I don't like Mondays
Bob Geldof:And nobody's gonna go to school today
She's going to make them stay at home
And daddy doesn't understand it
He always said she was as good as gold
And he can see no reason
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be sure
Tell me why
I don't like Mondays
about the 1979 Cleveland Elementary School shooting in San Diego.
A couple of mass shootings in the US today, Dayton, and before that El Paso. The nothing-newness of this is obvious and much as philosophers would like there to be, 'there are no reasons.' Facebook would think it racist of me to mention that we are usually talking about white males.
And already folks are blaming Trump, and blaming gun laws But there are no reasons, what reason do you need to be sure? The El Paso shooter put out a 'manifesto' of racial hate and fear, but I believe him even less than the reports that it is Trump.
1979. Or even earlier?
The most probable explanation for ‘going berserk’ comes from psychiatry. The theory is that the groups of warriors, through ritual processes carried out before a battle (such as biting the edges of their shields), went into a self-induced hypnotic trance. In this dissociative state they lost conscious control of their actions, which are then directed subconsciously. People in this state seem remote, have little awareness of their surroundings and have reduced awareness of pain and increased muscle strength. Critical thinking and normal social inhibitions weaken, but the people affected are not unconscious.https://www.historyextra.com/period/viking/the-truth-about-viking-berserkers/
This condition of psychomotor automatism possibly resembles what in forensic psychiatry is described as ‘diminished responsibility’. The condition is followed by a major emotional catharsis in the form of tiredness and exhaustion, sometimes followed by sleep. Researchers think that the short-term aim of the trance may have been to achieve an abreaction of strong aggressive, destructive and sadistic impulses in a socially defined role.
The Old Norse social order and religion were able to accommodate this type of behaviour, and it is understandable that the phenomenon disappeared after the introduction of Christianity. A Christian society considered such rituals and actions as demonic and thought that they must have resulted from supernatural influences.
"The Modern American social order and religion are able to accommodate this type of behaviour... "
But apart from being the cradle of democracy, having a penchant for bloody invasions of other countries, being despised and feared around the world, and having plenty of berserkers, how is the US like a Viking nation?
Comments (80)
Dang. And I thought that 'pumped up kicks' was the only mass shooting song that I enjoyed.
Also - Bob Geldof from The Wall? He was in Boomtown Rats? (I am pretty sure that is the band famous for this song) Guess we learn something everyday.
Quoting unenlightened
As someone who enjoys some criticism of trump, I can only agree here. I was thinking this weekend watching the news..."wait, we are discussing motive?" I thought mass murder was a game that could only be played by the insane. I get that psychology is more complicated than that. However, 30% of this country STRONGLY supports trump, and I am not worried that those people are going to shoot up the place (I am worried they may end legal access to abortion or re-create Jim-Crow type laws, and of course just plain normalizing hatred).
Not sure on the viking connection or 1979. Surely the ramping up of these events over the last 2 decades suggests some current cultural component?
I just checked the web. The worst year for mass shootings in the US since 1982 was 2017 with about 120 deaths. 2018 and 2019 data are not included. 120 out of 340,000,000 people. Out of more than 17,000 murders in 2017. To try to say this is some kind of epidemic of Viking berserkers shows a lack of perspective.
(Girards a christian because what is Jesus but an eternal scapegoat who not only suffers your misplaced rage but also, miracle & mystery, forgives you for raging at all.)
I wonder if the beserker phenomenon (which seems very apt, considering the absence and exhaustion of, say, the aurora shooter at his hearing) is an extreme end of a spectrum of this kind of stored anger which has to distort reality to find release.
I have an idea (which may not be borne out by the facts) that young white male shooters might tend to members of sections of society that represent themselves to themselves as beyond violence, obviating the need for any communal discharge, while actually internally discharging that anger in various forms (toxic family dynamics, bullying, the winner/loser dynamic of american society etc.) In past societies, the scapegoat was killed, the violence is flushed down the tube that goes from this life to the next. But if you pretend there's no scapegoating at all, you don't even recognize that its happening, and the scapegoat is left dazed to make sense of an anger and violence that doesn't officially exist.
