We ask Why because we are curious. We ask Why because it alters the consequences. And finally, we ask Why with the hope of understanding and preventing.
Thank you for your time and your writing. Appreciate everyone’s thoughtful words. Freedom of speech allows me to have freedom of ideas. Keep this stuff coming. Keep these guest authors coming.
To me what is beyond belief is your inability to comprehend why they are hailing him a hero. You don't need to endorse the attitude to understand how people got to it. It's called empathy. Cultivate it.
Why don’t we know the cannabis use history of every killer? An entire generation of young adults is being misled that daily cannabis use is safe because it’s legal. The medical community must demand this history be made public and data base developed to determine cannabis use as risk factor for violence.
Cannabis use is ubiquitous in society, thus you'd expect it to be ubiquitous in mass murderers. If it's not, it would look like cannabis use prevented extreme violence.
I would agree insofar as discerning whether the shooter had what could be classified as a mental health diagnosis per DSM 5/TR. We could then (as a society) grapple with this as another data point in how to better manage patients with mental health conditions, up to and including involuntary (and indefinite) institutionalization.
However, this was a single assailant with a single victim. How often does this happen in the US, daily? But for some of the unique backstory traits of the victim and assailant in this case, we would definitely not be talking about it. Yes, the legal system needs to investigate enough so as to be able to determine culpability. Boiled down, is there an insanity defence here. Beyond that, I don’t see the point.
I hate the use of "senseless" with murder. Our hood was hostage to gang violence for decades, none of the murders were senseless, I knew most of the backstories. Senseless is applied so officials can be unaccountable for the social/legal conditions.
In our hyper-polarized society, people want to know the motive so they can place the blame on the other team. The attempted assassination of Trump: R's hope the perp was a left leaning or Antifa type. Recent murders in New Orleans: Trump blamed immigration even though it turns out the guy was born in Texas. Dems: any mass murder they are hoping it is not an immigrant, trans, etc. and are hoping it is right wing fanatic. Sadly, six months later no one will remember the truth and a significant number of the population will blame the other side.
It's natural and instinct to want to know why, yet these murderers and modern day terrorists grew up with the Boston Marathoner on the cover of Rolling Stone. At this point, I wonder how many of these acts of violence could have been prevented if the perpetrators had thought no one would read their manifesto and know their name.
Enjoyed this thought provoking essay. Having just seen A Complete Unknown where the folk music hierarchy desperately tries to prevent Bob Dylan from going electric at the Newport Folk Festival the parallels of the establishment resisting this change seem obvious but is this change really going to correct a problem. The social media landscape has now made it impossible to know what is truth (does anyone really know) and has also destroyed trust in everything, government, media and yes even medicine which is now a giant snake oil industry for making as much profit as possible without going to jail or shot in the back going to a shareholders meeting. The times they are still changin and the answer is blowing in the wind.
I’m pretty sure death by truck takes the gun argument out of the equation, leaving us with the mental state of the perpetrator. Death and destruction are part of the human psyche…
You're right about the importance of motives, even if it's for nothing more than determining legal consequences, for which society has decided motive matters. What's learned from doing so also presents an opportunity for prevention of such acts if we are wise enough to take it. (Alas, the human species is not especially good at prevention, as we are more reactive than proactive and we tend not to learn from our mistakes). I know from experience that people who listen deeply without judgment can often discern motives. People who think it can't be done generally don't know how to truly listen. It's a valuable skill we should teach in school. If we all spent more time listening for understanding (which doesn't necessarily mean agreement), we might spend less time in conflict, if we could get social media algorithms to stop rewarding outrage.
Thank you for your time and your writing. Appreciate everyone’s thoughtful words. Freedom of speech allows me to have freedom of ideas. Keep this stuff coming. Keep these guest authors coming.
Rather than obsess about the killer's motive we need to look at why so many are hailing the killer as a hero! To me that is beyond belief!
To me what is beyond belief is your inability to comprehend why they are hailing him a hero. You don't need to endorse the attitude to understand how people got to it. It's called empathy. Cultivate it.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7084484/
Why don’t we know the cannabis use history of every killer? An entire generation of young adults is being misled that daily cannabis use is safe because it’s legal. The medical community must demand this history be made public and data base developed to determine cannabis use as risk factor for violence.
Cannabis use is ubiquitous in society, thus you'd expect it to be ubiquitous in mass murderers. If it's not, it would look like cannabis use prevented extreme violence.
Chronic daily use is very different than recreational use. Did you read the link?
I would agree insofar as discerning whether the shooter had what could be classified as a mental health diagnosis per DSM 5/TR. We could then (as a society) grapple with this as another data point in how to better manage patients with mental health conditions, up to and including involuntary (and indefinite) institutionalization.
However, this was a single assailant with a single victim. How often does this happen in the US, daily? But for some of the unique backstory traits of the victim and assailant in this case, we would definitely not be talking about it. Yes, the legal system needs to investigate enough so as to be able to determine culpability. Boiled down, is there an insanity defence here. Beyond that, I don’t see the point.
I hate the use of "senseless" with murder. Our hood was hostage to gang violence for decades, none of the murders were senseless, I knew most of the backstories. Senseless is applied so officials can be unaccountable for the social/legal conditions.
In our hyper-polarized society, people want to know the motive so they can place the blame on the other team. The attempted assassination of Trump: R's hope the perp was a left leaning or Antifa type. Recent murders in New Orleans: Trump blamed immigration even though it turns out the guy was born in Texas. Dems: any mass murder they are hoping it is not an immigrant, trans, etc. and are hoping it is right wing fanatic. Sadly, six months later no one will remember the truth and a significant number of the population will blame the other side.
It's natural and instinct to want to know why, yet these murderers and modern day terrorists grew up with the Boston Marathoner on the cover of Rolling Stone. At this point, I wonder how many of these acts of violence could have been prevented if the perpetrators had thought no one would read their manifesto and know their name.
Enjoyed this thought provoking essay. Having just seen A Complete Unknown where the folk music hierarchy desperately tries to prevent Bob Dylan from going electric at the Newport Folk Festival the parallels of the establishment resisting this change seem obvious but is this change really going to correct a problem. The social media landscape has now made it impossible to know what is truth (does anyone really know) and has also destroyed trust in everything, government, media and yes even medicine which is now a giant snake oil industry for making as much profit as possible without going to jail or shot in the back going to a shareholders meeting. The times they are still changin and the answer is blowing in the wind.
I’m pretty sure death by truck takes the gun argument out of the equation, leaving us with the mental state of the perpetrator. Death and destruction are part of the human psyche…
You're right about the importance of motives, even if it's for nothing more than determining legal consequences, for which society has decided motive matters. What's learned from doing so also presents an opportunity for prevention of such acts if we are wise enough to take it. (Alas, the human species is not especially good at prevention, as we are more reactive than proactive and we tend not to learn from our mistakes). I know from experience that people who listen deeply without judgment can often discern motives. People who think it can't be done generally don't know how to truly listen. It's a valuable skill we should teach in school. If we all spent more time listening for understanding (which doesn't necessarily mean agreement), we might spend less time in conflict, if we could get social media algorithms to stop rewarding outrage.
Do we really ever know why still it’s an interesting article
Very well said and right on - uhm - target...!