It Is What It Is - Acceptance or Learned Helplessness?

Here is another tragedy. Another horrifying loss. Another gut-wrenching, terrifying turn of events. The details are disturbing, the unfolding story is mind-boggling, and the great unanswered question (Why?) is still unanswered.

These events are becoming so common that the BBC started off its coverage with, "Just another day in the United States of America - another day of gunfire, panic, and fear." The politicians are trotting out their platitudes. The trolls are trolling. The bloggers are blogging. Liberals are screaming for gun safety and conservatives are making it clear that "this is not a gun issue."

So nothing has changed. If anything, there have been fewer comments about the shooting, fewer calls for change, fewer voices raised in outrage. And this might be the most disturbing kind of reaction to this kind of ugly event - a lack of one. It suggests that we are just worn down, that our outrage machines are broken, that we are learning to accept this as part of the "new normal." After Newtown, many people were sure - absolutely certain - that something would happen, that something would change. The loss of so many young lives at once would surely, the logic went, inspire movement and change. That didn't happen. 

The lack of response and the hardened sides of the argument suggest that we are learning to be helpless. Wikipedia (which I don't often quote) says this about learned helplessness: 

"Learned helplessness is behavior typical of an organism (human or animal) that has endured repeated painful or otherwise aversive stimuli which it was unable to escape or avoid. After such experience, the organism often fails to learn escape or avoidance in new situations where such behavior would be effective. In other words, the organism seems to have learned that it is helpless in aversive situations, that it has lost control, and so it gives up trying. Such an organism is said to have acquired learned helplessness."

Americans might, unfortunately, have started believing that, when it comes to mass shootings, there's just nothing they can do. They may be resorting to phrases like, "What are you gonna do?" or "It is what it is" when it comes to this topic. And that's not a good thing. Now, I don't know whether a country can get clinically depressed, but learned helplessness is thought to be a precursor to depression and other forms of mental illness. 

So we have to do something. Because the alternative is apathy. I am not super-religious, but I do at times turn to religious text for advice. The Serenity Prayer says, "God grant me the serenity 
To accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference." The key here is that it takes courage to make change and wisdom to know when change can be made. 

In times like these, serenity, courage, and wisdom are invaluable.