I once heard an npr interview with a psychologist considering the Newtown shooter. He offered a theory, based on a hodgepodge of details of the shooters life, that the shooter purposely chose the worst possible thing he could do, in order to make sense of the crushing feeling he had of being evil. Its as though the process happened backwards. The disavowed scapegoat makes himself avowed, by committing the crime he distortedly already feels the retribution of. (Adorno (or one of the frankfurt guys) made a similar observation, that some criminals seem to commit crimes to give some tangible, finite explanation to an intangible, infinite guilt. The guilt precedes the crime. As a kid might act out to give concrete object to Dads angry sulk, that kid not being able to comprehend the idea of nursing a wound brought home from work.)
None of which is meant as an absolution for horrible crimes, the violence of which exceeds , by orders of magnitude, any harm the perpetrator suffered previously. One is responsible for one's actions no matter what one may have suffered in the past.
Yet we know there will always be people who fail to live up to that responsibility and so, if any of that is right, the hard question is: what to do, given that it's no longer an option to throw virgins in volcanos?
I mean even 9/11 pales in the face of 17000, but its still
What is the perspective thats lacking? What does that perspective reveal?
The serial killer tends to be the white male and the common murderer tends not to be a Trump supporter. That's just the truth, racist or not.
One should think the reason, regardless of demographics, behind the murder is frustration. I'd think that when the decision to murder is reached, no other options seem viable. Powerlessness. Asserting control.
Why that happens in the US more than other places, we can speculate.
Yeah, definitely, terrorism in general, bracket race, it's clear it's frustration. I suppose the question is how to determine what means we leave at the disposal of the frustrated. We do know that frustration will continue. And so mass shootings will continue. What's wanted is a robust explanation of how leaving the means at their disposable is worth it because [x]. this will happen with some regularity, yes, but its a tragic necessity, bc [x].
Hmm. Perhaps I have a different idea of what reason is. The thrust of the op is is that 'I don't like Mondays' does not count as a reason, even if it counts as a cause, and neither does 'I don't like foreigners'.
Quoting T Clark
Good job no one said then, because a lack of perspective is a major symptom of incipient mass murder.
Nevertheless, as I pointed out, there are parallels between the US and Viking cultures, and one of them is the centrality of the hero, the individual of power to individual and national identity, hence the abhorrence of anything "social".
I don't want to push the Viking thing any further than that, it is intended merely as a provocation to have a fresh think. I want to make a couple of suggestions: that the roots of the phenomenon are deep, and on the one hand a part of human nature, and on the other, (ironically) highly socially conditioned.
Quoting csalisbury
Well yes, what you say is all good psychological stuff, and psychological stuff is in the business of making sense of folly. I don't disagree with this approach, but I want to try another line, that says this is heroic, laudable behaviour that has been 'misplaced'. Encouraged by the culture as the apotheosis of manhood and leadership and so on.
Actually, I misunderstood where you were going with the OP. This issue is what I really wanted to talk about, but I didn't want to go off on a tangent.
The song is one of my favorites. I think "there is no reason" is a great reason. I think it applies to most things in the world, in two senses - First, I have said many times that I don't think the universe has any reasons in it. All we can do is describe how it is. Why - just because, which is what "I don't like Monday's means. Second - I think it goes further - not only are there no reasons, there are no causes also. I'm not sure about that. Still working on it.
One of the reasons I love the song is that, although it is obviously ironic and cynical, I also find it moving. I like to think the Boomtown Rats meant it that way. It puts you in the girl's mind, makes her human, in a way you couldn't do otherwise.
I think it reveals that our society is unable to understand what is important. 120 people. It makes me sick when TV and other media broadcast hysterical reports full of outrage and fake tears. It's such bologna. The worst thing is that the kind of action that really can address violence does not come from attitudes of horror and outrage.
For what it's worth, the murder rate in the US is half of what it was in 1980. 650,000 die of heart disease annually. Cancer 600,000. Let's put our energy there.
Well... school shootings would be less... likely if... there were... less readily available gu-
I'll be over there in the corner.
99.9999% of Americans accommodate, tolerate, put up with, etc. this sort of violent behavior because there is nothing they can individually do about it. We could, should, must do something about it collectively, but collective action among 300,000,000 diverse people isn't exactly a simple thing.
Quoting unenlightened
We're more like the British, I would think. The British Empire was not a tea party. Neither were the French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian, German, or Russian empires. Ye Brits turned out less savage (at home, anyway) thanks to long established class system which kept the lumpen proles under pretty tight control.
Why are the British people accommodating the (quite possibly) insane exit from the EU? Well, various people have argued vociferously and voted against doing it, but it's not very easy for you all to come to a consensus that doing so could be a really, really big mistake. And there are a batch of you who are determined to leave, come Hell or High Water.
