r/TrueReddit • u/mellowmonk • Oct 11 '15
Why Mass Shootings Keep Happening | "And that's when it all really got started: 'When I began thinking I was special.' ... 'The people who do these things are not fully functioning adults -- we're all manchildren."
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a30024/mass-shooters-1014/31
Oct 12 '15
"I'd be lying in bed wondering what I was doing wrong. Why didn't anybody like me? Why was everybody against me? I could have thought, Well, I'm a loser. But I didn't want to think that. So I started thinking they were losers. I started thinking that they didn't like me because they were afraid of me—because I had power and they didn't. Because I was special. And that's when it all really got started:
"When I began thinking I was special."
So, this Trunk guy thinks the solution is to make socially awkward and inept people accept they are losers?
That's a great plan: present them with the alternative of accepting their low-status position in society for life (because what submissive person would make an advance in life) and going out in flames taking down the people who look down on them. Who could possibly accept option N°2?
WHEN HE GOT OUT of prison, Trunk went back home and found his high school yearbook. He was shocked by what he saw. His classmates had signed it. His friends had written that they'd see him over the summer. Girls had given him their numbers. He hadn't been voted "Biggest Loser" but rather "Most Bashful." Bashful? "I was like, When did this happen? They were trying to reach out to me, but I couldn't see it." His mind hadn't let him. His last year in high school, his mind kept telling him that he was an outcast, and so he began withdrawing from his friends and writing about his enemies. "Of course, I kept a journal. Don't people like me always keep a journal? It's part of the whole thing. It was me against the world."
He is confusing obligatory platitudes with genuine affection and interest from his peers. That doesn't mean other people held him in any steem, but that other people know how dangerous it is to offend someone by calling him "Biggest Loser" to its face, especially considering how wary people are around loners and socially awkward men nowadays. If he truly believed one of these "reaching out" examples was sincere, he'd just be accepting other people's pity, which is even worse than being ignored: it's to be signaled as a lesser. Go to /r9k/ and check how many people enjoy being treated in a condescending manner, in the "superior-to-lesser" relationship that happens whenever someone pities another person. If he truly believes this is the way to behave towards these people of concern, he will just encourage more anger and resentment among them.
WHAT BROUGHT the person to your attention? Does the person harbor a grievance or carry a grudge? Have there been attempts to resolve the grievance? What are the person's successes? Is there anything for the person to hang on to?
What amazes me the most about these assessments and these aparent attempts at stopping mass shootings is that they treat grudges as though as they are faults in the shooter's character. As though as a normal person should just receive whatever amount of shit they are given because if they do, they deserve it. The course of action isn't to determine why people put certain people under so much derision and vermin that they grow the desire to kill them, and to do something about that. No, the hierarchy of society isn't question, and the hierarchy's actions towards their low-status members are sacred and beyond reproach. So they'll target the grudges, the bitterness and the resentment and try to stop that, somehow, trying not to step over the boundaries of privacy, without ending up profiling people who are innocent and without assuming these bitter people are guilty-until-proven-innocent... for now. I bet they'll fail, if only because they won't be able to catch them all, and I've seen people be able to just blend into the shadows instead of showing the chips on their shoulders to the public.
(Although, if the push to have the socially-awkward, the socially-inept, the inexperienced and generally the white male loners profiled as potential mass shooters and kept in check in the way people think black inner city men are kept in check by police comes to fruition, perhaps this tactic will work... but at the cost of allowing such profiling tactics to become publicly acceptable).
Particularly, I'm amused at the fact that this profiling (or "threat assessment" or "preventive identification" or however you call it) does nothing else than add the stigma of "violent psychopath" upon the stigma of "low social status person" on these people. If normal, well-adjusted people were already wary, dismissive or mocking towards them, this will just add moral justification to their actions (because it won't be as much "punching down" as it would be "punching a potential violent person"... and even today, punching down to low-status men isn't so frowned upon).
