This comes to mind.
Since the plot was more about the enabling of a mass mental disorder by the media, I hope you ALL watch this,
Man Bites Dogā¦yeeks. That film made Natural Born Killers look like an Oliver Stone movie.
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No, I mean FUCK no, and that aināt the booze talkān. Any Human that will walk into the total disregard for other humans lives is fucking sick in the head!
PERIOD!
This is the problem. According to our current rubric of understanding mental illness, murder and mass murder are not grounds for psychosis or personality disorder diagnoses.
These guidelines need to change. Anyone who would attempt suicide and be unsuccessful would be placed under watchful psychological care. They would likely be diagnosed with depression or something else related like anxiety. So why not murderers? Are they not so angry and bent out of shape that they have crossed the line into disorder? I really think they have. The current diagnostic criteria are lacking and wrong. People who kill others or intend to kill are abnormal and need psych care.
The flip side is that by saying all killers are mentally ill, that blunts the public health concern around easy access to guns.
We have multiple, simultaneous things going on. Shitty laws around firearm possession and purchase. Too many guns in society already, and easily accessible by criminals who ignore all laws. Not enough psych care for the population. Media whipping people up into a frenzy about all the killing. TV crime shows and first-person shooters are all the rage. We have just way too much violence immersion in the USA. Itās insanity. We are a bunch of violent, egotistical apes.
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ānutsā and āmentally illāā¦ are different words for a reason.
But my, look at what ELSE they had in common!!!
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Maybe I should have put an explicit warning on that post. Itās been a long time since I watched it but I think even I got a little uncomfortable toward the end and I tend to describe dark movies as fun. But it did have some interesting points about where the news and documentaries were headed. It came out in '92 just as The Real World was getting started. Long before we heard of reality tv producers manipulating events and people off camera for better ratings. At least I wasnāt aware of it until later.
BBC News was in there as well
Unbelievable
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Actually, I know that two local news stations were there, too (KCAL and KCBS, even though share feed all the time). But I donāt believe the condo was still considered a crime scene; the feds have stated that they released the property back to the landlord.
I think blame could be shared by the landlord and the mediaās insatiable appetite to scoop one another.
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i think there are a couple of problems with saying a person who murders is mentally ill.
first, unlike many common mental illnesses, most of these people donāt feel they are ill.
second, mental illness implies some lack of responsibility. if you are clinically depressed or schizophrenic you cannot control all of your actions and reactions: you are ill; but, these people clearly made a choice.
finally, such a connection can make it sound like a person who has some other mental illness might suddenly become a killer. which is far from the truth.
thereās the broader question of whether something has gone wrong in a killerās brain? possibly. itās also possible, that anyone who chooses might shape themselves into a killer. i honestly have no idea.
humans have volition. and itās scary how much range that implies.
Not realizing it is a hallmark of many types of mental illness and psychiatric disorders.
It doesnāt. Some mental illnesses/disorders imply lack of capacity, but responsibility or culpability is a different issue. Again, depends upon the mental illness and its severity.
So, are you saying schizophrenics canāt make choices? Depressed people canāt make choices? No way. They can and do.
And you are implying that the choice that murderers made was completely under their control. Who is to say this definitively? I think they lost that ability to discern wise courses of action, similar to a person who commits suicide. I attribute that loss of control to an illness or disorder, temporary or permanent; but still, a sickness that has impaired their ability to reason. In my reality, sanity does not include the act of initiating the killing of other people.
Whatās the difference between this and mental illness?
No, you donāt.
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i think much of the disconnect in this conversation stems from an entanglement of the notion of mental illness and the concept of legal insanity. each idea is relevant within a particular sphere but when they become mixed and generalized, well, that can lead to people talking past each other.
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Yes. These two definitions are mixed up in an objective sense, too, because in order the achieve the legal status of insanity, they call in psychologists who then have to apply DSM criteria and explain their clinical position that the person is or is not insane. Itās a mess.
People who kill arenāt sane. Either generally, or temporarily at the time of killing. Thatās not absolving them of anything. Itās putting more back on us, as a society, to deal with it, because then weāve realized that we have to do more than what we are doing.