But you know this.
I grew up hunting and shooting, although I don't own a gun now and have no desire to. A couple of years ago we found my brother's and my shot guns and rifles down in my step mothers basement. I hadn't shot them in 45 years. We told her she could give them to a friend.
I am comfortable around guns and generally believe that seriously restricting gun ownership in the US won't work. I think all the outrage put into trying could better be spent elsewhere. On the other hand, I know conservative gun owners who believe that reasonable restrictions are a good idea.
Never heard of them. I suppose I should get out more. (But I did bother to listen to the song on YouTube, so now I know.)
They are primarily a 1980s band.
I wanted to go a little further with this, beyond just reasons, or lack of, in the universe at large. I think looking for reasons for human behavior is misleading. Most things most people do are for no reason at all. We add the reasons later because we can't live without putting things into words.
We modern Americans have become rather fussy about these little clusters of deaths brought about by armed individuals. Suppose the media stopped being the media and stopped reporting each one with loving care. Do you think the incidence of mass shootings would go up or down?
It does reveal a shocking lack of perspective. 6 people were killed in a head on collision near my home town. 1/2 of the 6 were decidedly in the wrong (they were on the wrong side of the freeway). Where was the outrage?
"Excess deaths" (those caused by something less predictable than natural causes like disease, old age, etc.) are common. Auto/motorcycle accidents, fires, industrial accidents, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, heat waves, drownings, suicides, falls in the home (those stairs are out to get you -- so is the bathroom), and so on. Think of the carnage of the westward expansion which the English started back in 1620: Millions killed, quite deliberately--with guns!
17,000 deaths a year are the result of 1-by-1, or 2-by-1 armed assailants, quite often the victim having no connection to the killer because the man with the gun was firing wildly... Where are "thoughts and prayers for the victims and their families"? (When it comes to mass shootings and much else, nothing fails like thoughts and prayers!)
Quoting T Clark
That explains it. I was busy in the 1980s studying classics, advancing the sexual revolution, going crazy, working...
There is no shame in those things. Well...some of them.
Yes, I was overstating my case for emphasis, although I think the Viking theory is silly. Again, it's people trying to say something to make themselves feel better, more in control of frightening things.
No one is ever saying that a gun causes someone to shoot things. An intersectional approach is required to understand their effects here; guns are facilitators and final solutions for problems generated in the intersection of societal pressures and personal issues. Race also plays a role; the majority of these school shooters are mid-teen white guys. Sexism and racial prejudice seems to plays a role; whenever they deign to write manifestos anyway. None of these things causes any individual to shoot their schoolmates, it's not reductive like that, they are all facilitating factors bottling up alienated rage.
High school shootings should probably be considered domestic terrorism; the actions of the perpetrators should be condemned, but the issues that lead them to it should be understood so that they can be addressed.
Condemnation doesn't lead to solutions. It only helps conceal fear. Solutions come from understanding and even, yes, compassion for people who do bad things.
Yes. Compassion good. That kind of article that portrays high school shooters as misunderstood loners in need of love, not so good. No one's ever been around for that.
I have a friend to whom some terrible things happened when she was young. It's amazing to hear her speak with compassion and understanding about the family member who did those things to her. It changed the way I think about people who do bad things.
I think of Pope John Paul II, who went to the prison in Italy and washed the feet of the man who shot and almost killed him.
I think of Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions set up after apartheid ended. To me, that was one of the great political acts in history.
Compassion and understanding lead where they lead. They don't mean that you don't hold people responsible for what they've done.
I liken school shootings to be a result of extreme alienation. It's like getting way too into Black Metal or something. Has anyone seen the film that Gus Van Sant did about Columbine called Elephant? He does really well to portray that such incidents only really ask questions. There are only things that we glean as to why tragedies like that occur. All of the interpretation of such events is speculation.
Here's something I've always remembered that I think is relevant - When my 34 year old son was 9, there was an attempted kidnapping in a town that was about 30 miles away. Unlike Kansas or Minnesota, 30 miles is a long way in Massachusetts. One of our neighbors wouldn't let their children play outside for a week after the incident. I think that's the difference. It probably wouldn't reduce the number of incidents, but it would help stop the continuous low level anxiety that many people feel. People are very bad at estimating risk.
