My Thoughts on What’s Behind All The Mass Killings in America
I’m always skeptical of my own strong emotions. I’m even more skeptical of the strong emotions of others.
From an evolutionary perspective, emotions are trying to tell us something. But they’re rarely trying to tell us the convenient thing or the easy thing. The convenient and easy thing is usually to focus and project outward, to fix blame or responsibility on someone else or something else. “They” should do something, we tell ourselves.
By contrast it’s much more difficult to recognize that emotions reveal far more about ourselves than they do others. Personal progress only occurs when we harness the energy of strong emotions to do real, personal, introspective work.
With this in mind, I’ve been giving considerable thought to all the mass killings in the US over the past few decades, and in particular how to best respond to them. It’s tempting, and far too convenient, to just sit back an insist that “they” (meaning politicians, usually) do something about them. For some people, “doing something” means passing more restrictive gun laws. For others it means liberalizing those laws.
But what if neither of those things is likely to make much of a difference (other than to fill us with the pride of self-righteous indignation)? What if the (outward) focus on guns and politicians is actually distracting us from the (inward) focus needed to successfully identity and solve the problem?
There’s quite a bit of evidence, actually, those both sides of the gun debate have it wrong. Yes, it’s true that mental illness isn’t the cause of many mass shootings—as evidenced in part by the fact that women suffer mental illness at higher rates than men (or at least they are diagnosed more often), and yet more than 95% of all mass shooters are men. But, it’s also true that easy access to guns isn’t the cause of these shootings as evidenced in part by the fact that women (sane or otherwise) too have easy access to guns and yet don’t engage in mass murder.
From the above, it’s tempting to conclude that the problem isn’t mental illness or guns, it’s men, or more particularly testosterone. But men and testosterone are only part of the problem. Men exist everywhere in the world, and yet frequent, random mass shootings (other than by Muslim terrorists) are primarily a US problem. Furthermore, men have for centuries represented a relatively stable percentage of the US population, and they historically had more access to guns than they do now, and yet these shootings are a almost entirely a modern phenomenon.
So, if we really want to solve this problem, it seems that the energy spent arguing over guns and politicians might be better spent wrestling with some really tough and really uncomfortable questions. Questions like: What is it about modern US culture that is causing historically unprecedented numbers of men to engage in the random, indiscriminate killing of innocents? And might we learn something useful by figuring out what these men have in common?
These men do, in fact, usually have some important and telling things in common. First, they are almost invariably “gamma” males. (If you’re not familiar with that term, please look them up—the Urban dictionary has a good summary). It’s important for us to recognize that successful and established alpha and beta males (the one’s most frequently accused of “toxic masculinity”) aren’t the one’s engaging in these antisocial behaviors.
Second, like terrorists who also engage in the indiscriminate killing of innocents, these gamma males are emphatically trying to make some sort of STATEMENT. Whereas terrorists seek to make POLITICAL statements via violence, ordinary mass killers clearly use violence for purposes of SOCIAL commentary.
This recognition raises a question that we’re unlikely to sufficiently ponder so long as we’re always arguing about guns and politicians: Why do these gamma males feel a need to speak through violence rather than other ways?
The answer to that last question is pretty obvious to any observant person: Almost to person, these males (rightly or wrongly) believe that society has overlooked, ignored, marginalized, disenfranchised and disrespected them. In short, they believe that they won’t or can’t be heard EXCEPT through violence.
BINGO! These males resort to speaking via violence simply because they’ve not otherwise been heard. Now we’re getting somewhere! Testosterone + shunning = disaster.
So, here’s the trillion dollar question: What is it about the present (as opposed to the past) state of AMERICAN culture (as opposed to other cultures) that causes historically unprecedented numbers of American gamma males to feel so overlooked, ignored, marginalized, disenfranchised and disrespected that their voices can only be heard via random acts of violence?
I have some ideas that I may share at another time, but for now I’m interested in your’s. Please share.
I bet the media is partly to blame. All the zombie movies, plus the news, they portray the general public as too stupid and asleep to wake up and fix a th problems of capitalism.
Also a lot of the political documentaries showing how corrupt America is.
General populace + stupid + democracy = revolution
Maybe this is the beginning stages of it all being played out in super slow motion. Occupy wall street and the tea party revolution were relatively nonviolent but they didn’t get much done. Things are still the same, if not worse. Politicians Still live in lala land, and when things like this shooting occur, they band together, clap each other in the back, and tell each other they didn’t do anything wrong. Then they use their power to legislate more tyranny against these people.
Two major reasons in my opinion.....MEDIA and EVIL.
People keep looking towards science to simply throw another pill down someones throat. People keep looking at political views, to throw another law into someone lifestyle. How about we take the time to realize there may be some another factors. Pure Evil. What we could start doing is stop glorifying and giving these EVIL people so much attention, and instead start glorifying the good people, the heroes, the good deeds that people do. Flood the news with GOOD stories, instead of sweeping them under the rug. Let the new generation see that it is COOL to do good things. The media shows what looks like a damn leader board on the mass shootings for the top 10. WTF! I'm sure you all heard plenty about the Vegas shooter, you probably know his name by heart and his whole life...do you know any names of the heroes who helped people who were wounded? The heroes who stayed and helped instead of running? Why isn't there a leader board of heroes? Lets make some hip hop songs about helping people and being healthy instead of hurting people and doing drugs.I'm am not saying we need to be overboard loving and mushy, but show some appreciation towards good events and good people, and maybe the upcoming generation will include more heroes instead of villains. Maybe Steemit and the blockchain will be the future of bringing a great group of people together to see each other through our own point of views instead of being told who each other are through the media. Have a great day @sean-king !