Gun rights activists like to trot out the mental health issue to deflect from the gun issue, because they donāt want more laws. The reality is that we have a mental health problem AND a too-many-guns problem AND a fucked-up media problem. Theyāre connected and, unfortunately, we get to see a new episode every week.
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(Itās my turn to say it!)
Close down the thread, we have a winner.
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Iām just echoing what many other people have saidā¦ itās a multi-layer problem. It canāt be distilled down into just one thing.
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i donāt feel youāre trying to understand what i wrote.
you canāt choose to not be depressed. you canāt choose to stop being schizophrenic.
are there people who canāt stop having murderous thoughts? iām certain.
are all of these recent killings committed by those sorts of people? no, i donāt think so.
my caveat was there because iām not a mental health professional. i donāt know these things for certain. i am saying that as far as i can tell: murder doesnāt require being mentally ill.
if you paint too broad a brush it would imply everyone from cigarette manufacturers, to bush/cheney for the iraq war, to cops who shoot unarmed people are mentally ill.
i agree it would be a better world if there was indeed always an external reason ā an illness, for instance ā underlaying the bad things people do to themselves and othersā¦ i just donāt think it works that way.
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Many people agree with you. I donāt. I believe the definitions of mental disorder are wrong and need to be rewritten.
??? uhhhhhhhhhā¦ they are.
Itās not an external reason. Itās an internal reason. Itās mental illness, which is on the inside of the person. It can be treated. In the case of murderers itās probably something along the lines of anxiety/explosive disorder/avoidant personality disorder, probably other stuff too, with lots of variation from murderer to murderer.
Supposing that murder is not a form of mental disorder is to disavow that it could be prevented by recognizing it and treating it early. Murderous rage is like many diseases in the past that we couldnāt recognize early and treat, but now we can. We just need to get wise.
unfortunately, gun rights activists and that subset of the population who lean towards their positions (which is a much larger percentage of the population than i think most people here would like to admit) regard each new mass-shooting as further evidence that more people need to be armed to defend against the nuts/terrorists/criminals who are committing them. iāve been watching this dynamic getting worse and worse over the last 25-30 years. iām afraid that the only thing that might alter that dynamic would be for several shootings in dark venues to result in multiple excess deaths because of armed bystanders attempting to intervene demonstrating the dangers of a heavily armed citizenry. and even then there will probably be a significant minority who will believe in their hearts that it was a false flag operation to provide an excuse to turn public opinion against gun ownership.
i realize i may seem to be throwing my hands in the air and saying thereās nothing to be done but until the people who want to revise the 2nd amendment or have more stringent gun control are as well-organized and passionate as the pro-gun population there really isnāt anything that will change.
in your view are activities ending in other peopleās deaths distinct among all other human behaviors?
for instance, i knowingly pay my taxes. i fully recognize those taxes go towards drone attacks, corrupt dictatorships, etc. does that make me mentally ill?
similarly, the news frenzy of the post is ācrazyā ā but are they mentally ill simply because itās unwanted behavior?
when does mentally ill end, and rational decision making begin?
really, in this case, thatās the same thing. itās something other than the theoretically healthy individual. itās a curable aberration.
for some people ā i agree thatās trueā¦ but, if you say that every murderer is that way, and even people removed from direct murder are the sameā¦
it would be brave new world out there ā with all of us perpetually medicated to make sure we stay āsaneā.
So, did you fly into a dissociative rage when you paid your taxes? Or did you just go, āmehā and write the check? THAT is the difference.
Youāre saying that, not me. Iām talking about disorders that are associated with people legally or illegally picking up guns and unilaterally opening fire on other people. Donāt cloud the argument. This is about THAT situation, not all the other stuff you tossed out.
cloud the argument? really? iām talking about your definition of mental illness.
murderous is heinous. mass murder horrific. i know itās hard to face the idea that someone could justify those actions to themselves and not be literally sick in the head ā but healthy individuals rationalize terrible acts everyday.