Quoting Bitter Crank
When the bomb went off during the Boston Marathon, five people were killed and a couple of hundred injured. Elsewhere, a similar event is sometimes known as "a good day in Aleppo." Americans are such pussies. 3,000 people die in New York and the entire country changes it's way of life and outlook. Elsewhere, a similar event is sometimes known as "a bad week in Aleppo."
There is a lot of energy being put there though. The reality of the collective pain of those who have lost loved one to cancer isnt lessened by the attention given to mass shootings. I could ask : did something in your own life upset you this month? Even when hundreds of thousands are dying of cancer? Shouldn't you ignore that thing that upset you, then, and focus on helping the cancer cause? But this isn't a healthy way to approach things.
Un's post - and mine for that matter - don't strike me as outrage, much less the outrage of a rube grifted by yellow journalists.
The County of Sutherland in Scotland got its name from its position in the Viking territory. The word 'thing' is derived from the Viking word for their parliament. The British are the Vikings, and we still describe people who go energetically and violently insane as 'berserk'. All you whiteys are European, and your horrible culture is all based on Europe's; the vikings are an influence beyond question.
Quoting T Clark
It's not 'people' saying anything, it's me, no one else. And it's not a theory - see reply to BC. The 'theory' I am illustrating with an example from history, is that when the same thing keeps happening again and again in a society over decades, it cannot be sensibly regarded as an aberration. Universities inevitably have dropouts, and hero-worship inevitably has berserkers. This is our normal.
True. Those are probably bad examples, but the fact that 1.2 million people die by those diseases and 1/10,000 th that many die in mass shootings gives a perspective on how much attention should be put on the mass killings.
Quoting csalisbury
Looking back, I don't think "outrage" is the wrong word. If you'd like, I'll change it to "alarm," along with the aforementioned lack of perspective. On the other hand, the general public and media response is outrage and condemnation. As to whether you and Unenlightened are rubes, fact is you wouldn't have made such a big deal about this if the media hadn't made this a sideshow.
120/year doesn't quite match up with "happening again and again." It's not an aberration or anything else, it's as close to a non-event as you can get. 120 out of a population of 340 million. Put your attention somewhere else. You're not going to save a significant number of lives by any action you take.
You have absolutely no idea how many lives my posts might save or cost. Perhaps a potential shooter will be transformed, or possibly pushed over the edge by something they read here. If you think the topic is of no significance, what are you doing posting so much about it? Feel free to turn your attention to significant issues any time. You are talking complete bollocks anyway; should we ignore presidential elections because they don't happen 'again and again' by your ridiculous interpretation?
I'm posting about it because the mismatch between the events and the attention being given to them is significant. I'm commenting on the weakness of the arguments being made, which I think represents an important philosophical issue - the unrealistic understanding people have probabilities and risks.
Quoting unenlightened
They happen every four years and 100,000,000 people participate. I think that meets my criteria for significance. Please tell me why the deaths of 120 people out of a total of 2.8 million is significant.
Sure. It's a matter of social relations. The numbers have no importance here; the importance it has is the importance it is given, just as the value of money is the value people put upon it. This is called social construction. To put it another way, everybody dies, but how one dies is 'significant'. It matters whether my wife dies of natural causes or is murdered. And it matters to the whole society, because the whole society is structured to be concerned about such things, with police and courts and so on.
But this is so blatantly fucking obvious that I have to think you are just trolling the thread now because you have some axe to grind.
Trolling the thread = Disagrees with me.
And yes, I do have an axe to grind - I think this kind of hysterical reaction to this type of event hurts the country. The US is under the pall of a period of government by outrage and it is damaging.
Really? I mean REALLY? You think my discussion of international news from the other side of the ocean is a hysterical reaction that hurts the country? That's a seriously delicate little flower of a country you got there. Either that, or it's your hysterical reaction to my wanting to discuss something.
Did you see the first season of American Horror story? It featured a character who is the ghost of a mass shooter. A living girl falls in love with him. Such is the way the concept has taken up residence in us.
On the one hand, this fascination is probably setting the stage for more of it. On the other, eeeevvvvveerrryytbody knows we need to reduce the number of firearms in the US. So that's another drama that seems to especially fascinate non-Americans. Who knows why? It's dramatic, I guess.
Suppose you have a young child and while you are out with them, a random stranger comes up and slaps that child in the face. You are outraged.
