I am reminded of this story, if no one has brought this one up yet (haven’t gone through the comments yet)
vs this one where the police in California engaged in a shootout with a suspect and the event ended with the cabin the guy was in catching fire. At the time it seemed that the fire may have been intentional, but also the police response also seemed like they were seeking to kill him rather than apprehend since he had killed an officer previously.
Count your blessings. William Blake said “those who restrain desire, do so because their desire is weak enough to be restrained”.
It’s an obvious tautology, but there’s still a koan in it.
It does not solely apply to sexual desires, either. Some of us are driven mad by our biology, others by our circumstances or upbringing, yet still others retain sanity despite enduring worse things - what can be experienced without breaking is not the same for every human.
Hmm I wonder, is this not the norm? While I don’t have the numbers to make a definitive statement, it appears to me that this actually IS the norm. In Canada and the US. Granted there are far too many examples of bad shoots (at least in the US), but per interaction it is certainly the norm, and I surmise that per interaction where a weapon is drawn it is still the norm.
I imagine this varies from region to region, city to city, district to district. Indeed I think getting this data would be very important for discerning the problem, highlight it, and find solutions.
But anyway, as I was saying, I think as we call for reform we should point out this sort of policing is the norm in most places and SHOULD be the norm in ALL places. It should give a level of accountability we should hold the police to.
I don’t think that quotation really answers the question. It’s not a question of why this person had such a strong desire to be loved / to have sex. It’s a question of how a strong desire to be loved or or to have sex gets translated into an irresistible desire to kill.
I don’t even know if there is a reason to believe that he had unusual or strong desires for love or affection. He certainly hung around with people who reinforced negative self-beliefs and shame; who added hatred of women to those beliefs; and who encouraged violence.
William Blake also said "He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence. "
It’s not desires, biology or upbringing that drives people mad. It’s the thoughts a given person has about their desires and their choice to stay curious and find ways to get what they want or instead to wallow in self-pity and bitterness.
Madness is in my family. Not everyone has a choice. Those who do, ought to be thankful for their completely unearned privilege.
That being said, this policeman is a better man than I am; I’ll kill a mad dog in a heartbeat. With empathy and pity, but I’ll still do it.
Yes. A community, family or workplace can succor and strengthen its members, helping them deal with their individual issues - or conversely, it can spread poison and engender weakness and feed hate and make its members less capable of happiness.
edit - that’s trivializing that criminal professor of justice, aka, fascist goon, more than I intended. I blame Stallone’s PG-13 rendition of Judge Dredd.
There is madness in my family and myself as well. I wrote those words from a place of experience, not privilege.
But what I’m saying is that experience is personal, not objective. Madness can’t be unilaterally ascribed to failure of the will, which is how I read your previous post. Am I misinterpreting?
I believe your surroundings and the meat engine your mind rides determine what is possible; the boy next door to my Mom will never teach himself to speak, no matter how virtuous his intent, because that part of his brain is literally missing. Each of us should try to be the best we can be, sure, and we will reap the consequences if that’s not good enough - but whatever that best is, where our limits are, is not under our control.
Black? Probably. Aboriginal? Yes.
All of that depends of what you mean by madness. Given the context of the article, I assume we are talking about the shooter. He was obviously depressed. He chose to adopt a disempowered label and community and push himself further into despair.
Until further notice, I am going to assume that the shooter was not missing a part of his brain like the boy next door. He is probably a lot like me or you or a million others.
Framing sanity as inevitably out of reach at some unknowable point does a great disservice to people who have struggled or are presently struggling with depression.
Yes, we all try our best and often isn’t good enough, but there isn’t any way to “measure” our limits other than testing them. No one can muddle out my or the shooters’ thoughts and desires, but ourselves. I didn’t choose to be like this but I can choose not to give up.
Being mostly white, male and straight, incels are only “disempowered” in their own entitled minds and limited imaginations.
I agree. I can’t excuse hurting other people in the name of biology or “desire”.
I hear that, the RCMP and other police forces have a long way to go. That said, we can still praise this one officer’s handling of the situation and hope for more.
And while Canadian police forces have a lot of room for improvement, we are not dealing with the issues of massive police violence that the US has been facing and enabling, certainly not on the same scale.
Ah, that’s the disconnect. I was responding to someone else who said “I have similar challenges and I don’t go mad and murder people” and not speaking to the specific case. Apologies for not being more clear, that was on me for going offtopic.
My strategy as well. Luckily I have strong support structures in my life, because my emotions can be extremely powerful and difficult to master.
But it’s idiosyncratic, right? I can control arousal, rage, curiosity… but I struggle to control grief. I can function sanely through a near blinding red mist of anger or a throat-stopping, heart-pounding, literally dizzying sense of physical attraction. Yet grief at the loss of loved ones can level me for days at a time, rendering me completely incapable of the smallest rational thought.
If you can’t imagine a disempowered straight white male you need to go down into the streets more. Try going underground in center city Philadelphia and tell me how much power that gibbering homeless guy has! But yeah, you’re right, the “incel” community online seems to be pretty much a self-victimizing situation; the members aren’t from deprived social classes or suffering from irremediable disorders.
Nor should you. I did not mean to imply otherwise. I have great sympathy for the problems faced by men who cannot find a physical expression of love, but great contempt for those whose reaction is to spread the pain they feel to others.
It is possible to be a police officer and not shot people.
My Grandfather was a cop for 20 years in Buffalo New York.
He keep Law and Order during the 60’s and 70’s and never once used his gun outside of the firing range.
You’ll be waiting a long time if you think that things will change - or have not changed - because the right people need to die. Things have not changed regarding segregation because there is an entire system of privilege built on top of it, and those who benefit from it have been handing it down faithfully - feeding and watering it in their children - generation after generation. These ideas will not die without being fought, actively, and replaced with better ideas.
It is effort and activism that will end racism, or that will produce any other positive change. It doesn’t come for free, and time will not naturally winnow away the bad ones and leave only good in its wake.
It’s effort and activism – and education, and incentives – that will end racism. Because a generation will rise in a different environment just as Pauli observed. And those who won’t change will eventually die.
Ok I am going to regret asking: why can’t they go see a prostitute? Not a solution I would suggest for many issues but it seems like it might fit this one.
If the sex industry was actually safe and regulated, this probably would solve a lot of these issues I imagine.
