Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

shooter doesn't seem to have suffered BDD as it's traditionally constructed. while he idealized himself, his overwhelming arrogance appears to have (poorly) disguised a profound sense of inadequacy in relation to perceived "alphas". which could be viewed as a kind of BDD, i suppose, or "identity dysmorphic disorder", if that's an acceptable leap.

though the shooter's primary problems seem largely attributable to simply being a hateful sociopath, i'd argue (as a tangent) that "the masculine ideal" can be a horribly damaging construct, one that many men internalize in ways that lead to lifetimes of self-loathing and perceived inadequacy. not suggesting that men aren't fully responsible for their toxic beliefs and actions, but the harm done (and violence perhaps cultivated) by warped social expectation is worth considering.

this is going back to some discussion upthread. i know i'm hardly the first person ITT to say this, but the "we need to fix our mental health policy" seems more and more and more like a red herring in this whole discussing, and yet even the most committed gun-control supporters seem to need to pay public lip service to it.

- the overwhelming number of gun fatalities/injuries in the USA are not caused by spree shooters, but by other things -- above all people shooting and killing people they know, often people they love. to make "but there are crazy people out there!" the centerpiece of a response to gun violence is to ignore this fact.

- it is very difficult, if not impossible, at this point in the development of human understanding of mental disorders to distinguish those who have a real potential for violence from those that do that. in fact i have a (perhaps perverse) confidence that it will be a very long time--centuries even--before this might be the case, if ever. in any event, the threshold(s) for diagnosing "mental illness" are frequently vague and subject to much disagreement and change.

- there will always be mentally ill people who go undiagnosed and unnoticed by those around them... and "normal" people who develop mental illness without anybody picking up on it. i'll leave it to someone with a much greater understanding to say if the rates of "mental illness" are likely to be the same for all societies, but I doubt they vary incredibly widely.

the bottom line is that there are many versions of what a "fixed" mental health system might look like (and many iconoclastic mental-helth professionals who feel that the whole notion of a "broken" system is a canard). none of those versions are likely to make significant inroads in reducing gun violence in the United States.

the bottom line, in other words, is guns. guns make it much easier to kill people, to kill more of them, to kill them in a moment of aggrieved and irrational thought, to kill them mistakenly....

i'm preaching to the choir here, of course. just had to get it off my chest.

i think gun fetishism is its own form of mental illness, one probably not noticed bc most people fetishize guns to some extent. i'm getting increasingly grossed out by, for example, indie boutique tshirts that seem to pop up everywhere just featuring handguns or someone holding a gun. probably hypocritical to some degree, since i enjoy action movies featuring guns. but i'm getting a bit more grossed out by movies that just deal in gun imagery and death lightly.

this isn't about overt sexism of hegemonic masulinity, it's about inadequate treatment of mental illness.

― nauru, Monday, May 26, 2014 8:26 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark

xp

Tbf banning all guns & enjoying fictional media where guns are used are perfectly compatible standpoints to have, every country in the world watches movies that feature guns and gun violence, it's only in America where you can actually emulate the gunplay you see in media, in conclusion ban all guns

i think gun fetishism is its own form of mental illness, one probably not noticed bc most people fetishize guns to some extent. i'm getting increasingly grossed out by, for example, indie boutique tshirts that seem to pop up everywhere just featuring handguns or someone holding a gun. probably hypocritical to some degree, since i enjoy action movies featuring guns. but i'm getting a bit more grossed out by movies that just deal in gun imagery and death lightly.

― christmas candy bar (al leong), Saturday, May 31, 2014 12:53 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the problem is that if you include more and more attitudes under the category of "mental illness" the category starts to lose whatever coherence and utility it has at present. i'd love to say that all gun nuts and truthers and whatnot are mentally ill--it would make me feel better about myself, perhaps--but i'm not sure how this would help anything.