Suppose the same child gets cancer. You are deeply saddened. Now someone asks you why you are only saddened at a serious chronic disease but outraged at a temporary trauma. What do you say to them?
Nanu nanu. I think you must have been sleeping through Human societies 101.
No, trolling the thread = calling me silly and hysterical and presenting absolutely no argument or insight but rather attempting to shut down the discussion. Trolling the the thread is making a whole lot of noise about something else to drown out any possibility of learning anything about the topic.
Quoting frank
And here you are yet again. No one is talking about gun control in the thread. You bring it up to create another diversion, along with child abuse. What are you so scared of?
As for the rest, *sung in tenor* "I wasn't talking to you....."
:joke: I crack myself up. Sorry, I'm in a rare good mood.
I either didn't know or forgot that you don't live in the US. Why in God's name would you care about what happens in another country when it doesn't have anything to do with you?
Quoting unenlightened
I went back and checked. I didn't call you silly or hysterical. I called the Viking argument silly and the public and media reaction hysterical. I also read through my posts. I think they are thoughtful and to the point. It surprises me how angry they made you.
Is it a valid philosophical argument to question my motives for what I write? I don't think so. For the record, my motives are pure. You started a thread with statements that I think are misleading and, as I said earlier, lack perspective. I also think they mirror American public reactions, which I characterize as hysterical. Given that, it seems appropriate for me to comment.
Well, I wouldn't be outraged unless you are using outrage just as a synonym for angry. Outrage is not just the same as anger. It also carries a meaning of indignation, resentment. What good does indignation do my child? I would be angry and afraid if someone hit her. I would take her away somewhere safe, make sure she wasn't badly hurt, and then decide what to do about the attacker. What more would you have me do? Making her safe is what really matters.
Indeed, and here you are repeating it. And again you have no justification whatsoever, because there is no Viking argument, and there is no mention of the public or the media either. So what do you think you are addressing with these comments?
The rush of attention to a mass shooting should be mentioned if the goal is to try to understand why close to the same scenario keeps repeating.
Keeps repeating? You mean like 'over and over again'? Is that why you brought up the media attention, or was it directed at me? You might have made that argument, but it would not have been an argument against anything that was being said, but, as I said before, an attempt to shut down the discussion.
But you have exposed yourself sufficiently and I will not bother to respond further.
I thought you were looking to understand US mass shootings. If that wasn't the point of the OP, what was it?
The media is mostly on the internet. I guess some of it is on cable for those lost in the stone age of non-streaming non-on-demand. The point is that if you commit a mass shooting, you'll be the news. For a moment you'll become a figure with the power to terrorize.
Whatever is going through the mind of a mass shooter, one thing is true: they are giving us what we love. Recognizing this won't lead to any solutions. Maybe a Nietzsche aphorism would be appropriate.
:death:
It's worth drawing a firm distinction between appropriacy and utility here. One does not necessitate the other. Feeling a mixture of anger and indignation at your child being slapped in the face by a stranger is an appropriate reaction regardless of utility. Conversely, not feeling much and being concerned only with utility could be considered inappropriate. Same with mass shootings. It's not about being reasonable, it's about being human. (But it's not very on-topic so I'll leave it at that).
The British are in part the Vikings, the Danes, the Jutes, the Angles, the Saxons, the Frisians, the Normans (Vikings again, but Gaels too), and more, and all those came from the east, once upon a time--interbred with the Neanderthals every now and then--the Brits are a mix. And besides, the Vikings are now the bland Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes.
We -you- humans have horrible habits and our various cultures round the globe all show the consequences of us bright and frustrated primates trying to square our pre-frontal cortexes with our highly reactive limbic systems. We all range from sublime to unrefined.
The thing about the rate of violence in the US is that it isn't a new thing, and it isn't unique to the US. The world, generally, has a steadily violent history. We humans obtain frequent episodes of peaceful co-existence with our neighbors, interrupted by the occasional episode of fratricidal rage.
Given the free-enterprise capitalism under which our economy is managed, which includes gun manufacturers making and selling as many guns as possible to maintain profits for their stockholders, it would be odd if 200 million guns scattered among 300 million people didn't lead to quite a bit of violence--that is what guns do, after all.
Gang bangers and drug dealers employing guns to settle scores we can understand. The fools wear their honor on their exteriors where it can be bruised ever so easily, and as often as not, their dubious personal honor is about all they've got. Then there are the drug debts that didn't get paid, and since they can't take it to small-claims court, what's a diligent drug dealer to do?
