Monday, October 7, 2019

Conflict Sociology Explains It



The latest mass shootings have resulted in a vehement discussion of the white supremacist domestic terrorism emerging in the US at this time. Experts are interviewed on all the channels, analyses are offered in countless articles, as to what motivates this upsurge of racist violence that is committed largely by young white men. 

Much blame is attributed to Donald Trump’s rhetoric. And it is true that this vile man is a facilitator for this emerging trend.

The ridiculous ease with which automatic firearms can be obtained in this country is rightly identified as an important factor, if not in the existence of white male rage, at least in the lethality of their rampages.

On the stupid side are all those who desperately focus on ANY issue in order to avoid talking about guns: Mental illness (as if the US had a monopoly on this), video games (don’t the Japanese have even more video games, and practically zero homicides?). You even hear that if we outlaw guns, we might as well outlaw fertilizer, as that can also be used to kill people.

But there is an obvious factor which I have not heard mentioned. One of Sociology’s major approaches is so-called Conflict Sociology. It provides what is, in my view, the most obvious explanation of the rise of what we can now begin to call neo-fascism in America: Read more...