I just found out about this drive by shooting that happened in Southern California. Originally I thought it was about a gang-related shooting and was surprised that it made it past the local news but then it turned out it wasn’t.
Anyways, I found out that it fit mold of recent mass shootings and once I saw that there was a confessional video posted I was going to watch it but then decided not to. Isn’t that what these people want? To commit suicide but murder as many people on their way out so that the world will know their mundane, but in their own mind tragic, story?
I remember coming across a video of an FBI or law enforcement agent who said that it would be better if the media would not highlight the victims as mere numbers and show the murderers face and name over and over. These type of murderers want the attention. That’s why they make the videos. And when the media gives in and sensationalizes these mass shootings it gives other people contemplating these types of crimes the idea that yes, this will give them the attention in death that they can’t achieve in life.
Telling the media not to cover these types of stories is about as effective as convincing your dog not to hump your leg. Like it or not, this is what they live for.
I’m not saying they shouldn’t cover these stories because that would be akin to outright ignoring what’s going on in the world. But they should take more responsibility in the way they cover the story.
I can’t how there isn’t a fame and glory aspect to these shooter’s motivation. Sure, they’ll get remembered as the “bad guy”. But at least they will be remembered, that’s a big deal for someone who feels like a nobody. Plus, the focus on body count makes it a competitive sport. When only a couple of people are killed, it is the top story on the local news, but it barely rates a mention on Anderson 360. Once you get into the double-digits, now we’re talking. Adam Lanza apparently took inspiration from Anders Behring Breivik, who holds the “top score” for this sick game.
Thing is, you are up against human nature. People have been committing spectacular crimes to get attention for thousands of years, authorities have tried the “suppress talk of the crime to prevent the criminal from getting what he wanted” tactic, and it just doesn’t work.
I’ll go with a sociobiological explanation for this type of stuff. People need to feel their existence is authentic. When it lacks authenticity (too peaceful, mundane, non-deathly, non-sexy), society offers up these screwballs to make it so; you get these acts that shock, terrorize, etc. as a means for doing it.
So society is to blame? It takes a village to raise a sociopath but who do we credit for raising the next great scientist, doctor, artist, or you know, anyone who isn’t mentally ill?
:dubious: What does “feel their existence is authentic” even mean?
And “society offers up these screwballs” seems to imply that society has some kind of group mind or something of the sort; something that has intentions and can make decisions.
People certainly credit society when they turn out good. They credit their families, their friends, their schools, their religion, and most telling, their culture. Whenever politicians trumpet their own rag-to riches story, they say stuff like “Only in America can the son of a janitor and prostitute become the next president of the United States!”
“He was raised right!” is a saying you hear in the South all the time. It essentially means, “Society did good with this one!”
The power that society has our on life outcomes is one of the few things the ultra-liberal and the ultra-conservative can agree on. It’s just that the latter focuses on society’s influence on morality, while the former focuses on society’s control of an individual’s self-determination.
Unfortunately, this wouldn’t work very well or long term. People are too curious. Every time, some internet sleuth would find out all the extra details and, in just a moment’s time, the information would be everywhere anyway. Repeated over and over for posterity. There’s just no way around it.
I don’t know, I think the media could do more pro active stuff and avoid making them famous, if they wanted.
I mean didn’t they stop publicizing even spectacular suicides, on city subways, bridges, etc, because to do so, only caused an increase in such incidents? Maybe that’s urban legend only?
Show me the face, tell me the name - a couple of times is enough. Start referring to them, after that as, ‘The sicko who…’! Or make the only photo they can publish one inch by one inch, and make it so they only get to publish one photo, identifying the shooter, and only one time.
We live in the internet age, let anyone interested go to the web to find the name or see the photo.
Spare the rest of us knowing the jerks life story, name, number of dead etc., all etched into our memories.
Pretty much this. Present the shooter as a mouth-breathing, retarded dipshit loser every time he is mentioned. I imagine the number of incidents like this will start dropping dramatically.
Do we though?.. I mean without the self-serving humblebrag of, ‘Gosh darn it, I really don’t deserve this award.’
Seems every time one of these loons commits these crimes, someone inevitably says that “society” is to blame for failing to prevent it. As if, as Der Trihs pointed out, society is some giant collective awareness.
When I say society “offers up” (in this case a mass murderer), it’s meant as an emergent quality of society, something no one individual or even group has control over.
Authenticity--I suppose I was playing on Joseph Campbell's notion of it, though he associates with pursuit of one's "bliss", here I mean more about the "full experience of being alive".
Just look at the typical popular American special effects flick, or especially video games, these 1st person shooters...this need (a craving) for the fully-lived, authentic existence...how much of that sublimity, that ~overwhelmingness is really here in real life?
And why not? you could take an individual "will to the act" level that rises the longer the lull goes on...eventually someone "snaps", producing the horrific event, which subesequently lowers everyone's "levels" until they build up again; a potential per person, higher in some than in others.
Don DeLillo, Mao II: " 'What terrorists gain, novelists lose. The degree to which they influence mass consciousness is the extent of our decline as shapers of sensibility and thought. The danger they represent equals our own failure to be dangerous.' "; ...no need to restrict this to novelists
I guess it’s not clear to me the manner in which you’re using the concept, “emergent quality of society”. Perfectly sane individuals are also an emergent quality of society. In fact, they are by far the most prevalent results of emergence in society.
I’m at a loss to understand what you’re suggesting about the links of common characteristic traits of societies and sociopaths (mass murderers, in your example).