these areas? What if the only way to prevent this was for everyone to come together and fight this thing? I’m a Bioengineer with experience in molecular biology, and if there’s one thing I know about this virus it is that I don’t know enough to make any widespread decisions about it. Despite this, I (and everyone reading this) must make a decision on how we each will individually will respond to government regulations. Personally, I don’t know how to answer a lot of these questions with confidence. Cities, counties, and states are coming together to make educated decisions about how we are going to fight the virus, and even they don’t have full details about the state of the virus due to incomplete testing and a host of uncontrollably complex factors (like citizens ignoring social distancing mandates). However, even with this extensive information and precautions due to lack of information, some states will still be too hasty in their reopening. So, if you are going to decide that you know enough about this virus to make a decision about it, take into account your likely desensitization to the issue and err on the side of caution. Odds are you aren’t more qualified than the government to make a decision on this, so remember that it’s always safer to stay home if you can (even if your local area loosens certain restrictions).
Emotionally understanding Coronavirus
As a healthy twenty-two-year-old, I am not at much of a risk to be personally affected by the Coronavirus. This means I could go to the beach, a party, hell even a nail salon if I wanted to, and more likely than not I wouldn’t even notice if I got the virus. But — as I’m sure everybody reading this already knows — I can spread it to others [13]. If I accidentally contracted the virus because I decided I needed some beach sand between my toes, I could spread it to the person at the nail salon, the other partygoers, my sick dad when I get home, and the nurses at the hospital if I end up exhibiting symptoms. I don’t mean to belabor this point or say we can’t or shouldn’t ever leave the house (we need food and exercise, just follow social distancing guidelines). However, each of us needs to internalize the fact that we are putting the lives of others in danger when we take unnecessary risks. Take a step back and realize that if you get sick, the nurse taking care of you won’t hesitate to risk his or her own health (and thus the health of their family at home) to treat you to the best of their ability. Given our growing desensitization to the impact of the virus, we have to emotional sensitize ourselves to the repercussions of our actions before we decide to take them.
Lastly, in case nothing else in this piece helped you resensitize yourself to the severity of the situation we are in, I would like to redirect you to the first question in this article. If you were to rank the impact on the US (as indicated by US death toll) of the Coronavirus among every major world conflict, where would it place? Here’s the current list without Coronavirus: World War II (405,399 US deaths), World War I (116,516), Vietnam War (58,209), Korean War (36,574), American Revolutionary War (25,000), Iraq War (4,497), War in Afghanistan (2,216) [2-5]. There is no way it’s higher than World War I or II? The entire nation came together to fight these wars and contribute in any way they could to assist those on the front line? Surely, it isn’t higher than the Vietnam war? The Vietnam war spread over 14 years (versus the Coronavirus’ 3 months), resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, and sparked the largest anti-war demonstration in US history [14]. So where does the Coronavirus place?
Currently, third, and the Coronavirus will soon have killed more Americans than World War I…
As of May 11th, in the US alone, there have been over 80,000 confirmed deaths due to the Coronavirus (the actual number is likely higher than this due to lack of testing) [15]. An ensemble of all major COVID-19 forecasts compiled by the CDC indicates that the US death toll will be over 100,000 by the end of the month and will most likely top 135,000 deaths by the end of the summer [16]. Because of this, Coronavirus is projected to be the third leading cause of death this year (just behind cancer and heart disease) [17]. An important note about this data — and I cannot stress this enough — is that it is reliant on social distancing. These numbers are only as “low” as they are because we have gone into a nation-wide lockdown, and if we hadn’t the death toll would be astronomically higher.
I’m not an expert, but I see a problem here. In the US, the Coronavirus has already been more deadly than all but two wars we have fought in, and soon it will be the second deadliest international affair the US has ever been a part of. At some point we lost perspective on this situation; we became desensitized. We went from being a nation where citizens fought to help those on the front lines or came together in protest to bring them home (both in the pursuit of saving lives and ending mindless death), to a nation where many of us would rather put on the blinders and live our lives how we see fit, regardless of the effect it could have on others.
