so what happens while Cain makes his
offerings and God isn't happy with them
now we don't know how Cain figures out
that God isn't happy with his offerings
we get some hints of that too but the
story does tell us that's what happens
and so then we get the psychological
response on the part of Cain now one
response could be Jesus I must be doing
something wrong
I better straighten myself out you know
I better come up with a better quality
offering and try that again
that isn't what happens what happens
instead is that Cain becomes angry Roth
and his countenance falls and so what
does that mean it means this right it
means he is not happy he's angry and out
for revenge and so one of the I've been
thinking about this a lot lately with
regards to the literature on inequality
because there's a very good literature
that shows for example that there's
there's a there's a measure called the
Gini coefficient and the Gini
coefficient is a numerical index of the
relative inequality of a geographical
locale so for example if you went to
Newfoundland where everyone is roughly
not very rich or North Dakota say almost
everyone there is say lower middle class
something like that or upper working
class something like that very little
variability low Gini coefficient okay if
you go to Miami Beach say where
everyone's rich low Gini coefficient
because it isn't an index of absolute
wealth or absolute poverty it's an index
of relative poverty and so if everyone's
rich the relative poverty is low and if
everyone's poor the relative poverty is
low now one question is where is the
crime and you might think well the crime
is where the absolute poverty is high
right or the absolute wealth is low
that's where the crime is that's wrong
if it's if things are relatively
distributed in an egalitarian manner the
male-on-male crime especially homicide
is low and it's also the case where
everyone is rich but if you go into
places where there's some rich people
but not very many and there's a lot of
people who are comparatively poor than
the male homicide rapes rates and
violent crime rates amp up substantially
and it's a consequence of male-on-male
competition and so what you couldn't
derive from that
and maybe even reasonably is that you
should flatten out today I'm income into
its distribution because you're
destabilizing the society by
facilitating male criminal aggression
you can make a good case for that you
know in places like Colombia where the
Gini coefficient got unbelievably
extreme society got so violent that it
could barely hold itself together so so
you can make a conservative argument for
redistribution of income using the
observation that if the income
distribution gets too extreme the whole
bloody thing starts to destabilize it
might fall but but then you also might
say wait a minute
is it inequality that's driving the
violence or is it resentment of the
inequality that's driving the violence
now that's a tough question because you
might say well what if the game is
rigged and there's no way of moving up
the power hierarchy
well then maybe anger and the desire for
revolution is the appropriate response
but that doesn't really mean to me that
the response should be the sort of thing
that you see in high Gini coefficient
neighborhoods which is interracial
intra-racial violence between men so for
example in neighborhoods where there's
high murder rates the murders are always
between young men and they're always
within race and so that doesn't seem to
me to be exactly a politically
revolutionary move right it's more like
it's more like violent competition for
the sake of attaining status and you
might say well that's reasonable but
because the inequality is there and then
need to find status because it's part of
what drives them forward it's part of
what makes them attractive to women it's
a necessity
well the question is do you attain
status through destruction or do you
start making your offerings putting your
offerings in order and that's something
we really need to figure out because
that's a fundamental political question
it's a fundamental political question
anyways what happens in this story is
that khane decides that the fact that
god isn't accepting his offerings means
that he's entitled to become angry and
and and negative but it's good those two
things are both put together right he's
Roth he's angry and he's also depressed
and so he's in a state of mind that well
I think the best characterization for
that is hostile resentment because it's
unfair it's like yeah
fare so what you going to do about it
getting it destructive about it you're
going to change your approach well Cain
he does the ultimate thing and this is
what people do when they do the ultimate
thing because that kind of hostile
resentment has an archetypal endpoint an
archetypal endpoint is the point that
you get when you're hostile and
resentful because you haven't been
successful and then you go sit in your
mother's basement for about ten years
and then you start imagining just how
nice it would be if you shot up the
local high school so that everybody knew
your name and what happens is you go
from I'm irritated because things aren't
working out for me very well - I'm
irritated I hate those people for whom
things are working out well - I'm
irritated and I hate the fact that the
world is set up so that this has
happened to me and then you go - well
because I'm irritated and hate the world
I'm going to do whatever I can that will
destroy it most rapidly and with the
with the highest possible amount of pain
and suffering conceivable and at that
point then you don't just go shoot up
the high school you go up and shoot up
the elementary school and so if you're
wondering what kind of pathway people
walk down to get to that point that's
the pathway and the ultimate cap of that
is well I'll kill the kids because well
we already know that killing the
innocent is a lot more effective than
killing the guilty and then just to cap
it off I'll blow my head off at the end
just to show you just how goddamn
pointless it all is and so that's the
logical extension of Kane's attitude and
you might think well that's a bit of an
over-reading and I will say it's not an
over-reading at all it's exactly what
happens in the text so it's exactly what
follows it so fine so Cain is not happy
and so who's he not happy with well he's
not happy with God so what does that
mean well we've already unpacked this
he's not happy with the social contract
cuz that's part of the spirit the
patriarchal spirit let's say men there's
more to it than that because we already
we've already analyzed what God the idea
of God might represent in the background
of this story he's not happy with the
transcendent he's not happy with the
idea of the logos all of that no faith
in the transcendent nothing but he does
nothing but despise the social contract
and he's got no faith whatsoever in the
the logos let's say the word that brings
chaos
the border he's always got nothing but
contempt for all of that and you know
certainly you know people like that and
if you don't know them you just go on
YouTube and read the comments and you'll
see all sorts of people like that so