Brooks on New Zealand: ‘Lonely People With Existential Angst’ Sometimes ‘Turn Into Fanatics’

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks discussed the New Zealand terror attack and stated that “we’re seeing a culture cry in pain and rage and alienation,” and “one of the things some lonely people with existential angst do is, they turn into fanatics.”

Brooks said, “Well, we’re seeing a culture cry in pain and rage and alienation, a culture that’s divided, that is isolated, where people are lonely, committing suicide at high rates. And one of the things some lonely people with existential angst do is, they turn into fanatics.”

He later added that, for people who have existential angst, “this sort of white or black or any kind of racial power movement gives you a very clean moral logic. You know what your purpose is in the universe, and you have a clear enemy you can go kill, who are inhuman. And so, it’s — it cures all your existential anxiety, because suddenly, everything is literally black and white.”

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