Charlie Kirk’s assassin symbolizes a subculture of rebellion found in recent shooters: full of dark, video-gaming, and Satanic themes. Indeed, like the biblical Cain, the assassin took his rage against the moral law to the point of killing one who embodied the ideal of that law.
The assassination of Charlie Kirk is forcing the nation to stop and reflect upon who we are.
It took the shock of a cold-blooded, premeditated murder witnessed by thousands at a campus event and watched by countless millions on social media to get people’s attention.
Thus, the spectacular nature of this killing forces us to look for its deeper meaning.
It’s Not About Charlie Kirk
Many people have tried to reduce the debate to the person of Charlie Kirk and his positions. He was indeed an inspiring conservative leader, not without controversy. However, his murder was something bigger.
It was not about Charlie Kirk. It was about what he represented. It was also not only about the murder suspect, Tyler Robinson, but what he, too, represented.
We saw a dramatic clash of symbols and models. The two figures represented the sides of a conflict now writ large in a polarized America. We must now choose which way we want to go.
Liberals hate to divide things into two opposing sides, dismissing it as an oversimplification. Nothing, they claim categorically, is so black and white. However, by definition, any polarized nation must have two sides. This division reflects the tragic reality confirmed by the events in Utah.
Charles Kirk and Tyler Robinson as Man-Symbols
Like it or not, Charlie Kirk was a man-symbol. That is to say, he represented much more than the positions he held or the person he was. Symbols transcend shortcomings or personal idiosyncrasies. As a symbol, he proposed an ideal for America.
Charlie Kirk was your archetypal all-American boy. He was good-natured, clean-cut, polite, frank, and manly. His behavior was governed by a profound respect for a moral law and a strong faith in God. He symbolized what might be called the “Ten Commandments American,” an ideal that holds that everyone should try to live under the mantle of God’s law, motivated by love for our Creator.
On the other hand, Tyler Robinson was also a man-symbol that transcended his person and opinions. As someone reported to have been living in a relationship with a man “transitioning” to a woman, he would be the first to admit that he represented an opposing archetype, one with no regard for God’s moral law. His ideal was a regime of absolute license, with no limits for anyone, except for those Americans who proclaim the existence of God, His higher law and humanity’s need for limits.
He symbolizes a subculture of rebellion found in recent shooters: full of dark, video-gaming, and Satanic themes. Indeed, like the biblical Cain, Tyler took his rage against the moral law to the point of killing one who embodied the ideal of that law. For Cain, it was his brother Abel. For Tyler, it was Charlie Kirk.
The Role of Symbols
Thus, we are engaged in a clash of symbols, good and evil. These symbols are important because they point to ideals toward which people tend. They propose models to be imitated. They make invisible ideals instantly visible, thus moving souls to action and serving as the foundation for models of society.
The radical shock of the Charlie Kirk assassination forces us to consider which symbol should represent America if we are to survive as a nation. It forces us to ask an even more serious question: Are we still one nation?
A Nation as a Source of Unity
Indeed, symbols help generate models for society. In Charlie Kirk’s case, this model was the Christian nation.
A nation has unity. A nation is born when a people coalesces into a clearly distinctive whole. Through a forging process that often involves suffering, the nation forms a cultural, social, economic, and political unity in which the goal is not the individual good of each member but the common good of all.
Saint Augustine once defined a people as “a gathered multitude of rational beings united by agreeing to share the things they love.” The nation gives rise to the State, which orders the common good. Rules like the Ten Commandments and moral customs serve as guardrails that ensure order and freedom. We become capable of sustaining this model when motivated by a love of God that unites us.
Although far from perfect, there was a time when America was a Christian nation and enjoyed this unity. This model of a Ten Commandments America is undoubtedly what motivated Charlie Kirk.
A Meeting Place of Individual Wills
There is another model of organizing society, contrary to Saint Augustine’s model of loving ideals together. It celebrates disunity and maximum individualism as the most complete expression of freedom and self-realization.
This model forms not a nation but a collection of individuals gathered solely for the pursuit of their own interests. It resembles a co-op, a stockholding company in which each investor disregards the other and is concerned only with his self-interest and profits. Each personal interest, no matter how bizarre, is equal to any other.