"mental illness" is very much a functional rather than an absolute category. the very phrase carries an implied endorsement of dualism, which i think recent neuroscience has shown to be unsustainable. but that's another thread.

as far as entertainment is concerned: like almost everyone else i see some things in TV and video games etc. that I find really abominable on a visceral level. but I'm not sure this correlates in any clear and direct way with real violence. japan is always the go-to counterexample--they enjoy all manner of violent media (often quite sadean violence at that) while enjoying some of the lowest rates of violent crime in the world.

i do think an interest in violence--and in related things like revenge--is a very deep-seated part of human consciousness and civilization. hence they are all over our media. but actual gun violence doesn't seem remotely like a universal or quasi-universal to me.

in conclusion ban all guns

i read that jezebel story yesterday morning and felt angry and unclean all day

i'd argue (as a tangent) that "the masculine ideal" can be a horribly damaging construct, one that many men internalize in ways that lead to lifetimes of self-loathing and perceived inadequacy.

You mean the patriarchy hurts men too? Someone should tell feminists, seems important.

:D

You mean the patriarchy hurts men too?

not all men...

http://i.imgur.com/Pb6kQrz.jpg

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140331222534/plantsvszombies/images/1/13/Thats_the_joke.jpg

Hah yeah didn't meant that at you stevie, just had that image open in my tabs for ages and wanted to post it but couldn't wait any longer for a better opportunity

no worries! just didn't want it to seem like i was actually mainsplaining "Well, actually, not all men are hurt by patriarchy..."

I've gone all over the place re: gun control in America (looking in from the outside) but this shooting really brings home how easy it is, when guns can easily be bought in shops, for someone with bad ideas in their head to make them a reality

Presumably people opposed to gun control would say that gun control wouldn't stop people with bad ideas who really wanted a gun getting hold of one, and no, it would not be a 100% barrier against that but it would make a hell of a difference and save a hell of a lot of lives

And I'm choosing not to use the phrase 'mental illness', I'm saying 'bad ideas' because well, just think of the tides of stress, frustration and anger that wash over everyone, 'mentally ill' or not, as we go through our lives.

This kid would not have been able to get a gun through illegal channels

That generally would require a relationship with somebody

Meanwhile, the Jezebel article quotes someone from the puahate forums:

they say we shount be entitled, hen everyones sex is all on display. isn't that unfair. that they say we dont deserve it then they SHOW US WHAT THEY ARE DOING SEXUALLY. it is like they want this to happen day to day

Someone could walk down the street wearing a t-shirt that said 'Fuck Me' but that doesn't mean they're leading you on. Having sex is particular, and someone's general sexual radiation doesn't mean they want sex unconditionally. Being hungry generally doesn't mean you'll eat just anything, there are still things you like and things you don't like.

I'd call this pretty basic sexual knowledge. I don't remember actually learning it, it just seems to be one of the things one knows about sex. Basic practical difference between public image and private sexual activity. But it seems a lot of these boys and men have missed it somehow.

That's because sex ed is basically "avoid diseases, here's how" if what I've heard is remotely accurate. Not so in other countries, fwiw.

Among other things, obvs

i guess these guys just think that they are the center of the universe and everything they encounter only matters insofar as how it affects them, personally. the paradox is that they also hate themselves and think they are inferior to "alpha males", a construct that only they seem to take seriously.

The guns vs mental illness discussion reminds me of the drinking vs driving discussion. In both cases, for different cultural reasons, we like to focus on the thing that does not actually do the killing (which is guns and cars). In both cases, the thing that actually does the killing is bound up in cultural notions of independence and power (mostly masculine notions, obv). It is mentally unstable people WITH GUNS that create hazard, just as it is drunk people WITH CARS. Absent the killing machines, those people may be risks to themselves, but not to the population at large.

mostly masculine notions, obv

cars are pretty universal

Right but their symbolism is traditionally masculine. It's been broadened and marketed to everyone over the years -- but always with this Thunder Road-ish notion of individual freedom and power. Guns have been marketed to women, too. But the bottom line with both is this lone-wolf notion of self-sufficiency that I think works against seeing the vehicle itself as the problem. The problem is in the operator, not the machine. The machine is liberty.

Right but their symbolism is traditionally masculine

"traditionally"? you really think "cars" (not muscle cars, not porsches, but just... all cars) are strongly valenced as masculine?

i think you're making a false analogy and talking out of your ass in an attempt to double down on it. whatever.

