A Fact Of Life?

The US vice-presidential candidate, J. D. Vance, recently accepted shootings in US schools as “a fact of life“.

Along these lines, the sociologist Kieran Healy made some observations on the rituals of childhood back in 2019. I found his observations quite prescient and chilling, and they immediately put me in mind of Shirley Jackson’s short story: “The Lottery“, except his observations are not a work of fiction.