In this model, society is reduced to what philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre called “nothing but a meeting place for individual wills, each with its own set of attitudes and preferences and who understand that world solely as an arena for the achievement of their own satisfaction, who interpret reality as a series of opportunities for their enjoyment.”
Today, this model reaches the point of obsession. Cooperation is a mere tool for survival. The New York Times quotes presidential biographer Jon Meacham as saying he hoped the Kirk murder would not lead to revenge but “remind us that we have to be able to live with people whose opinions we despise without resorting to violence.”
This anomalous state of things cannot be our goal. We no longer have the guardrails or moral laws that kept order in Saint Augustine’s notion of a people.
What we have instead is the maddened impetus of enslaving passions. Thus, mixing people who despise each other’s opinions is a recipe for violence. Moreover, a state of things where co-existing hatreds are celebrated is not a description of a society but an insane asylum, where the norm is violence that overseers and social workers must constantly suppress.
The Liberal Compromise
For a long time, liberalism tried to navigate between the remnants of Christian society found in Saint Augustine’s model and modernity, which unleashed unbridled license in the name of freedom. Liberalism turned moral values into personal opinions and banished God from the public square. It hoped to appease the forces of chaos with a gradual descent into nihilism.
Charlie Kirk’s death proved to America that this appeasement has not worked. We have reached the extreme point of our liberalism where the rage of unbridled passion calls for the suppression of ordered liberty, moral law and Faith. There is no going back.
We must choose between two symbols and their respective social models. Will America seek a condition where we celebrate hating each other’s loves? Or will she be a nation where people look beyond self-interest and celebrate the things they love together?
How we resolve this conflict in the soul of America will determine if the nation is now at a turning point or a breaking point.
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The featured image, uploaded by Gage Skidmore, is “Charlie Kirk speaking with attendees at the 2025 Student Action Summit at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida.” This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Remember when the prevailing attitude used to be “I despise what you say, but I’ll fight to the death your right to say it”? Now a growing attitude seems to suggest “I despise what you say, and I’ll celbrate anyone who puts you to death.” Apparently, some see that as progress. I’ve yet to be convinced.
Superficially, his horrid crime is a clear case of anguish and envy towards a beautiful, famous , and effective in their message young family, the bitter envy of a guy who had another dude for his significant other: the killer was an adult (22) man who pretends to be a woman (so-called “trans”), there is a wave of horrendous violence lately associated with aggressive “trans”. They were brainwashed in hating their own bodies and suffer attempting to mutilated themselves, while their anger induced by this suffering is redirected (by the very monstrous ideology that brainwashed them) towards hurting innocent normal people, towards family people and children who do not share their delusions. If the people with gender dysphoria, apparently socially and psychologically catchy deceased, spread by propaganda, if these people exceed “0.000001”% of the population, it is the public health crisis to be addressed. So this is way more than envious hateful act of a single misguided individual. Who has radicalized him? Who has helped him plan?? Who instructed these who have radicalized him??? Dig deeper
There are many fine young people that know the Ten commandments and that God’s natural laws are the guiding light and Word.
There are many Charlie Kirks. Let’s continue the work of the Evangeline Charles Kirk; and institute good will for all.
Respectfully, John, in addition to your superb insight, what I wish you would have expounded on more was the present manipulative power struggle orchestrated not by belief, but by those losing their grasp of political power, who most likely as individuals, don’t subscribe to every tenet they espouse and/or are parroting. They will do anything to get that power back, even giving up their soul. The other side of their manipulative coin are the Hollywood and political misfits that jump at the chance to insert themselves for the publicity value that has no legs for them otherwise. The edge of their coin, which is the ability to allow its mindset to roll, has been the state of our liberal education system which, for many years now, has ripened the mindset of our youth in darkness, without the sunlight of their Creator. May God bless Charlie Kirk, because it is about him and all those that have the courage and fortitude to speak the True, the Good and the Beautiful. And finally, a communistic utopia has now been put forward by the enemies of truth as an answer to all this madness, which is the direct opposite of what our fathers and forefathers gave their lives for in war. Our veterans’ groups should be front and center in this fight, the alternative, is unthinkable.
