What kind of savages are we today? ‘Pick ’em out and knock ’em out’

By David McElroy · July 17, 2012

Have we become a society that has no regard for human life? Or have we always been that kind of callous society? Are we becoming more civilized over the centuries? Or are we hopelessly fallen savages who are fooling ourselves by pretending to be more civil? I can’t decide.

There’s a game that certain thuggish teens in Chicago play called “Pick ’em out and knock ’em out.” (Maybe it’s played elsewhere, but I’ve never heard of it until now.) Three Chicago teens ran across a 62-year-old man last Tuesday when they decided to randomly play this sick game.

“I think I’m gonna knock out this (expletive),” said the 16-year-old who started it, according to prosecutors. They say he started the video recorder on his cellphone and handed it to a 17-year-old to record the attack. He and an 18-year-old took turns recording the beating.

The three thugs surrounded Delfino Mora, an unemployed, partly disabled man who was in an alley collecting cans for recycling. The 16-year-old asked whether Mora had any money. When Mora didn’t respond, he punched him hard enough to knock the older man down. When his head hit the concrete, there was a loud crack that can be heard on the video recording, according to prosecutors.

Then the three teen thugs stole $60 from Mora’s billfold. As they walked away, all three can be heard laughing about the attack on the defenseless older man.

How do we know what happened? Police have the video. Why do they have the video? Because they were so proud of the attack that the 16-year-old posted it on his Facebook page.

Someone found Mora three hours after the attack, but he died in a hospital the next day. It took a couple of days, but one of Mora’s sons eventually saw the Facebook video and called police. The three thugs were arrested over the weekend.

So tell me how it’s possible to stop this kind of behavior. More social programs? More police officers? Some kind of intervention in schools? I don’t think so. I just don’t see it.

The truth is that human beings do monstrous things to other human beings, very regularly. We’re brutal and nasty to one another, at times for absolutely no reason.

At other times, humans are kind and loving to others. We’ve seen examples of that right here regularly. Sometimes strangers do amazing things to help other people, just out of the desire to do good.

Will the real representative of the human race please stand up?

Are we vicious and mean? Or are we kind and loving? Are we civilized? Or are we hopelessly uncivilized?

We seem to be all of the above. I can’t tell if we’re really getting any better or not. Maybe we’re just fooling ourselves when we think so. I’m a believer in the idea of original sin, so I think it’s a part of the package of being human.

We’re never going to be perfected in this world, but I don’t see how we have any choice but to keep trying. Until our Maker comes back to take away evil for good, I have idea how we can stop the viciousness that’s so pervasive in many parts of society.

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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