Tag: culture of violence

Against Ideology: Creativity is Best Hope in an Uncertain World

June 17, 2021

Uncertainty is everywhere and growing fast. That makes many people uncomfortable at best, violent at worst. Most seek certainty in what they perceive as a set of beliefs that they equate with reality. When conditions appear uncertain or change quickly, certain people conclude that someone is messing with their reality. They expect to live in … More Against Ideology: Creativity is Best Hope in an Uncertain World

The American Way of Violence: Community or Chaos in Politics and Policing

June 11, 2021

The tension seems to grow by the day. Anyone who steps into the limelight of media exposure is subject to death threats. Anyone who happens to be in a store or workplace when an “active shooter” begins to fire his semi-automatic combat weapon may die without the slightest sense of why. A teenager at a … More The American Way of Violence: Community or Chaos in Politics and Policing

Taser, Gun, and Character: What You Cannot Train

April 21, 2021

I am tired of all the convenient talk of “more training” and other improvements in the formal management of police practices, as if they were a mere problem of technical engineering. They are not. The most important quality of police officers is not the skills they take from the academy to the precinct. It is … More Taser, Gun, and Character: What You Cannot Train

Misunderstanding Police: Transformation, Not Mere Reform

July 6, 2020

Recent calls to “defund the police” miss the point, yet they point to something important to both the public and police themselves. More than anything, such demands express the frustration that comes on the heels of not only the recent police killings but in response to decades of attempting to reform police institutions to purge … More Misunderstanding Police: Transformation, Not Mere Reform