I don't know what, exactly, sends a few young men over the edge so that they decide to kill by the random batch. Peevishness over immigration stats don't quite account for it. I suppose it is dark fantasies unchecked against reality. Dark fantasies coupled with the medium of the rapid fire method leads to bad results.
But @T Clark is right in objecting to the disproportionate response of the media, et al. Ten people being executed by one killer seems worse than ten people being executed by ten killers, but the one-on-one death rate by individual armed killers is immensely worse, and the consoler-in-chief does not offer the country's "thoughts and prayers" on behalf of the several shot and killed every day--nor to many more who are "only injured".
Maybe it worked the first few times, but "our thoughts and prayers" has become about the lamest thing to say to the bereaved.
As the kids say, this.
I would like to also say that the berserker phenomenon is most consonant with a culture that is not just military-centric (as the US is) but also warrior-in-action-centric ( as the US hasn't been, at least since My Lai, and maybe never was. We support the troops, but we support them for, e.g., sacrificing their lives in order to raise a flag - Iwo Jima, sacrifice for an ideal. The vikings came up with Valhalla - violence here is not only a means but an end in itself.)
Which is to say the berserker phenomenon must necessarily play a different role, in the land of Self-realization. The aurora shooter, i think, or one of them said : the message is there is no message. This alone makes in terrorism in a precise sense : its a challenge to the official, avowed, economy of meaning. That this challenge dovetails with the actual american practice of shining a temporary spotlight is interesting, and is a turn of the screw that frustrates my compulsion to convert horror into insight.
I think it must be remembered that school shooters are just as embedded in this economy of meaning; only they seem challenged enough by it to act as they do. I imagine, though I have little to no data supporting this, that such acts of domestic terrorism are acts of revenge against (scapegoating representations of aspects of) that economy of meaning. Localised at their centre of trauma, or a symbolic representation of it.
I think you can do philosophy in a way which inspires transformation of whatever domain you're dealing with; I think another way of doing it is more exegetical and rooted in wonder, travelling along some domain and chronicling what's there. The two aren't mutually exclusive of course, but I think they can be.
Probably not super relevant to OP.
I don't agree. My kid doesn't need me to be indignant - she needs me to keep her safe and take care of her. Indignity doesn't help anything. For me, at least, it doesn't even make me feel good. I think that's what indignation is all about - it makes you feel like you've done something when you really haven't. Also - I think indignation leads to doing things that make it harder to effectively deal with the problem.
I have no criticism at all for the families of the people who were hurt or killed. I'm not talking about them at all. It's the politicians and newspeople that infuriate me.
Boringly, I agree again. I think you can enrich your tradition from within. There's a part of me that's very sad I'm cut off from that. Sentimentally, I like the idea of a Rabbi being not only like 'you get it [conceptually] but 'you're a good kid' or something similar. but what are you gonna do. At this point, I wouldn't believe him if he said it.
Random murders occurring where one ought be safe is cause for alarm. We should feel. confident when we drop our kids off at school or go to the mall everyone should come home with the same number of bullets in their head than when they left.
Sure more die in such mundane events as car accidents, but we realize that danger, so we pack our cars with airbags and we buckle ourselves in and perhaps we don't drive on some roads late at night. Is it not cause for concern when we now must have the same thoughts and take all sorts of safety measures just to go to a public event? I would think that if you grew up during a time when the roads were not treacherous and taking a carefree leisurely drive was possible, you'd be outraged if nowadays cars were falling off the sides of cliffs due to new societal attitudes and government ineptitude.
Our hysteria is a sign of health. How do you propose we behave when we bury our children?
The world is full of random negative consequences where one ought to be safe. That's part of what's known as the human condition. Is it cause for alarm? I think only if you want to live your life hiding out. Solution? Suck it up. Take your chances. Try to be fearless. Most important, try to teach your children to be fearless. Fearlessness is more important than safety.
Quoting Hanover
As I've said, I think this represents a misunderstanding of the real risks we face in our lives.
Quoting Hanover
I can't think of any time when hysteria is a sign of health. We're not talking about burying our children. Your children in Atlanta are at no (read infinitesimal) risk from the events in Dayton and El Paso. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of children are afraid to go to school, not because of the risk, but because of the public reaction. As I've said, the current reaction represents a vast misunderstanding of the true risks we, and our children, face in life.