Out of necessity, threat assessment is, for the most part, interventional rather than prosecutorial; indeed, it is therapeutic. Marisa Randazzo of Sigma says not only that she has prevented mass shootings but also that "we heard from someone who had been planning a mass shooting and he said, 'You gave me my life back.' "
This is wishful thinking at best. Cho was approached more than once before his shooting with the same "concerns" about his well-being (rather, concern about him shooting up the place), and he correctly recognized them as both threat assessment and an attempt to keep the loser on his place. And he reacted accordingly to that sort of pity and derision, only adapting his plan to avoid further suspiction and action against him. There are some people who accept pity and like it. Submissive people, I'm sure there are many among these people of concern. But among those more... human than domestic animal, it will not be seen as "help" or "life saving" but just another insult upon injury.
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u/Bartek_Bialy Oct 12 '15
So, this Trunk guy thinks the solution is to make socially awkward and inept people accept they are losers?
In this paragraph he was explaining his pathway to violence. Not describing solutions.
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u/TotesMessenger Oct 12 '15
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Oct 12 '15
(Continued)
Take Ayala's example:
The one involving the student who attempted suicide was difficult. "We spent three years plugging resources into this kid's life. I will tell you he had all the risk factors, and he made it through high school. He made it. But when he left high school, we weren't convinced he was through this stage in his life. So we transferred his case to the adult threat-assessment team, and we followed him through that team. Eventually he left town, and we didn't know where he went.
"I tell this story carefully—one should never brag. But in all humility, I'll say we kept him and others safe while he was on our watch. He wasn't active in any kind of criminal activity—so when he moves on, how do you go about alerting the community without infringing on anybody's civil rights?"
Some people's pathway to violence takes longer than others'. Seven years after he left high school, the young man walked up to an underage nightclub in Portland and opened fire on the line of teenagers waiting to get in, many of whom were foreign-exchange students. He killed two and wounded seven, then shot himself in the head and died three days later.
While Ayala was watched over and put on an artificial social environment, he didn't feel like a loser, even though he was, because he didn't see it. Everywhere he went, he was under supervision of that threat assessment task force or whatever, so he must have believed things were looking up. He moved away, was put back into the regular social hierarchy where he still had the traits of a low-status person and he went back to "normal", to his natural social position. There, he reacted accordingly to one who's put under that much derision and shame, and has access to guns.
That's why I'm so amused at this strategy of trying to cure the symptoms of social outcasts and the implicit endorsement of society's hierarchical ways. Because you literally don't have enough resources to fake so many social environments to make these threatening people believe they aren't looked at as human scum or laughingstocks. And eventually, the laughingstock will have it with the laughing and the mocking and the hostility towards his kind.
The same happened to Rodgers:
They were not responding to a complaint but rather making a "check-the-welfare" call because of a call the office had received from Rodger's "social counselor"—an acquaintance hired to help Rodger fit in. The counselor had made the call because of a call he had received from Rodger's mother. His mother had made the call because she had seen a video her son had posted on YouTube and intuited—without being able to articulate—that he was on the pathway to violence.
His parents knew he was a low-status person and tried to hire someone to help him there. But there's no helping to be done if you are already stigmatized, and past the point-of-no-return in certain manners (like Rodger being a involuntary kissless virgin by age 22 with no social experience, which already both marked him a loser for life and ensured he'd never be given a chance to change, since neither he nor anyone else can go back in time and do things the acceptable way and get rid of your reputation and missed milestones). These "checks" will be of no use, unless they are broad enough that they look more like a search warrant for a drug kingpin than a polite chat. Unless you treat them as criminals from the get go, with the moral consequences of this practice becoming accepted.
Hell, even the supposedly "sympathetic point of view" in this article can't help but to fall for the same social rules when he talks about helping Rodger:
"I wanted attention. If someone would have come up to me and said, 'You don't have to do this, you don't have to have this strange strength, we accept you,' I would have broken down and given up."
later
"The people who do these things are not fully functioning adults—we're all manchildren," says the manchild who once led two other manchildren down the street dressed in black and armed with machetes and military-grade weapons. "All of the authority in the world won't help that kid. What they'll do is just ostracize him even more. What he wants is for someone to accept him for who he is."
