Another spoiled little man goes a US gun rampage (six people murdered in Santa Barbara)

[8ball]

I don't know how to find this kind of online misogyny. I never encounter it unless it's posted here.

I reckon I could find some right vile stuff within a few quick Googles to be fair (I'd start with PUA message boards), but I don't find them edifying places to hang out and this seems a little extreme even for them. Though it was a while back that I read 'The Game'.

 

[Blagsta]

Yes but isn't that a bit of a chicken and egg situation, do the cultural factors exacerbate underlying mental issues or are the mental issues a result of the cultural factors? Either way the result is similar.

I don't think you can separate culture and mental illness in such a way. How we define "mental illness" is cultural.

 

[8ball]

I don't use twitter and facebook, in large part because of this kind of thing.

I've not seen this sort of thing on Facebook but I'm sure it's there, depending on who your 'friends' are. I pruned a few a week or so back due to some comments about the Eurovision winner, so what I'm seeing is pretty filtered at this point.

Never done Twitter.

 

[Red Cat]

Inaccurate. In the few cases where people have carried out such crimes have a prior psych history, a minority of them have been judged "mentally healthy" prior to their destructive action. It's about other things beyond mental health - culture and belief, for example.

Judged by who?

 

[poului]

I don't know what to say. It's all over twitter and facebook and I've encountered watered-down versions of it in real life too in pubs.

The internet has always given a disproportionate platform to jumped up freaks and lunatics and made them appear like a far greater percentage of society than they actually are.

 

[weepiper]

The internet has always given a disproportionate platform to jumped up freaks and lunatics and made them appear like a far greater percentage of society than they actually are.

a woman was killed by a man every 2.5 days in 2013 in the UK. Pardon me if I see this differently to you.

 

[8ball]

I don't think you can separate culture and mental illness in such a way. How we define "mental illness" is cultural.

I think one thing our culture does is define it as something weak, or at least different. It's a distancing mechanism. Most people start to go mad if kept in solitary confinement for quite a short time, yet we still seem to categorise mental distress as something divergent and 'other'.

 

[Fuchs66]

I don't think you can separate culture and mental illness in such a way. How we define "mental illness" is cultural.

That's true I guess, I don't know enough about mental issues, hence the question.

 

[8ball]

a woman was killed by a man every 2.5 days in 2013 in the UK. Pardon me if I see this differently to you.

I'm not sure how we're measuring either the proportionality of expression on the internet or the likelihood of those committing these murders holding these views. It does seem there were more murders of women by men per capita before the internet existed, but then lots of things obv change at the same time.

 

[kittyP]

Interesting that most women are frequenting these corners of the net while most men are oblivious.

At least that means it must be a very small minority of men making these posts.
Assuming it's men.

I might be wrong but I think Weeps means we see it in society not just on the net.

 

[poului]

a woman was killed by a man every 2.5 days in 2013 in the UK. Pardon me if I see this differently to you.

That's 0.0005% of the UK's adult male population.

 

[8ball]

I might be wrong but I think Weeps means we see it in society not just on the net.

I had asked specifically about those little clippings from the net, so took the answer at face value.

 

[8ball]

That's 0.0005% of the UK's adult male population.

Assuming one killing per man, and the accuracy if the statistic, granted.

 

[poului]

Assuming one killing per man, and the accuracy if the statistic, granted.

No reason not to, in fact I'd imagine it's probably higher.

My point is that I'm deeply worried that there's a consequence in all of us fixating so much on people like this young man yesterday and trying to identify him as part of the grand social picture. It inevitably gives the next potential killer out there a sense of self-importance and all it ever takes is one.

 

[8ball]

Well, they do seem to have found that the more you publicise this sort of thing the more likely it is to get another one following not far behind..

 

[ViolentPanda]

Is it? My experience of working with children with emotional difficulties is that they often don't know, they wouldn't be able to put it into words, and asking them so directly is likely to see them retreat further into their defences. They act out precisely because they don't know. My experience of myself as an adult is not dissimilar.

ETA: I know he wasn't a child but was talking about my work experience. I don't work with young adults.

