Audrey's "Truth"

Insular threats From Within

Audrey Hale went to Nashville Covenant School on a Monday. It was the 27th of March, the year 2023. She is much older now, 27 to be exact, entering her old school 19 years later. This time she is not bringing her backpack, books, and lunch in hand. Instead she carrying items that serve a very different purpose. The books and food she used to carry entering this building were tools of life and growth. Today the items she is bringing are instruments of death and grief.

She didn’t know the faces of people she murdered. Knowing them didn’t matter to her. Though if they had 19 years ago, they would have been the ones willing giving their lives to develop and encourage her. Instead she is forcibly taking it from them today. Faces that genuinely would have wanted her to succeed and thrive. That is why they became teachers, they would have told us it isn’t for the money. And the only reason they lay dying on ground today at her feet is simply because they had the audacity to have a different idea about what it means to “thrive.” Audrey can’t even be bothered to pay attention to their look of horror and confusion as she reloads, consults her map, and heads for the next room

There are new smaller faces on Audrey’s return to school. The innocence of those faces makes no difference. Their lives doesn’t matter to her. All that matters to is that they are the faces of those who she believes are her enemy. Faces that looked just like hers not only 19 years ago. Faces reflecting fear and horror a much younger Audrey would have had if she was the one standing at the end of her own barrel. She is killing herself as she murders these children. She thinks she is making a statement. She had a plan, a map, and composed a manifesto. She is telling us her truth. Though it was not the one she intended

.The only reasonable question to ask in such horrific time as this is;

“Why?”

It all just seems so senseless. And it is, but this tragedy didn’t happen in a vacuum, and it would be a mistake to think that Audrey was alone in her extremist rhetoric. That her thirst for violence was unique. Audrey was an accomplished artist and graphic designer. She went to college. Was part of a tight knit online community. One that seems to more and more be dialing in the source of all of their grievances: the Church. Framing the discussion increasingly as a existential threat to their very lives. Histrionic as it may be, it would be foolish to assume this kind of perceived desperation isn’t going to lead to more desperate, violent, and unhinged attacks.

Insular communities online can breed extremism we all know. This can be true for any group anywhere. What happens though when an insular echo chamber sees any different or dissenting views actual violence against them? Who are so psychologically fragile that the willful or inadvertent misgendering of a person is interpreted as an act of violence? What do you get when everyone in your bubble is reporting that they are being violently attacked on a somewhat regular basis? Increasing extremism in such a community should come as a surprise to no one.

.If your epistemology and view of your identity is completely emotively constructed; your feelings are your absolute truth. To scrutinize your own feelings is to undermine the basis of your entire identity. If your identity is not based on any sort of biological reality, why should your feelings or beliefs be grounded in any sort of physical reality? Your emotions have become supreme and paramount: holding up your entire existence. Therefore your feelings can never not be legitimized, invalidated, or even questioned. Any assertion that your deeply held feelings could be misguided or wrong in any way is seen as a existential threat.

As we bury the innocent this week, we should all consider how what this phenomenon of unquestionable beliefs is increasingly a existential threat to us all. We should all take the time to stare long into the mind of this disturbed individual, who is definitely not alone.