We all know those mass murders in Sudan, Nigeria, and other parts of Africa are due to Hollywood movies.
Man is violent, always has been, always will be.
““Anyone who clings to the historically untrue — and — thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never solves anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler would referee. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor; and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms.” - Robert Heinlein
I don’t think he’s talking about mass murders committed with the pretext of war or ideological justification, but about exalting the cold, calculated behavior of an individual who has decided to chose evil and sees himself as powerful because he is completely without morality or pity.
I do think there’s a problem with individuals taking this as a role model and thinking it’s cool to be evil. In many cases, it’s just a pose and they never do anything and if they’re young maybe, just maybe, they’ll grow out of it. But one of the problems is that people who try it on as an image, maybe to scare their parents, maybe to freak out their classmates, don’t really believe in the objective existence of evil - and therefore they are laying themselves wide-open to it.
I think it was CS Lewis who said that the Devil likes nothing better than for us to think he doesn’t exist.
The large scale, cosmic battle between good and evil has been abandoned in our culture, since we found the good just too darn hard for us and in any case Freud told us that our darker urges were our more “authentic” ones and shouldn’t be stifled. So people are left with only evil as an image, and even though they might not really believe in it at first, it takes them over and they don’t even know it.
Naturally, people who have mental problems are more susceptible to this - I think you’d find that virtually all of these recent cases have been mentally ill or exhibiting abnormal behavior of one kind or another before they did their evil deeds - but there are also weak followers who just get caught up in it. One of the Columbine killers was definitely mentally ill - but the other was just a follower, a loser who fell under the sway of his partner, and defined himself as evil.
Violence is relative.
Is it violent to strap someone down and cut them with a knife? What if you're a surgeon?
Is it violent to take a gun and shoot a man dead? What if that man is trying to commit mass murder?
Is it peaceful to protect religious freedom? What if that means men can drag girls away and cut out their genital in the name of Allah?
Is it tolerant for liberals to embrace and celebrate muslim students? What about the gays they hang wherever they find them, and have the power to seize them?
Critical thinking - it's not just a river in Egypt.