Those who study the capacities of man and how that mixture behaves can find themselves witnessing challenging times and troublesome inclinations.

We are.

The constant turmoil, the maze of scandals, the brazen hypocrisy of misconstrued religion, the denial of life-saving vaccines, the intolerance of so many things and people, and the shootings, all those killings, one after another — startle and confound.

We do our best to understand and appropriately respond, but our gazes into the distance provide no insight. Though our thoughtful pauses linger longer, still, we shake our heads, puzzled.

Optimism endures but feels the strain, our exhaustion finds little relief — the steady hand shows a hint of tremor.

What’s going on?

Could this be an explanation:

“– the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their cruel violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style.”

— “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (Wilde, Oscar, 1891)

Do we lack answers to the causes of our disconcertment because those causes are incoherent?

That appears to be the case.

Especially since our long-held expectations: “That the causes of mass murder could be ascertained, the words of the dead recalled, that the truth could be told, and the lessons could be learned” have all failed to come to pass.

“The twentieth century is well and truly over, its lessons unlearned.”

— “The Road to Unfreedom” (Snyder, Timothy, 2018)

What to do?

I caught a break.

My wife and I are in Madeira, Portugal. Here, the climate is so warm they grow bananas. We recently visited a fruit and vegetable market.

It was time well spent, for in that market were bananas and other fruits whose colors change only in response to the maturity of their goodness.

A change the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently asked the United States Supreme Court to emulate.

In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the Bruen decision (NY State Rifle and Pistol Assoc. v. Bruen, Supt. of New York State Police, June 2022). This decision set aside long-standing permit requirements for concealed weapons.

But Bruen didn’t stop there. It also directed lower courts to no longer consider the life-saving intent in gun laws or the killing capacity of modern weapons in their constitutional analysis of gun legislation.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court couldn’t abide such meaninglessness. It allowed a contested gun restriction in that state to stand.

A columnist for Slate magazine, Dehlia Lithwick, characterized the Pennsylvania court’s action as saying to the U.S. Supreme Court: “Enough with the gun craziness! With Bruen, you opened a Pandora’s Box and walked away. What the hell are we supposed to do?”

A few days ago, our Supreme Court was provided an opportunity to answer that question. Its justices heard oral arguments in the case of Garland v. Cargill.

The issue in Garland is whether the federal ban on “bump stocks” — that appliance that allows a semi-automatic rifle to fire hundreds of rounds per minute and was used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history — should be enforced or set aside.

Existing law prohibits any weapon that can fire multiple rounds with a “single pull” of a trigger. A bump stock — though it provides the same degree of lethal capacity — engages “multiple pulls” of a trigger.

The question then becomes which should control: the law’s “single pull” text, which will permit the “multiple pull” bump stock, or the legislature’s clear intent to prohibit weapons with the capacity for mass murder?

It’s a toss-up.

We should know in June if bump stocks will be allowed. This result will also tell us if our Supreme Court’s evolving maturity is capable of emulating the maturation of a banana.

***

In Madeira, it’s springtime. The frogs are croaking.

It’s a song that carries only one meaning. A female frog need not concern herself that the croaks she hears convey anything other than the meaning nature meant for her to perceive.

There is other music in Madeira.

We attended an outdoor concert where the performers played ragtime and old American jazz. Tunes such as “Georgia on My Mind” (for reasons other than those currently necessary), “Cheek to Cheek,” “All of Me,” and, of course, “When the Saints Come Marching In.”

All tunes whose melodies bound us together, holding each other tight or clapping and singing on our way to glory.

But doesn’t the music stop in the event of incoherence? How can there be a melody that moves us — or a frog — when what is conveyed has no meaning?

Mikhail Reva is Ukraine’s most famous sculptor. He was well-known for his public works. Now he creates protest art.

Recently, Reva created an abstract drawing of three armed occupiers who had come to kill him and his countrymen. The image was creatively rendered as threatening, even though its figures lack detail in faces or other features.

It’s an artistic representation of an inartistic threat of incoherent violence.

And it could stop much of the music in our world.

Doug Pugh’s “Vignettes” runs monthly. He can be reached at pughda@gmail.com.