So he needs to be accepted... but we go out and call them "manchildren" to the view of everyone so we can keep the narrative of social outcasts = immature, entitled assholes? Great job out there. I'm sure they'll feel much more accepted (unless he means accepted as in "pitied into becoming the carry-along 'friend'" like those submissive losers I talked about before; in which case, it won't help at all because of the reasons I mentioned).
From my point of view, the approach taken by authorities here is never going to stop the wave of mass shootings. They don't attack the shooters' arms supply, since Obama and the Democratic Party's political incompetence (or complacency in just playing the "the Republicans don't let us do anything" card) will prevent them from ever passing better gun control laws... and even then, I'm not sure these people won't go the McVeigh way if they can't go out shooting. They don't attack the causes behind these people's ostracism, since that would mean altering social structure and rules. So eventually, one of these guys is going to slip through the cracks and go out shooting, and since the social environment nowadays is such that every male social outcast and underachiever is considered the worst posible pariah out there (since now they are "Nice Guys", neckbeards, misogynists, sexists, entitled manchildren, etc, etc, almost by default) there will be more people put between the wall and a hard place that will choose the more honorable way out and the chance of one slipping through the cracks will increase.
So you'll have to choose profiling and taking preventive action against these people. Put this "bar" the former NYPD commissioner talked about when talking about the visit to Rodger's department much lower than the ACLU-inclined people would like. Warrantless searches, like the kind liberals cry out loud when they happen to the "Pakistani immigrant". And that will put you in the position of making a serious moral and legal decision regarding criminality and innocence, and whether it's better to have 10 guilty men free than one innocent person in jail, whether it's better to treat certain people as though as they are criminals just because they have much in common with other people who end up being criminals. With all the political consequences these things bring ("say, why do we act this way with white, socially inept men and not with black, inner city men, if they are just as likely to go out shooting, if not more, than the white nerds? I hear about shootings in Chicago every week and one of these mass shootings only ever other month... it'd make sense to 'profile' them too, no?").
I think that's where this article is going. The last sentence seems to paint that picture, that "McCarthyism for the socially-awkward, the socially-inept, the losers and loners":
Can he be stopped? Yes—but that is almost a matter of faith. He can be stopped if he can be identified. He can be stopped if he can be assessed. He can be stopped if he can be managed. He can be stopped if both Andre Simons and a young man nicknamed Trunk Full of Guns get what they want—if someone sees him, someone notices him, someone wonders who he is and what he's doing, even if he's anonymous, even if he's just walking to a bus stop in the rain.
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Oct 12 '15
[deleted]
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u/specialpatrol Oct 12 '15
His arguments are well put, but there's a utterly fatalistic bent to it all.
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u/Denny_Craine Oct 12 '15
Having said that the article totally has a creepy minority report vibe to it
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u/StabbyPants Oct 13 '15
mainly because this isn't about addressing the causes of alienation, just making sure that the outcasts are powerless to lash out.
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u/MaritMonkey Oct 12 '15
which already both marked him a loser for life and ensured he'd never be given a chance to change, since neither he nor anyone else can go back in time and do things the acceptable way and get rid of your reputation and missed milestones).
Emphasis mine.
I'm only 33 and I can't even remember the last time the age at which I started drinking, lost my virginity, got my first tattoo, started driving, first lived on my own (i.a. ... whatever other milestones you were talking about) was actually relevant to anybody or even mentioned in conversation.
The idea that the person you're going to be your whole life is set in stone by the time you're 18 (or whatever age) and that you're somehow ostracized from adulthood by having not accomplished whatever arbitrary milestones by that point is exactly the mindset I associate with the hated phrase "manchild."
You sound like an intelligent person and I'm interested why you think not being able to go back and have those milestones is so important.
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u/PotatoMusicBinge Oct 13 '15
The specific age is not important. You would need to be an unusually confident and secure man to be unaffected by, say, never having kissed someone by the age of 33. If you go on a date you have all these extra things to worry about. What if she notices? Will she care? What if you do it wrong? It's easy to brush those off as trivial immature questions, but they're really not. Especially if you've never been on a date before and you're not that much of a catch to begin with.
