Craving for Certainty Drives Confusion After Tragedies

[You can listen to this article on Mel Pine's From the Pure Land podcast via your favorite podcast app or on his Substack page.]

The brilliant September 12 article Something Is Wrong Online by Charlie Warzel in The Atlantic helped me find a framework to express what has been bugging me since long before the internet. He wrote about the craving for certainty that drives us to grasp for quick answers to shocking events—answers that fit our preconceived notions of how the world works.

The current case in point is the online finger-pointing that began as soon as the news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination broke. As I’ll explain, I’m well acquainted with the need to explain the unexplainable, which reaches frantic levels when what’s unexplained is a tragedy. Our online culture is a magnifying glass that turns that tendency into an blaze of disinformation. Warzel wrote:

This is the algorithmic internet at work. It abhors an information vacuum and, in the absence of facts or credible information, gaps are quickly filled with rage bait, conspiracy theorizing, doomerism, and vitriol.

Many of us are familiar with the famous line from Shunryu Suzuki (1904-71), the Sōtō Zen monk and teacher:

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.

The problem is retaining a beginner’s mind—aware of what we don’t know and open to possibilities—even when badly shaken. I’ve written before about the most traumatic event in my life—even more traumatic than the accidental death of my son in 2015. Thirty-two years before that, my uncle and aunt were shot to death by their son, the first cousin who had been my playmate growing up.

Barry began showing symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia at around the age of 20, which is common for that disease. Now, with us both in our thirties, he shot his parents to death one Friday night. With easy access to their apartment and a history of episodic violence, he was the obvious suspect once the bodies were discovered the following day—Saturday. But the police waited until Thursday to build their case, take his confession, and arrest him.

Imagine “sitting shiva”—the Jewish equivalent of a weeklong wake—for my uncle and aunt with their son and killer constantly among the mourners. That’s what I meant when I wrote that I’m well acquainted with the need to explain the unexplainable, especially when the unexplainable is a tragedy. I was astounded that so many of us concocted conspiracy theories and alternative scenarios to avoid what’s more logical but also hard as hell to accept.

A man suffering from a serious mental illness can wear a three-piece suit, clean ashtrays, and serve drinks at his father’s 70th birthday party and three months later shoot both of his parents to death.

To be clear, having a serious mental illness doesn’t make one a murderer, but sometimes it’s a factor in precipitating violence. Elyn R. Saks is an accomplished American legal scholar, mental health advocate, and author who has lived with schizophrenia since her late teens. She is the Orrin B. Evans Distinguished Professor of Law, Psychology, Psychiatry, and the Behavioral Sciences at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. She has said this:

My experience is that when one is in psychosis, you're on a mission and nothing is going to stop you. At some level your brain is telling you you probably shouldn't be doing this, but you're on a mission.

Barry was on a mission that Friday night. From what he said in his confession, voices told him he had to kill his parents. To most of us, though, that’s not enough of an explanation. Our first (ricidulous) question is:

Yeah, so what was the motive?

That’s what bugs the hell out of me. (That wasn’t a very Buddhist thing to say. How about: “That’s what threatens my equanimity”?)

We can’t be certain of anything, but I strongly suspect that the overwhelming majority of assassinations of public figures, random acts of violance, and mass shootings aren’t carried out by people with a “motive” most of us are able to understand. We are driven to find one anyway, so we come up with any screwball explanation that fits into our worldview.

In the case of my cousin Barry, he had a guru, which didn’t fit into the 1983 worldview of the first, second, and third-generation children of Jewish immigrants who were his family. So one dominant conspiracy theory was that he did the shooting but had been programmed by his guru to do it. Without any evidence, of course, people were certain that the guru wanted more money from Barry, which might be available after their death.

In my view, that explanation is no more wacky than that Kirk’s killer acted out of a truly political motivation. He may not be mentally ill enough to fit into the legal definition of insanity or to fit neatly into a category of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). But his mission came to him from some mental process most of us have no way of understanding.

We can’t be certain of anything. Nevertheless, learning that I was wrong about that would also threaten my equanimity.

My suggestion, the next time there’s inexplicable and shocking news, for your mental health and as a kindness to others:

• Don’t speculate about it, even to advance your political position,

• Don’t look for a motive, and

• Have sympathy for the perpetrator and his or her loved ones.

---

Mel's next book will be published October 17. Here's a link to all the online retailers offering A Buddhist Path to Joy at pre-publication prices ranging from $1.99 to $2.99.