I am not sure I agree, but I found the article interesting. I will keep an eye open for your other ideas you plan on sharing.
Upvoted and resteemed
I wish you like it , please show this drawing to you twins and your wife @steemed-open
https://steemit.com/art/@askmee/art-of-caricature-23-steemed-open-and-her-twins
as a Canadian ... I really don't understand why can't they just stop handing out guns to people with mental illness.... and be more strict with the enforcement. Don't know why this is sooo hard given clearly this country does have an issue with mass killing.
Events that occur and events that will occur in the world in general and in America in particular are evil schemes. All political faces and events, are previously planned by the elite who rule the world. The mass media is just a pawn from the elite pawns.
Hello sir @sean-king I wish that you are fine
God bless you
Every time I hear about "school shootings," I wonder why the focus on completely on the shooting, with nothing on the school.
Modern schools are essentially prisons. Architecturally, they even look like prisons. The wards march to the ringing of a bell, pass through security checkpoints, answer unquestioningly to authority.
Is it any surprise that prison style violence is the result, when the "losers" of this system have no other outlet?
(My thoughts on this got a little unwieldy so I turned them into a post over here, with a citation to this one. Thanks for the inspiration.)
I’ve said this same thing before...large public schools are run like prisons and that’s the experience the kids have. Good point.
Totally agree with you.
Interesting question, and now, after reading the post again, I have so many thoughts running through my head, that I don't even know, where to start.
Since I lived in the US, I think I also gained an outside few on my own European culture and I automatically compare what you say to the situation here, particularly in Germany...
An attitude that actually annoys me, as I see it in so many areas, not only related to this particular subject. The politicians (and in consequence the industry) should do something to save the climate... they have to solve the problem with refuges... and so on... instead of people asking themselves, how they could contribute to a solution.
Unfortunately an attitude, that also leads to a movement towards right wing politics all over the world. A higher authority, (the famous strong (alpha) man) thinks for you, and takes the responsibly for your shortcomings away from you. Which I find particularly dangerous, when all that is tied to religion. But I guess, that's a whole different story.
To come back to your question, I wonder if that is really all there is.
First, I agree, that there is historically unprecedented number of such men, who feel that way, but you have those here as well, if not everywhere. The feeling of being left behind just manifests itself differently. Here the weapon of choice might be cars and I wonder how the numbers compare between numbers of victims of shooting rampages and idiots killing people here in the streets with aggressive driving. In other cultures, these guys discriminate women or they live out their "problem" by joining groups, who terrorize the innocent and helpless... not necessarily for a good cause, that is really "good" after all...
I don't think we have more of these gamma males to feel so overlooked, ignored, marginalized, disenfranchised and disrespected you mention. Actually, I think (at least in the so called Western World) that group was much bigger only 100 years ago. So what is the difference?
Comparison and opportunity? In past times (even as recent, as my own childhood), when you belonged to the less privileged, it was just so. Everyone around you was the same and the possibilities to compare yourself to those who had more were limited. Plus it was more or less god given, into what social class you were born... Over the past decades however, it became at least theoretically possible to move up under the right conditions and the necessary effort. And right there you have it. If your social status is and remains low, either the conditions aren't right, and you seek somebody to blame for that (see above) or you didn't put in the proper effort and are looked down upon, because of that.
And now a third factor comes into play, which wasn't there in the past. Technology. Which multiplies the effect of "comparison" and at the same time makes it easier to be destructive on a large scale. One doesn't just see someone on the street, who has better clothes or other nicer things, one is bombarded with with it around the clock. At the same time its much easier now then past times (even if it was only from a financial perspective) to acquire the means to harm a lot of people, be it guns, cars or bombs.
Of course there is much more to it and I certainly don't have the answers to eliminate the problem. Actually, I think its unsolvable until everyone (on all sides) understands that "the human dignity is inviolable" and the value of life.
I'm not gonna come right out and say my answer to your question but I think you probably could take a pretty close guess as to what it is from my remarks below...
I find it interesting how shootings like this tend to bring out the man-haters on platforms such as FB, Twitter, etc. It's OK for a woman to claim that it is women who should hold ALL political power because basically all men are bad as evidenced by events like this and that men should be marginalized and we're the source of all the world's problems (I saw this stated by a woman on FB more than once and it's one of many reasons I don't spend much time there anymore). It's OK for some women like this to classify an entire gender and beat us over the head with unfounded accusations and claims of how superior women are to men. But if a man makes one remark about women in general, even if it's just a joke or sarcastic remark, out come the knives and claws..."SEXIST! OPPRESSOR!".
I also find it interesting that when someone mentions a common thread in oh, I don't know....terrorist events / killing sprees in Europe it's considered taboo or stereotypical to even suggest the perpetrators fall into a narrow category.
So basically it's OK for everyone who isn't a male or more particularly white male to get their hate-ons for men or white men and start ranting about how bad all of us are. But whenever something bad is done by a person of any other race or gender then race and gender are usually not even a part of the discussion, and if they are, then the person who brings it up is automatically a racist / sexist / (insert your own word ending in -ist here). And the ever-so-tolerant people who supposedly don't see color / gender / religious differences all of a sudden can say anything they want about anyone without fear of being smeared for their statements.