The Madison Tragedy: How a Fractured Society Breeds Despair

Alienation, Nihilism, and the Cultural Crisis Behind a Tragedy

“God is dead, and we have killed him,” Friedrich Nietzsche famously declared—not with the jubilant cry of an atheist reveler, but the somber dread of a prophet witnessing the unraveling of a world unmoored. The advancing revolutionary age, not just industrial but politically was causing an ennui among the population that was abandoning the church as the embodiment of purpose in society. His words were not a celebration but a eulogy, a grim acknowledgment of what was to come in the wake of humanity’s severance from its transcendent anchor. As an atheist—and more importantly, as a conservative—I find myself resonating with Nietzsche’s warning. I too see the hollow chasm that has opened within society, carved out by a negative nihilism that thrives not only through deliberate efforts to dismantle but also through the alienation of a hypermodern world. Though I lack faith, I cannot deny the role it plays as the scaffolding of civilization. Faith, when paired with works, is a luminous force—a masterpiece of human aspiration and unity. But without faith? Without the idea of something greater than ourselves to guide and tether us? All that remains is a void. And the void is not passive. It festers, churns, and consumes, turning its emptiness into a devouring chaos that erodes everything in its path. This is my concern and this is the void that consumes those who don’t find meaning through faith or an alternative secular meaning.

I wrote the other day of one form. The assassination of a healthcare CEO by Luigi Mangione a simultaneously brilliant and yet petulant computer science major who took it upon himself to murder another human being due to an emptiness he found within himself and an obvious attempt to form meaning to his existence after delving too deep into nihilistic abyss without a floatation device.

Now too in Madison, Wisconsin, we saw the void devour a child. A 15-year-old girl, lost in a storm of alienation and despair, took a gun and unleashed her anguish in a way that leaves us horrified but, tragically, no longer shocked. Her manifesto—a fractured symphony of hatred and nihilism—reads less like the ravings of an individual and more like the epitaph of a society adrift. It is a grim indictment, not merely of her, but of the culture that shaped her, failed her, and finally abandoned her.

The Madison tragedy is one manifestation of this unraveling—a tragic result of alienation not only from faith but also from family, community, and purpose. This act is not an isolated anomaly but a reflection of deeper societal fractures, a storm brewed in the void left behind. Nietzsche’s warning was not merely about the loss of faith in a divine being but about the cultural unraveling that follows. The Madison tragedy is one manifestation of this unraveling—a tragic result of alienation not only from faith but also from family, community, and purpose. This act is not an isolated anomaly but a reflection of deeper societal fractures, a storm brewed in the void left behind.

Normally, I would never dignify a manifesto like this with attention—except perhaps to mock it—but this one demands we confront the deeper problem. School shootings are not solely about mental health, nor are they a simplistic call to arms for gun control. They are a reflection of a society with a festering wound: a collapse in cultural meaning, a dereliction of purpose.

This is also not an attack on progress but a defense of purpose. I’ll write this without naming the girl, not just because she’s a child, but also to avoid adding to notoriety to her name. To name the shooter would only perpetuate the cycle, granting infamy where there should be nothing but the names of the victims, of which we still don’t know as I write this. Even with my small audience, I reject the idea of immortalizing the act but I reject giving the actor even more attention which might encourage others seeking such infamy. Call it hating the sin, not the sinner—but lets not shy away from hating the sin with every fiber of our being and addressing the cause of the sin.

The manifesto itself, with its unrelenting contempt for humanity, innocence, and life, stands as more than the deranged scribblings of a lost soul. It is a cultural artifact—a malignant symptom of a society that has neglected its fields, leaving them barren and overrun with weeds. This is the harvest we reap when we surrender to the void.