Well yes, of course, but they do it in a context that, from the lonesome cowboy of Clint Eastwood through Chandler's Marlow, super-spider-bat-iron man and a million other heroes, financial, sporting, whatever, pitting themselves alone against the cruel world. One jostles for fame because fame is virtue, and so one is dependent on society for the acknowledgement of one's independence. The best of the culture explores this irony.
Hence Thatcher's response to the IRA, 'denying them the oxygen of publicity' well rehearsed in the thread already. It would make sense if one could arrange for society to negate its fundamental character when convenient. But a man with gun becomes a person of importance to those around him even with a media blackout. And the culture is that a person of no importance is no person at all. What America lacks is the notion of solidarity.
So the argument that the number of deaths is 'insignificant', is to be expected - you want to be a proper American mass killer, you gotta get a tank at least, and maybe some missiles.
Woe. Hanover has become a Democrat.
RIP my life.
Law and order is generally not a Democrat notion. The police power is considered a legitimate function of the state even to far right Libertarians.
Please, please, we all want to read it.
"Law and order" is generally a dog whistle for racism, so no, it's not a Democratic thing. Democrats favor enforcing the laws on the books. Republicans tend to have a problem with that, so if you embrace the status quo and therefore speak out of both sides of your face, be a Republican.
But you're going to vote Democrat, aren't you? I can tell.
If it'll piss you off maybe.
Democrats are socialists now and Republicans are fiscally irresponsible without many ideas. I choose the latter 99%. The 1% remaining is, like I said, to piss you off.
Yeah, well you're just saying that because you have too, not because you believe it. That 1% free will is interesting though. Maybe it gives your life some meaning, but I don't really care because I'm 99% apathetic.
So back to mass shootings.
Why? It's a matter of priorities, I think.
:wink:
All Republicans are in favor of gun control. They just arbitrarily draw the line at automatic weapons and say those are just too dangerous to allow for general public use. They also admit that rocket launchers and nuclear warheads are also not Constitutionally protected.
All Democrats allow gun use, allowing BB guns and pellet gun use rampantly.
Since the Constitution doesn't say you have the right to keep and bear arms as long as they aren't automatic weapons or worse, we have to admit that this is all a matter of policy and just deciding where to draw the line. I'm not sure why if I say no more magazines greater than 7 that I'm anti-2nd Amendment, but if you say no more grenade launchers, you're somehow pro-2nd Amendment.
It's all an unprincipled debate centering around how many guns we can push the government to allow. Either I get to protect myself from the oppressive government or I don't, and I don't see how my semi-automatic (AK or otherwise) is going to stand a chance against an armored tank.
Quoting frank
I'm sorry to hear about your father's alcoholism.
Do you not like Mondays either?
Quoting Moliere
I haven't seen it before. Lots of detail I'm not familiar with, but a rather narrow time frame. It almost seems to say that politics causes culture rather than my emphasis the other way, though of course they are not separate.
I think 'subjectivity' is what I would call 'identity' here, and I would rather say 'self-aggrandising' because the notion of self defence seems more like an advertising slogan than anything real. Demagogues arise when there develops a large gap between the social body and the individual identity - when humiliation is widespread. What one is not supposed to notice is that in reality, people with power do not carry guns, they have expendable others do it for them. Just as industrialists do not work in industry. The cops and the killers are pawns in the same game. The education system produces the school shooters.
And I think I understand the notion of self-defense being more of an advertising slogan -- but I will say, as a person in the US who lives in Republicantopia without R sentiments, that "self-defense", as a word, is a thing here that is not like Coke saying "Be happy, fun, and free!". Not that that makes it not-a-slogan, per se -- but it has more cultural weight here. I hope that makes sense.
All that said I think that self-aggrandising, at least as defined by the dictionary, is the appropriate word too. Self-aggrandising is self-defensive, at least in accord with the Chad Kautzer paper I linked.
I want to ask you -- who do you think, in the case of these acts, are the demagogues?
You say that demagogues will arise when therer develops a large gap between the social body and individual identity -- are they the news organization, the people in power, the people on 8tran posting, the imagined people in the actors head, all of the above, or something else?
According to you at least. You are an observer of these things. I'd like to know what someone not-here thinks.
I *think* I agree with you in saying we are not supposed to notice (in a subjective sense, as a normal person) is that the real power doesn't have guns -- but has others do the shooting, or grows others, through education, to do the shooting. I often feel that way about America, at least.
