I am willing to grant Rich Lowry that the primary cause of the Santa Barbara massacre was the mental illness of the perpetrator. But I think it’s unsupportable to argue that his mental illness explains everything and that cultural messages had no influence whatsoever.
In this case, the murderer helpfully explained the source of his anger, which was envy and jealously fueled by feelings of inadequacy. He hated people who had and enjoyed the things he wanted and could not have. His mental illness explains his irrational hatred, but it doesn’t fully explain his feelings of inadequacy which were developed in a cultural context.
It doesn’t take a mental illness to seek out advice on how to better attract women, and the advice he received in the Pick-Up Artist community encouraged this young man to see women as objects to be conquered rather than as individuals to be courted. In this sense, the Pick-Up Artist community bears more responsibility for the massacre than the Beatles did for the Manson Gang’s atrocities.
So, while I think that it’s true that some people are spreading the blame around too cavalierly, the attitudes the killer had didn’t develop in a vacuum. There were people who were not suffering from any mental illness who encouraged this man to view women the way he did. I don’t see the harm in pointing that out.
There is also the aspect of why killing people and specially the use of a gun as a means was his solution to his problem.
We have become a culture that now views, for men at least, the use of a firearm to resolve a problem as, to at least some degree, a reasonable action.
Only if someone laughs at you at a gas station or something or talks on their cell phone in the rain.
Or over a spilled drink in a nightclub.
Mental illness isn’t a black box either. People like Lowry seem to think it’s completely random, like a lottery drawing. You go crazy, and you might get a ping pong ball that says “You are Jesus,” or you might get one that says “Go kill a bunch of people.” Who knows?
Well, Lowry is beating up on a colossal strawman anyway. It’s a lot easier to pretend people are blaming Seth Rogen than to take a look at the rancid misogyny of the subculture Elliot Rodger had gotten involved in.
And also, you might add:
Fuck the Second Amendment.
“Mental Illness Doesn’t Explain Anything”
There, fixed it for you.
Mental illness is neither explanatory nor predictive. Its every manifestation is unique and absolutely meaningless. That is why it is a problem and an intractable, insoluble problem.
We’ll never be able to “spot the next one”. There are no patterns, no profiles.
In response to any of a thousand tragedies, notorious as having occurred at such a place, on such a date, all that can be said is: “The world is full of crazy people — and there’s one more”.
In response to the notorious tragedies, the ones we have heard of, the ones that leave the longer trails of blood, this of course sounds wrong: it sounds flippant, it sounds cruel, it sounds stupidly uncomprehending, it sounds evasive. It does not seem to rise to the occasion.
But these are not occasions to be risen to. The occasions to be risen to are those where effort produces result. These are not they; and the notoriety does not make them so, nor yet the body count.
And what of those that are not notorious? What of the numbers and ranks, the hosts and cohorts, of lives that are destroyed by mental illness, retail, each by one, far outside the glare of publicity? No explanations, no predictions, no meaning.
And, yes, I know whereof I speak; and, no, I will not give you examples; not because they are none of your business (tho’ they a’n’t), but because they could not possibly mean anything to you, or to anyone, and I cannot take responsibility for giving you the illusion of understanding.
(Finally, this is not to endorse any assertions made by Rich Lowry, whose effusions are also entirely devoid of meaning, although for more prosaic reasons: it is a condition of his employment.)
What mental illness did this mofo have? None as far as I can see. None of his doctors and even his parents admit he didn’t have any actual mental illness that dictated violence.
In many ways he is simply taking patriarchy to its logical end point.
Maybe I’m wrong, however, and maybe in the future we will characterize some part of him as being mentally ill. I just don’t see the point of claiming everything as a mental illness. Sounds ableist to me.
What it comes down to is this: I have never seen such a downplay of his misogyny as a contributing factor. Not with any mass shootings in synagogues, gurudwaras, churches, homophobic crimes, rightwing fundie plots, etc. We have the perpetrator himself telling us via various channels how he is doing this because of his hate for women and we still have people claiming stating the obvious is some political posturing.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/24/1301736/–The-True-Alpha-Male-Elliot-Rodger-and-Aggrieved-W
hite-Male-Entitlement-Syndrome’
You know, the American Gun-Nut(tm) Rightwing bleats “mental illness!” basically every time the nation has another iteration of mass murder with firearms. Every mass murderer using guns is declared “mentally ill”, especially if they are a white male. The NRA, its disciples and its apologist scribblers (like Lowry) think this absolves them of all blame for irresponsibly creating Gun Nation and definitively “explains” why nothing can ever be done.
It seems to me, however, that this proves exactly the opposite—that in a nation of 330 million people, it is simply irrational to allow such easy access to high powered weaponry, given that we know mental illness is present in many people and will develop over time in many others. Especially given America’s thoroughly rotten and rancid culture of hyperventilating materialism, extreme social and economic competition, and resulting envy of others (including sexual envy).
And if Frank W is correct, we can’t predict where and when and how this illness (or irrepressible rage) will crop up. That means that there are many home arsenals currently in the hands of folks who will develop some sort of mental illness in the future (if they are not already mentally ill). And that upon the undetectable first manifestation of illness in others, they will be able to quickly purchase as many lethal firearms as they want. There’s simply no way around it.
So if Elliot Rodger was or became mentally ill, and his rampage was caused by his mental illness, then the UK model of firearm regulation (basically no privately owned firearms) is the only sane approach, assuming one actually cares about stopping innocent people (frequently women) from being slaughtered by demented (almost always male) nuts with guns. But if one doesn’t care a whit about (certain) gun carnage, then of course the US Gun Nut model is optimal.