Fair enough, although I'd argue that the dynamic is sufficiently-different between a child and a young adult that where asking a child "what's wrong?" might come across as intimidating (whether for reasons of articulacy, or because direct questioning can be intimidating), it would actively be expected by a young adult with any (even 2nd-hand) knowledge of "therapy culture".

 

[kittyP]

No reason not to, in fact I'd imagine it's probably higher.

My point is that I'm deeply worried that there's a consequence in all of us fixating so much on people like this young man yesterday and trying to identify him as part of the grand social picture. It inevitably gives the next potential killer out there a sense of self-importance and all it ever takes is one.

I don't know that that's what's happening.
I do think it's important to recognise that the "anomalys" in society are more common than we might think though.
I don't think ignoring it is less encouraging to other potential killers.

Also when you look at the kind of statistic the Weeps posted, I think a really poignant thing is the women who are not killed by their partners just coz they didn't quite go that far, but live a life of severe abuse.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Yes but isn't that a bit of a chicken and egg situation, do the cultural factors exacerbate underlying mental issues or are the mental issues a result of the cultural factors? Either way the result is similar.

I wouldn't say "chicken and egg", I'd say that the two are as indivisible as nature and nurture are - that both exert effects, and that in some cases those effects can combine, often harmlessly, but sometimes fatally.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

that's because you're not as clever as you think you are. if ones will is constrained then by definition it cannot be free.

I don't think I'm that clever; but if one's will is constrained, then one doesn't in fact have a choice.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

if only there were some middle ground between free will and your vulgar brand of determinism...

But..... there isn't.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Judged by who?

By their shrinks.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The internet has always given a disproportionate platform to jumped up freaks and lunatics and made them appear like a far greater percentage of society than they actually are.

Thing is, there's volume (number of freaks), and then there's volume (loudness of freaks). The freaks wouldn't be so loud if culture (in the form of patriarchy) itself, not just the internet, didn't privilege (consciously or not) their narratives.
We can blame the internet until the cows come home, but I'd say that all that's happened is that the rhetoric has moved from the toilet wall and the behind-the-hand mutter, to Faecesbook and Twatter.

 

[ViolentPanda]

That's 0.0005% of the UK's adult male population.

So fucking what? it's still 0.0005% of a male population that feels entitled to take the life of a woman for little or no reason besides their own inadequacies. it's still 0.0005% too fucking many.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I don't think I'm that clever; but if one's will is constrained, then one doesn't in fact have a choice.

Constraint limits choice, it doesn't nullify it.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

There you go again, asking the impossible!

It's like asking some posters not to be an officious know-it-all.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Constraint limits choice, it doesn't nullify it.

Choice without constraint would be random choice. But the ability to choose means free will.

 

[poului]

So fucking what? it's still 0.0005% of a male population that feels entitled to take the life of a woman for little or no reason besides their own inadequacies. it's still 0.0005% too fucking many.

The discussion was on the issue of proportion of these incidents in a society. When weepiper brought up the stats about male-on-female murder rates in the UK I pointed out that it too was statistically a very small proportion. What gives you any reason to think I wouldn't agree with you that it's still a percentage too many?

 

[poului]

I don't know that that's what's happening.
I do think it's important to recognise that the "anomalys" in society are more common than we might think though.
I don't think ignoring it is less encouraging to other potential killers.

This is impossible to resolve here in a sense that these people clearly do not think in the same way you or I do. But I would seriously consider the fact that he left a filmed speech and uploaded it on Youtube before his spree and deduce that his prime intention was to make as big an impression as possible with what he did. This is by no means just my opinion, by the way.

 

[Red Cat]

Fair enough, although I'd argue that the dynamic is sufficiently-different between a child and a young adult that where asking a child "what's wrong?" might come across as intimidating (whether for reasons of articulacy, or because direct questioning can be intimidating), it would actively be expected by a young adult with any (even 2nd-hand) knowledge of "therapy culture".

That depends on the type of therapy!

 

[Red Cat]

By their shrinks.

You mean their psychiatrists? Well, there you go then.