As is usual following an incident involving guns, people are bewailing the US' alleged "gun fetish." And as usual, these people are wrong. Yes, including you on my flist
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"Clearly, this is a young man who was very, very angry and willing to express his anger in almost unthinkable ways," says James Cassidy, a criminal justice professor at the University of New Haven. "But I think we do also have to look at ourselves here. Yes, it's unclear … what factors were the most prevalent, but certainly the fact that we have a mental health system that is failing right now plays a role. We're also coming to understand that while violence on TV, in movies and in lyrics haven't led to more crime, it does appear that a certain faction of society is vulnerable to such violence, that it disinhibits them in some way."
You haven't lost me. I've often said that any culture that glamorizes violence and makes it available to wee tots, while clutching its pearls and demonizing the honest expression of love between two consenting adults, is a culture that is deeply and perhaps incurably flawed.
Unfortunately, I've not found any culture that simultaneously supports self-defense *and* not glorifying violence. Cultures that shun the latter tend to view the former as anachronistic at best and atavism at worst.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the primitive "Stone Age" cultures tend to view violence as a necessary evil. They'll protect themselves with the same tools they use to feed themselves, but they generally don't go looking for trouble except in ritualized ways -- skirmishes with traditional enemies, defining boundaries with invaders, stealing wives or material goods, winning honor, that sort of thing. They don't generally go in for wholesale slaughter.
Maybe it has something to do with the low population -- there aren't enough people around to go randomly killing each other...
"Civilized" societies, on the other hand... overpopulated, no sense of honor, no rituals, no need to place food-shelter-clothing at the top of the This Is Important Shit list...
You haven't lost me. But "mental health" is far from an exact science, and it would involve some pretty scary invasions of privacy to try to predict everyone who's likely to go apeshit.
True, but as someone who suffers from mental illness and behavioral disorders and has friends who do, too, it can be really hard to find help when you want it
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My son is a clinical psychologist. He has worked with the homeless, with substance abusers, with veterans and emergency workers with PTSD. He'd agree with you in a heartbeat that mental health treatment (and medical treatment, for that matter) ought to be freely available to everyone when they need it.
But the problem with people who lose control and commit acts of violence is that many of them have never sought professional help. Some forms of delusional thinking include the belief that psychologists, psychiatrists, even regular MDs, want to "steal their thoughts" or "practice mind control" on them. Others come from cultural backgrounds where "mental illness" is considered shameful, like STDs, or where a person (especially a man) is supposed to just be strong, pull their socks up, and behave properly no matter how they feel. When someone like that goes on a killing spree, there's no warning
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We can't prevent it. We can only deal with it as it happens. Pretending that devices have some kind of demonic power to unleash the Inner Apeshit is delusional.
I don't keep up on FB (I only have an account there so family can contact me, since they're all baffled by the concept of personal emails), but yes. I've reblogged it on Tumblr as well.
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http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/1215/Sandy-Hook-school-shooting-Few-easy-answers-for-a-violent-culture-video
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Fucking Pilgrims.
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Unfortunately, I've not found any culture that simultaneously supports self-defense *and* not glorifying violence. Cultures that shun the latter tend to view the former as anachronistic at best and atavism at worst.
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Maybe it has something to do with the low population -- there aren't enough people around to go randomly killing each other...
"Civilized" societies, on the other hand... overpopulated, no sense of honor, no rituals, no need to place food-shelter-clothing at the top of the This Is Important Shit list...
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But the problem with people who lose control and commit acts of violence is that many of them have never sought professional help. Some forms of delusional thinking include the belief that psychologists, psychiatrists, even regular MDs, want to "steal their thoughts" or "practice mind control" on them. Others come from cultural backgrounds where "mental illness" is considered shameful, like STDs, or where a person (especially a man) is supposed to just be strong, pull their socks up, and behave properly no matter how they feel. When someone like that goes on a killing spree, there's no warning ( ... )
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