In a previous column I tried to ‘tickle’ a dialogue on why one could not consider Suspect A in the Aurora, Colorado killings a terrorist.

Frankly, I think most people may not have thought through this issue enough to have a strong view or opinion.  

When at Intan, our colleague Ahmad Bakri Shabdin conducted his ‘Train the Trainer programmes’ with great emphasis on teaching students ‘how to help Adam think things through, so that Adam can see himself through in life’. Basically they taught people the ebbs, flows and process-view of life and living. That lesson captured most aptly the orientation promoted by systems thinking.

Process theology or process thought is a school of thought influenced by the metaphysical process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) and further developed by Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000).

For both Whitehead and Hartshorne, it is an essential attribute of God to be fully involved in and affected by temporal processes, an idea that conflicts with traditional forms of theism that held God as a ‘Theistic Other’ and in all respects non-temporal (eternal), unchanging ( immutable ), and unaffected by the world ( impassible ).

Process theology does not deny that God is in some respects eternal, immutable, and impassible, but it contradicts the classical objectivist or scientific view by insisting that God is in some respects relevant to a temporal, mutable, and passible world.

The nature of human nature

Any such a process review must first and foremost start with a particular view about the nature of man. We need to fully understand alternative theories about the nature of human nature and then appreciate the full implications of all these differing theories. I would therefore like to start with some thinking related to this perspective of life.

Needless to say, some other readers of Malaysiakini have taken time to make their comments known and I truly appreciate their views.

This column seeks to address some of their views as well.

The most conscientious comments that sought to review my hypothesis came from one American secondary reader. Let me start with his comments. He is a 50+ aged American who now lives in the South of the USA but received the column by proxy from a friend of our family and a Malaysiakini reader. The American wrote:

“When I was a kid, hunters complained because they could only put three shells in a gun that would hold five. My whole family were hunters. The law was not more than three shells in a gun at one time. If you were checked and your gun didn\’t have a plug to prevent you from having more than three shells you could be arrested.

“Automatic weapons were against the law. Absolutely no automatic weapons were allowed in public and if you had one you would be arrested. Those weapons were only for law enforcement or the military. Concealed weapons had to be licensed and you had to have a valid reason to carry a concealed weapon. Now I have two brothers carrying concealed weapons and one…  well neither has a valid reason to carry one.

“Laws have changed in recent years and not for the good.”Let me think this issue through, using my pet theory of human nature.

Firstly, I believe that man is by nature evil (Christians call this the ‘sin nature’) and this nature always seeks after one’s self-interest and self-preservation rather than the interest of others; whether individuals or in community. In summary therefore we can say that man is by nature self-seeking and thereby almost always selfish.

Therefore, if we extrapolate this theory of human nature, it is easy to explain the early American system of why “guns and weapons were needed for self-protection”. If we understand the history of America, starting with the staging of the Boston tea party, to the conquering of the Wild West, after the annihilation of the American Indians along the way, it is not difficult to understand and appreciate the role of guns and warfare in American culture and history.  

Therefore, presidential candidate Mitt Romney may be absolutely right with his thesis that culture defines attitudes and behaviours. It does in America too; as the world has so witnessed to date.  The very American internal battles which led to the civil war between the Northern and Southern forces saw the defining and shaping of the American colours of red, blue, and white. Guns are therefore a very much part and parcel of the American way of life. Surely!

The American way of death, too

But, why does it also have to become the American way of death, too? Why is it that in the American way of life and, now death, these weapons of self-preservation can simply be reclassified as “potential weapons of mass destruction (WMD) of others?” The WMD is also the very language the American military and media created for preservation of their national self-interest, in search of their terrorists in the so-called War of Terror. But, surely the WMD does not need to become a way of life and death of innocents too? Does it now? Really?  

Also, why else would their system allow a potentially sick man to carry a semi-automatic weapon; all in the name of self-preservation?

And yet, the suspect may even get away while 12 families and more than 60 others are worse off for this loose interpretation of self-preservation to include wrongful intent!

What is worse now is that the entire country has also now further justified killing of innocents overseas without even the need to declare war, but by simply relabelling it the so-called “War of Terror!” Now, they even use of drones to kill innocent victims in faraway places. This can also be classified as terrorism using weapons of mass destruction.  

But then, unless the American system declares such actions wrong in their own self-perception, America will live by the sword and one day, also die by the same sword. Nine eleven only reflected such a worldview by the terrorists.