I've not advocated fearfulness as the solution, and it's doubtful that on a day to day basis those who've adopted your viewpoint live any differently than those who are being hysterical, whatever that means. What I've suggested is that the problem be addressed in a meaningful way, and simply declaring that people are going to be shot in the head from time to time doesn't address anything. It just ignores the problem under the guise of bravado. I'm just saying "Houston, we have a problem," which you seem to halfway acknowledge but then go on to say it's not really a problem we have to deal with.
Quoting T Clark
I'm not sure you're really in a position to tell others how to grieve or to tell them how far removed the murder must be from their immediate circle to care. I realize that El Paso is quite a haul from where I live, but I don't need the murders to occur on the square of my little suburban city to have concern. Quoting T Clark
You accuse me of misunderstanding the true statistical risks of death when I complain about the recent rise in mass shootings, yet you then present a specious argument that there is some real injury occurring day to day due to the stress and worry kids now have from excessive media reporting of shooting deaths. I mean really, who cares if kids are worried about another mass shooting? It's not like it's affecting their relationships or grades. I'd suspect most kids are doing just as they always did day to day and aren't affected by this media coverage.
If you're going to argue that the media coverage is harmful, you're going to have to show who's really being harmed and how that harm exceeds the harm attempted to be prevented. All I'm hearing is that you're annoyed by it. Suck it up. Deal with the way society reacts to issues. Nobody cares about your feelings. Bravado goes both ways.
This hysteria has led to meaningful changes by the way, some of which likely do curb the violence. Most school districts near me have full time police officers who are assigned to the schools, courthouses have all beefed up security with more metal detectors and greater scrutiny, public gatherings have more officers and more safety checks. It's a whole new world out there reacting to real threats, and I'm thankful we haven't ignored this issue and just allowed the chips to fall where they may.
Sure, that likeness is in its literal meaninglessness rather than its cultural meaningfulness. This slots right into Orwell's world: "Attack is defence." Compare with "Loreal - because you're worth it." How reassuring to know one is worth a blob of face cream. How reassuring to know that teachers and students carry guns.
Quoting Moliere
I meant it quite literally - Trump, Bolsenaro, our own Boris and Farage, etc. But I see them as the natural outcome of Blairite focus group politics where winning power is the only policy: 'Give the people what they want', ignoring that what the people want is invariably a contradiction.
I'm all for addressing the problem in a meaningful way. In my opinion, what I have called an hysterical response makes that less likely and does harm of it's own.
Quoting Hanover
The typical public response to this type of event is not "having concern." It is, as I have said, hysterical, misrepresents the actual risks of this type of event, and may lead to actions that will not make people safer.
Quoting Hanover
I have had personal experience with the type of fearful response by parents and children to dangerous events which cause no significant risk to them. Multiply that by millions in this case.
Quoting Hanover
I'm not annoyed, I'm embarrassed. It makes the US look like a bunch of chooches. Our inappropriate and pointless reactions fill people who wish us ill with glee. It shows just how effective that kind of action really is. I'm also disgusted that public institutions encourage this type of reaction. It's not "bravado" it's the expectation that we should act like grownups.
I am dealing with how society reacts to issues - I'm expressing my opinion, even if you don't care about my feelings.
Quoting Hanover
I'm all for reasonable responses. I'm not sure if I think the ones you list are all necessary or not, but I won't quibble about that. There are other types of responses which are being considered, e.g. allowing teachers and adult students to carry firearms on campus, that will probably cause more harm than good.
I guess I'm looking for the examples of bad responses to the shootings. The usual response I've seen is sadness, crying, anger, maybe a prayer vigil, some speeches from frustrated citizens, some promises by politicians, and then beefed up law enforcement at public places and events and even some greater vigilance in locating the next attacker. They seem to follow a fairly logical pattern, moving from emotion to ideas to thwart future attacks. Emotion moves people to action. That's why its called what it's called.
It's not like people run into the streets screaming and yelling torching cars and breaking windows.
Well, for one particularly egregious example of a bad reaction to mass violence, following September 11, 2001, blind outrage and indignation ultimately lead to an unnecessary war in the middle east which caused tens of thousands of lives, destabilized the politics and security of the region, and finally caused significant damage to the security of Europe. It severely damaged the national security of the US and our friends.
As to the actual security changes following 9-11, there were many, all of which have resulted in much greater safety than we'd have without.