2,977 people died on 9/11 and the nation united to do whatever we could to fight terrorism [18]. Everyone came together to etch that memory into their heads, to never forget, so that something like that would never happen again. So, as we go into the next couple months where stay-at-home orders will be relaxed and each of us will be faced with personal decisions on what is and isn’t “essential”, remember the 80,000 people who have already died and the countless lives that have been and will be saved due to social distancing. Don’t let apathy and lurking desensitization cloud our rationality as we slowly and carefully make decisions as to how each of us will find the new normal. We are a country of fighters and innovators, and this is the perfect opportunity to embrace our creativity. Engineers are working together to 3D print ventilators [19], teachers are driving to student’s houses to tutor them through glass windows [20], John Krasinski (actor) has started a makeshift news channel focused on spreading good news [21], and college graduations are being held across the country over online platforms like Roblox and Minecraft (like mine was)!
Our country is currently under stress, and — though we are predisposed to become desensitized to the issue — let’s do this right. Don’t run the race with concrete shoes. Look at the challenge we are facing, break free from the psychological weights clouding your judgment, see that what we have in front of us is much more of a marathon than a race, and let’s decide to run it together. I don’t know what the next couple of months will look like, or what they should look like, but never forget the lives that will be saved because each of us decided to practice safe social distancing and staying indoors whenever possible.
TLDR: Just wear the mask!
Citations
[1] What Does Cognitive Dissonance Mean?: Everyday Health. (2018, March 6). Retrieved from https://www.everydayhealth.com/neurology/cognitive-dissonance/what-does-cognitive-dissonance-mean-theory-definition/.
[2] John W. Chambers, II, ed. in chief, The Oxford Companion to American Military History. (Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0–19–507198–0), 849
[3] Korean War Fast Facts. (2013, June 28). Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2013/06/28/world/asia/korean-war-fast-facts/index.html.
[4] American Revolution Facts. (2020, April 6). Retrieved from https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/american-revolution-faqs
[5] US Department of Defense. https://web.archive.org/web/20130116062321/http://www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf
[6] Mother Jones. (2017, June 28). Rate of mass shootings has tripled since 2011, new research from Harvard shows. Retrieved May 10, 2020, from https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/mass-shootings-increasing-harvard-research/
[7] A Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the United States Between 2000 and 2013. (2016, May 5). Retrieved from https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-study-2000-2013-1.pdf/view
[8] Schulman, A. N. (2017, November 17). How Not to Cover Mass Shootings. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-not-to-cover-mass-shootings-1510939088
[9] Statement by the President on the Shootings at Umpqua Community College, Roseburg, Oregon. (2015). Retrieved from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/10/01/statement-president-shootings-umpqua-community-college-roseburg-oregon
[10] Tesfaye, S. (2019, February 1). Five mass shootings in five days: Is America officially desensitized to gun violence? Retrieved from https://www.salon.com/2019/01/29/five-mass-shootings-in-five-days-is-america-officially-desensitized-to-gun-violence/
[11] List of mass shootings in the United States. (2020, May 10). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States#cite_note-:0-9
[12] Holleran, L., Poon, G., VA Medical Center, & Palo Alto University. (n.d.). Harvard Public Health Review: A Student Publication. Retrieved from http://harvardpublichealthreview.org/lori/
[13] Clinical Questions about COVID-19: Questions and Answers. (2020, May 6). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/faq.html#Transmission
[14] History.com Editors. (2009, October 29). Vietnam War. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-history
[15] COVID-19 Map. (n.d.). Retrieved May 11, 2020, from https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
[16] COVID-19 Forecasts. (2020, May 6). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/forecasting-us.html
[17] Begley, S., Begley, S., Empinado, H., Begley, S., Begley, S., Empinado, H., & Gman. (2020, May 1). How high will it go? No easy answers as U.S. Covid-19 death toll tops 60,000. Retrieved from https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/30/coronavirus-death-projections-compare-causes-of-death/
[18] “Nine facts about terrorism in the United States since 9/11”. The Washington Post. September 11, 2013. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
[19] Essop, A., et al., & D Printing Industry. (2020, April 9). Volunteers develop 3D printable ventilator based on 1965 U.S. Army design. Retrieved from https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/volunteers-develop-3d-printable-ventilator-based-on-1965-u-s-army-design-170653/
[20] Teacher begins drive-by visits to check in on her students. (2020, March 23). Retrieved from https://fox6now.com/2020/03/23/teacher-begins-drive-by-visits-to-check-in-on-her-students/
[21] SomeGoodNews. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOe_y6KKvS3PdIfb9q9pGug