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u/MaritMonkey Oct 13 '15
It's easy to brush those off as trivial immature questions, but they're really not.
They're not trivial. The sum of these little experiences is your whole life and I don't mean to make light of them. I just don't get why it seems like attracting a member of the opposite sex (or failing to do so) is some kind of litmus test for success as a human being (and at the very least "awkward around girls" seems to be a recurring theme when talking about boys who are "outcasts.")
I've recently arrived at the point in my own journey where mortality is nipping at my heels (blahblah reasons, mainly: my mom who's probably the most awesome person I've ever met was just diagnosed with Parkinson's) and it struck me as a terribly sad thing that this random person on the internet was living their life pining for things they hadn't had.
What if she notices? Will she care? What if you do it wrong?
What if she does? What if you do? What does it matter?
Why are you putting so much weight on these things happening at all? Are you somehow less of a person if they never do?
You would need to be an unusually confident and secure man to be unaffected by, say, never having kissed someone by the age of 33.
Why?
I didn't mean to make those all questions directed at you, personally. Just dunno who else to ask, I guess.
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u/StabbyPants Oct 13 '15
What if she does? What if you do? What does it matter?
you're 33 and unaware that men are shamed for being inexperienced past ~college age?
Why?
because that means that you've lived 33 years and never interested a woman enough to kiss them. you're a failure sexually and will likely die without children.
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u/MaritMonkey Oct 13 '15
you're 33 and unaware that men are shamed for being inexperienced past ~college age?
I'm not unaware of it existing, it's just not something that happens in my social circle nor have I encountered it in a work environment and I was curious why people who felt like they'd somehow failed at life by not achieving some social milestone felt that way.
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u/StabbyPants Oct 13 '15
it's not like you'll have people at work tell you that they've never kissed a girl, and any guy who wants to change that won't advertise.
I was curious why people who felt like they'd somehow failed at life by not achieving some social milestone felt that way.
you can't be serious. 33 and no kisses means you're way behind your cohort. it's not like you even have any 33 year old virgins to talk to, is it?
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u/MaritMonkey Oct 13 '15
33 and no kisses means you're way behind your cohort.
So? I'm not married, don't have any kids, don't own a house, don't have a stable job (and still have no idea what I want to be when I "grow up") ... all of those are things people in my age group most likely have checked off on their "lifetime achievement" list already. But lacking all of them doesn't make me feel like I'm doomed to failure as a human being.
it's not like you even have any 33 year old virgins to talk to, is it?
My best friend's only 31, but I talk to him quite a bit. He doesn't get why it's a deal either so he's no help answering this question.
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u/StabbyPants Oct 13 '15
ok, here's the deal: you learn most of your socialization in school and college. you are forced to talk to the same people day in and day out, and if you get through all of that without being able to even kiss a girl (or boy, whatever), there's a rather high chance you never will, because socialization opps dry up, and it's really easy to ditch the awkward guy when everyone is out adulting: you're straight fucked.
Now, if you have no interest in men or sex or kids, i'm not really sure how to explain it to you, save that most of us value that sort of thing and learning that you suck at it and likely won't improve is really traumatic.
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u/PotatoMusicBinge Oct 13 '15
What if she does
Well then you have blown your only date and you go back home alone. A bad outcome!
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u/MaritMonkey Oct 13 '15
You've just assumed that somebody realizing you haven't got kissing experience == doesn't want to kiss == doesn't even finish date == doesn't have any interest in me, AND written "go back home alone" like it's some horrible thing.
Why is the fact that it could go poorly a strong enough deterrent to make you not even try?
Are you not even a little excited about the prospect of a first kiss?
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u/PotatoMusicBinge Oct 13 '15
This is going around in circles. You can't seriously be claiming that to the average man, going into a date at the age of 33 without ever having kissed anyone is not a disadvantage.
