I’ve been thinking a lot about the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and several others yesterday which resulted in the deaths of six people, including a federal judge and the nine year old granddaughter of a former MLB manager. As I noted yesterday, looking at what evidence is available it seems to me that the alleged gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, is more deranged than anything else. I would not ascribe to his act a political motive because frankly, based on what I’ve read about him and from him, I don’t think he was mentally capable of having what you’d call a coherent political philosophy. I doubt he can be put in the same league as even the nuttiest of Teabaggers or 9/11 truthers. So if you’re reading this in the hopes of finding an excoriation of the Tea Party or Sarah Palin, or some other faction or figure, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
It appears to this observer that the most meaningful conclusion that can be drawn from this sad episode is that it is entirely meaningless. Everyone is asking why this happened. It’s a completely natural question to ask, but I’m sorry to inform them that a satisfactory answer is hardly forthcoming. To anyone seeking an explanation for this shooting spree, allow me to direct you to the alleged gunman’s YouTube channel. Peruse his videos. See if you can glean any coherence from them. You cannot. They are slideshows compiled by a very ill person, a legitimate psychotic (probably a schizophrenic) who was either off his meds or who had no meds in the first place because he went undiagnosed entirely.
That’s just my take on it, but I doubt such an explanation—even if true—will be enough to satiate our national dialogue, which I’m sure is preparing for many helpings of potentially “teachable moments” about why this happened. “Is our political rhetoric becoming too hateful? How was he able to purchase the guns legally?” and “Should we provide more security for our elected officials?” are questions likely to be debated on the cable news shows in the weeks ahead.
And for what? Pundits on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, and countless blogs are all going to offer their takes on what the solution, or at least what the cause is. Some have already started. But the fact is, there is no solution and there is no cause—at least not one that fits into a convenient overarching political narrative or really any narrative, other than one that acknowledges the cruel capriciousness of existence.
- Max
Your post is on target but there is a simple explanation for his psychotic posts on YouTube.
ReplyDeleteForty years ago designers and engineers discovered that a normal feature in our physiology could cause mental breaks. The cubicle was designed to deal with the vision startle reflex in crowded office situations to stop it by 1968.
Today home computer users can create the "special circumstances" for Subliminal Distraction exposure and have the same mental break as those 1960's office workers.
There is evidence that the Atlanta Day Trader killer, the Virginia Tech, Redlake school and Jokela Finland school shooters all created this problem.
VisionAndPsychosis.Net is an eight year investigation of Subliminal Distraction. There are pages that have this evidence collected.