I’m not sure if liberals hate binary oppositions. Most of the time they live by a Gnostic and Manichean division of the world into oppressors and oppressed, victimizers and victims. I think perhaps this is why this event is so shocking to them — because as you describe accurately — it has forced them to look clearly at the two archetypes and to question the moral valance that they have ascribed to the polarity. The honest ones — and many younger people — have been forced to enact a version of that Nazi meme “Hans…are we the baddies?”
For those who aspire to follow Christ.
“There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?” – James 4:12
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” – Matthew 5:9
“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” – Romans 12:18
“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.” – Romans 12:17-19
“But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” – Matthew 5:39
When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
LET IT BE
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom
LET IT BE
Counterpoints to “Charlie Kirk’s Assassination: Turning Point or Breaking Point for America?”
1. The Role of Symbols: The “man” symbol is an unsatisfying analogy. The archetype typified by Charlie Kirk was more than what kind of man he was; rather, he typified the idea – the belief – that there really are laws of nature which are under girded by a Creator over that nature i.e. an ordered universe and the moral order that resonates from that view of reality which sets vivid guard rails for curbing behaviors that are detrimental to individual well being as well as society in general. That view is based on strong evidence in nature and in the history of humanity that all living things exist and abide by the natural order. Robinson, on the other hand, typifies the person living by a total rejection of the natural order and the subsequent lack of a moral compass as a result of that rejection. That rejection gives license to negate the known moral guardrails to protect individuals and society from the proclivities of the evil side of our human nature. Individual and societal chaos are the natural consequences of that rejection. The better symbolism is Moral Order v. Immoral Disorder. The first leads to ordered individuals and an ordered society as represented by Kirk while the latter as represented by Robinson leads to licentiousness and anarchy where neither individuals nor society have any expectation of living without fear. Fear of their neighbors, fear of the absence of fairness in the transactions of everyday life, or fear of the oppression and coercion of their government.
2. Societal Unity: Horvat writes “… the goal is not the individual good of each member but the common good of all.” This view promotes the utilitarian notion that anything that benefits the majority takes precedence over individual rights regardless of the impact to individuals in society. This view is an article of faith of the Left. It is a Marxist notion at its core. It’s the basis for DEI policies regardless to the impact to individuals. It led to millions of people coerced into taking an untested, unproven, synthetic gene therapeutical injection, for some a series of injections, to prevent the spread of a virus for which millions were minimally if not totally not vulnerable and for which, as we eventually learned, did not prevent the acquisition or spread of the virus. But we were told to do it for the greater good of society. So just how good was it for individuals let alone society. Millions around the world have been seriously damaged by this genetic-based concoction and tens of thousands died from it. It all comes down to Horvat’s use of the word “good” as the primary basis for how society sets rules for itself. The reality is that if it isn’t good for individuals it isn’t good for a society. We are not similar to stockholders in an economic enterprise though we all do expend our intellectual and physical energies to better ourselves as we must. Otherwise we would be socialists where everyone’s efforts results in equal outcomes no matter the energy or creativity we employ. Socialism is a drag on a society, not a way to better a society. We are moral beings born with a will to make decisions for good or for evil. The Founders were well aware of this and instituted a Bill of Rights to protect individuals from the coercion of government. What they didn’t do was incorporate protection of individuals from other individuals. They could never have imagined how a society would embrace the evil that exists in American society in the 21st century. Nevertheless, the institutions and rights they created for society – for individuals – were based on biblical principles. They had serious trepidation about the duration of their society if it ever fell away from those principles. It’s not just that we have fallen away from living our lives according to the moral order that the Founders knew and lived in; many today actively spend their productive hours devising ways to destroy the biblical moral order upon which our society was originally built and to silence those whose lives reflect the moral order. Hence Charlie Kirk is murdered by one who rejected the moral order and believed that society would be better off (good) without him and his message. That is the society we live in today and these opposing principles and ways of ordering society are incompatible with each other. It will go on this way until one side overcomes the other. It’s not a choice about symbols; it’s a choice about fundamental principles.
Thank you, John. Always insightful!