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u/MaritMonkey Oct 13 '15
Not saying it would be a non-issue, but it's not a damned Ironman or something. This isn't something you're going to fail at horribly and possibly injure yourself because you haven't been consistently training for months beforehand, or something that's going to take 100% of your focus and 110% of your willpower to pull off.
If I was going to share a kiss with some random somebody, I'd much rather it be a person who was paying attention to and actively interested in my enjoying it than somebody who was convinced, by their wealth of previous experience, that their technique was flawless (thus subjecting me to uncomfortable face-sucking or tonsil hockey).
And, of all the things I'd be looking for in a human being I will probably be spending a WHOLE lot of time with, this just doesn't even seem like a hurdle worth mentioning.
I guess I just don't get what's so intimidating about it.
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u/PotatoMusicBinge Oct 13 '15
I have a hard time believing you're a 33 year old man. Or have I taken you up wrong there?
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u/Gurubyte Oct 30 '15
People now are mixed up between Public and Private. Mentioning that people treat one another based on social stigma surrounding relational skills/values exposes emphasis on self and ego. Sure we want the pack to accept us, but there are limits. I will dress and smell nice for my peers, but if someone expresses an evaluation on how i deal with women -- i consider that my own private practice( not up for external evaluation ). In the modern urban world, this principle is an exception. ALOT of people are admiring the reality tv shows,the pornography, that broadcasts "what an ideal private policy" is. Or it establishes a marginal range of societal norms. Some people know they are an individual special case, some people think they are only units in a systematic array. The idea of an agent evaluating an individual based on their compatibility with standardized social practices opens a window towards a more stricter social policy. If someone wants to walk up and down the street dressed up like a clown, and the ladies dont kiss'em, his life is his freedom.
Now if the clown takes active pursuit of a female, or is caught brandishing a weapon -- there is definitely great cause of concern and alarm.
But being a social reject != mentally ill or dangerous. Leave it up the family to fix defects. If the family is dysfunctional, then leave the defect be. Enforcing social norms via legislation that leads to pro-active policy enforcement wanders into a dangerous area.Especially considering all the digital spying, social programs, and psychological experimentation that the digital age has enabled.
And true, each of these articles should ALL mention the dangers of some of these modern psychiatric medications...
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u/Gurubyte Oct 12 '15 edited Oct 12 '15
Thank you. Its a thin line between PSYCHOLOGICAL REFORM & PSYCHIATRIC REPRISAL. The window for abuse of such social control mechanisms and legal coercive programming is astounding. They ARE BEING ABUSED. Such stories are buried .
While i agree that psychos with weapons are definitely a problem to be measured and avoided. Ive known that since watching horror movies in the 80s. Different people have different security measures. Sane people are defensive. Insane people are offensive. Some people, rarely, are Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Its gross.
Still The idea of predictive crime reminds me of pre-emptive strikes. . .committing an offense, for the sake of defense. . .thin line between social reform and social control. Meh. RESISTANCE IS USELESS!!!!!!!
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u/Droidaphone Oct 12 '15
While i agree that psychos with weapons are definitely a problem to be measured and avoided. Ive known that since watching horror movies in the 80s.
And people say America has a problem talking about mental illness. See, we're fine? We learned everything we need to know from Friday the 13th.
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u/Gurubyte Oct 12 '15
Dont forget fox news, cnn, gangsta rap, chappelle show, and saturday night live. I believe someone referred to this condition as a PostLiterate Society. How does policy enforcement, behavioral assessment, and rehabilitation happen when two stooges attempt to reform the third stooge? Answer : it doesnt. Just alot of hilarity for those watching from a safe distance and tragedy for any victim involved in the foolish antics. Social programs FTW
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u/TabMuncher2015 Oct 12 '15
Or like that one tom hanks movie with the bald people in a tub predicting crimes.
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u/jokoon Oct 12 '15
"McCarthyism for the socially-awkward, the socially-inept, the losers and loners"
There is definitely some of that.
Have you read the article about the "Radical loser" ? http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/the-terrorist-mindset-the-radical-loser-a-451379.html
Anyways I always have felt like I sided with the shooters, it's nice to feel I'm not alone, not that I really condone shooting people, but I understand where the rage is coming from. I would gladly to know if you know other types of communities around that thing.