I think cars were traditionally masculine in the early days, but that was so long ago that it doesn't hold any sway today.

if this dude's life was like a movie it'd be a mix of revenge of the nerds and falling down. this guy's beginning, middle, and end can be tracked pretty closely to crappy hollywood movies.

"traditionally"? you really think "cars" (not muscle cars, not porsches, but just... all cars) are strongly valenced as masculine?

Yeah, I do. But you're focusing on the "masculine" part here, which isn't exactly my point. It's more that in American culture in particular, guns and cars are invested with this mythos of freedom and self-determination. And I think in both cases, that mythos prevents us from seeing them clearly when it comes to the damage they do. Guns and cars don't kill people, mental illness and alcohol do. Etc.

They aren't equivalent obviously -- cars have a lot more practical day to day use than guns -- but I think American notions of individualism play heavily in how we deal with both of them.

the American sense of 'entitlement to have a car' is noticeable when coming from a country such as the UK imo. (Obv it's absolutely vital for most areas so not saying it's without reason).

A French ex-Syria fighter from Roubaix (North of France) has been arrested in Marseille, France, by chance (drug test on the bus he was on) for the triple murder in the jewish museum in Brussels - he had a GoPro camera and a Kalashnikov gun with him, same type that was used in the attack. (loads of extreme and/or gullible muslims are being recruited in Western Europe to go fight for the cause in Syria & if still alive, they tend to come back even more extremist than they already were) He has been in jail for a hold up a couple of years ago as well.

You mean the patriarchy hurts men too? Someone should tell feminists, seems important.

― Disagree. And im not into firey solos chief. (Phil D.), Saturday, May 31, 2014 4:57 AM (Yesterday)

what, my terminology isn't approved? cuz yeah, what this thread really needs is a bunch of snide sucker punches between people who basically agree w/ one another. hooray for social justice.

god that jezebel article. the internet is rarely so (so) much worse than i might imagine :(

one of the most disturbing things about it (for me) is that someone suggested (in the jez article? here?) that a large proportion of the people posting on pua-hater sites are posing/provoking/there merely to inflame and agitate the people who sincerely hold those beliefs. if that's the case, someone thinks it's funny/amusing/entertaining to propagate hateful garbage? those people are not absolved for their responsibility in this mess just because they were posting insincerely. it's not as bad as killing people obvs, but it's not innocent and and it's not funny and it's definitely not helping.

i do wonder from what little i've read how anyone would know the difference

what, my terminology isn't approved? cuz yeah, what this thread really needs is a bunch of snide sucker punches between people who basically agree w/ one another. hooray for social justice.

No, it's just amusing watching events like this spur men into *deep insights, man* about stuff that feminists have been saying for nigh unto half a century now.

(I'm male btw)

i'm not trying to pretend i have any deep insights available. and i'm as familiar as you w/ the "stuff" in question. begging your kind forgiveness for saying something others have said before. fwiw, i was responding to the vague but hovering idea itt that misogynist "incel" communities are best viewed as collections of assholes, rather than products of a deeply fucked culture. why not both?

still wrestling with the suggestion of trolls in that puahate chatroom ref'd in jezebel

like i get that trolls exist & contemplating their motivations is a stupid waste of time

but what the fuck.

gonna go bite down on a cynadide capsule now, bye

No, it's just amusing watching events like this spur men into *deep insights, man*

Well you know if a man somewhere can at least experience some deep insights that might be one less guy getting involved in that pua forum, no?

you can't assume - even on the INTERNET, BY GOD - that everyone has an extensive or even decent appreciation of feminist theory

no, but nor is it a good idea to assume that every potentially teachable moment deserves a good smackdown

maybe these guys are too far gone though... the puahate guys i mean, not the run of the mill adolescent "nice guy." like, maybe they'll never be compassionately taught not to be hateful dickheads and what's needed is just someone telling them that they're thinking on these issues is unacceptable and won't be tolerated.

http://utotherescue.blogspot.com/2014/05/notes-on-ucsb-students-confronting-isla.html

lol contenderizer - that's what i was thinking!

am grouchy. at stupid work when i want to be at stupid home. grrrz.

are there actually any groups organizing for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment? I can't find a single one.

any srs anti-gun group will be dedicated to things that could actually happen