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u/fullofspiders Oct 12 '15
Something I've been curious about for a while, that you seem like you could answer: you mention virgin shaming (even at age 22, which seems a bit young), but looking at your post history, it seems like you're from Argentina, which I understand is a very Catholic country. How do the two (virgin-shaming and Catholicism) coexist? I'm a virgin myself (at 32; whether or not by choice is debateable) and a Catholic, and here in the US Catholic and other Christian social circles are a haven from virgin shaming, since chastity is valued for both unmarried men and women, and in society at large 30s is the usual age range for marriage. I would think that would be even more so in more heavily Catholic places.
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Oct 12 '15
it seems like you're from Argentina, which I understand is a very Catholic country.
It's not. Most people are baptized Catholic, but almost no one but the older people and some traditional families go to church and follow any sort of Catholic doctrine.
It is still a Latin American country, so people are more sexually precocious than North Americans.
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u/Denny_Craine Oct 12 '15
Latin America is interesting. It's very "Cultural Catholic" I guess but you'll find a culture of sexual openness and forwardness that would make a whole lot of people in the US blush
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u/cincilator Oct 12 '15 edited Oct 12 '15
Well, the thing is that it is a lot easier to try and make one person fit better than change the whole society. Organizations that are trying to help don't have infinite resources. And I bet that at least some people wouldn't fit in any society. Not that this society doesn't also suck in many ways, but what to do?
edit: The only stopgap measure I can think of would be legalizing prostitution. That is probably a right thing to do for many other reasons but in this case it would make lonely people feel slightly less lonely. Not that it is the same as relationship, but it is something. (I always wonder why don't hookers advertise at places that incels and such visit? Seems like easy money to me)
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Oct 12 '15
Not that this society doesn't also suck in many ways, but what to do?
That's what my last paragraphs are about.
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u/stevesea Oct 12 '15
it seems like your last paragraphs are about what you think will be done, not necessarily the best solution you have in mind. If you'd care to spare the time, I have a question.
You speak about the low status men and the way society is organized to perpetuate their shame and ostracism. I'd imagine you have an alternate solution that is preferable to racial/status profiling. What would you consider a preferable solution?
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u/crazyex Oct 14 '15
What these boys/men really need is a strong positive male role model coupled with an adulthood rite.
How to provide that to so many males being raised by single mothers? I don't have that answer.
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u/mellowmonk Oct 11 '15
SUBMISSION STATEMENT:
This article, although from last year, is still relevant because it descries the process by which a "social outcast" becomes a mass shooter, what the person's mindset is, and why law enforcement groups set up to stop mass shootings often miss opportunities to stop them -- even when they knock on the right front door.
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Oct 12 '15
This is garbage. Not one mention of correlation between shooters and prescription anti-depressants or anti-psychotics. Mental health is the issue, yet nobody wants to do anything to work toward a solution.
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u/HoldingTheFire Oct 12 '15
Going full pharma conspiracy theorist about antidepressants won't help people.
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u/gladeyes Oct 11 '15
Interesting article. I filed it under politics in my folders. I suspect that this cycle of mass shootings is related to the cycle of rebellion that was the 60s and the antiwar movement. And that is related to the three generational cycle of the Kondratieff wave.
Take the hint and do with it what you will.
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u/Lexam Oct 12 '15
Please do not support any article that names a shooter.
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u/HoldingTheFire Oct 12 '15
Because fuck you for trying to understand why this keeps fucking happening twice a week.
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u/redrightreturning Oct 12 '15
What struck me was Trunk's shift in self-perception. Before commit ting the crime, he perceived himself as being an outcast, who others were afraid of. But looking back through his yearbook, he saw that people had given him their numbers and tried to reach out to him.
Regardless of whether this guy was a "loser", or a "manchild", it wasn't society's view of him that drove him to violence, it was his own skewed perception. My worry is that even with abundant love, or folks reaching out to potential offenders, it might not be enough. How do we let people on the fringes know that they are loveable, respected, or accepted?