Those damn German shoppers and their kids, committing provocation after provocation for decades.
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Glib seems to be solving so many problems these days.
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I do not know, but the body of the shooter has been found. It was a lone 18 year old who shot himself in the end.
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It was an 18 year old German kid with Iranian roots. The Iranian part explains why he looked “other”, and a video that was put on the net shows that it was not religious, not terrorism, but our Columbine, our Sandy Hook.
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Do you mean the rooftop video or has there been a new one?
Committing mass murder is prima facie evidence of mental illness. People who are mentally healthy do not do that, by definition. It’s true that it’s not a commutative property though; it’s not really accurate to say “mentally ill people commit mass murder.”
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It’s accuracy is indeed the contention here, and I do not know why you would assume that my ‘whacko’ is in any way mentally ill. His or her flawed belief system or lack of rationality does not of itself entail mental illness.
Obviously.
Did it but obtain.
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God, I hope so too. Come to think of it, don’t his parents live in Ireland (or maybe somewhere else in Britain?) and I seem to recall he said he was going there to help pack up their house or something. Can’t remember if his fam was going with him.
And thank you for your reply!
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Thank you.
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“These people are my enemies. They have wronged me, and I must destroy them.” That’s not the thought of an unhealthy mind; that’s just a desire for revenge, which is part of basic human nature.
It’s morally abhorrent, but morals are cultural. Stoning harlots or apostates. Honour killings. Burning witches at the stake. Drawing and quartering. Rape as a weapon of war. I could go on for pages. These are all things that have been done by mentally healthy humans, some of which are happening literally today.
You don’t want to put your mind in a place where you can understand that thought to the point where mass killings make sense. I don’t blame you; as a writer, I tried to write a torture scene once, and my brain just would not go there. That doesn’t mean that a proponent of torture (or even someone who can write that scene) is mentally ill; it may just mean that they have watched one too many episodes of 24.
I like the term “moral illness” that someone else brought up. There’s nothing wrong with the thought processes of the person doing this, they just don’t see it as wrong.
I’ve seen expressed, more than once, the desire that some sort of disaster began befall the RNC this week, and wipe them all out. If you let yourself think of Republicans as an enemy, that’s a normal fantasy. Is that mental illness? Of course not.
The difference between that fantasy and causing actual harm to your “enemies” is not the difference between mental health and mental illness. It’s the difference between eating the bowl of M&Ms beside you and being able to resist a craving for chocolate because it’s high up in a cupboard somewhere, and it’s the difference between making a dark joke in anger and being so enraged that you’re literally shaking and actually willing to follow through on the fantasy.
It’s, frankly, not that big a gap (which is one reason I support gun control; beneath all of our trappings of civilization, we’re not that different from other great apes, and if a lethal projectile comes as easily to hand as a handful of feces, it’s no surprise that there are often lethal consequences).
Unless you’re willing to classify the vast majority of the human race as mentally ill, mass shooters generally aren’t.
Yes! This is what I’m saying.
wack·o
adjective
- mad; insane.
noun
- a crazy person.
Unless you’re arguing you’re using the definition “eccentric, strange, or odd” (as in “wacky”), but that definition doesn’t seem to fit your usage.
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I have to agree. Perfectly sane people have done truly horrible things. Especially in the name of war.
I am curious how he acquired the firearm. That cool German guy who does those awesome crazy sling shot videos has a good overview of German laws if you are interested.
Fun fact, ninja stars are banned in Germany because Bruce Lee and other movies made them look super cool and dangerous.
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I think it does fit my usage. Is this, then, down to a difference of opinion with regard to my usage? I’d argue not, because you’re citing ‘a dictionary’ (without a source) and I may cite another. But in any event it may not matter because (citing another) I may come up with synonyms such as crazy, silly, ridiculous, nutjob, madman, lunatic (cf Macmillan), none of which are technical but colloquial definitions.
Even if the majority of those terms (arguably crazy, nutjob, madman and lunatic) are more strongly associated with mental illness, the two which are not (i.e. silly, ridiculous) should alert you to the fact that it is by no means safe to assume that a user of the word whacko is implying any kind of medically diagnosed mental illness. Whacko is not a medically defined term.
In short, I’m not using the word as a substitute for mentally ill. You may disbelieve me. I can’t do anything about that.
So eccentric religious people are all assholes? Strange religious people? Odd ones? Wacky ones? To use your own definitions words, silly and ridiculous ones?
As I said, the usage doesn’t seem to fit. The other synonyms that you use (crazy, nutjob, madman, lunatic) do seem to fit the usage, and as concede, those are the usages which are more strongly associated with mental illness.
Apologies. Citation:
All of which are pejorative definitions (and I think “lunatic” was, at one point, technical). Looking up each of those (except silly and ridiculous (“wacky”), which, as I’ve said, don’t fit the usage) on wiktionary:
crazy (comparative *crazier, superlative *craziest)
- Insane; lunatic; demented.
His ideas were both frightening and crazy.
nut job (plural nut jobs)
- (colloquial, pejorative) Someone who is crazy (insane).
Some nut job from the government actually thought he could tax our moonshine!
madman (plural madmen)
- A male who is insane or mentally disturbed.
lunatic (plural lunatics)
- An insane person.
Someone might use the word retarded for a person walking with a cane.
retarded (comparative more retarded or retardeder, superlative most retarded or retardedest)
- Delayed; delayed in development, hindered; impeded.
That doesn’t make the term inoffensive to those with learning disabilities…
I don’t. I don’t think you see anything wrong with the use of the term. I’m just trying to convince you that this term (along with those four mental-illness-associated synonyms listed) is horribly insensitive to those who have or have family members with mental illness.
Pejoratives stigmatize the things that they are describing. By calling an effeminate heterosexual a faggot (also, to use your words, “not a technical but a colloquial definition”), someone would not only be saying “There is something wrong with you;” they would also be saying “There is something wrong with homosexuality.” That’s what I’m trying to get across; the word you’re using is offensive. I’m not trying to stop your usage of it. I’m trying to stop the use of it, because four of the six synonyms that you listed have “mental illness” as their first definition.
I apologize if I gave you the impression that I thought you were being deliberately insensitive to the mentally ill. That’s not what I think at all. I just don’t know why you’re arguing so strongly that you should be able to use that term, when I have demonstrated in a great deal of detail why that term is offensive.
I think for many people it is just easier to say mass killers are mentally unstable because they don’t want to face the fact that anyone can kill another person rationally for hundreds of reasons. We want to find a simple reason to explain away our own horror so we can move on and not be afraid of all other people all the time.
Never mind that statistics say you are more likely to be killed by someone you know, or mentally ill people mostly harm only themselves - emotionally we want a clear defined Other to be scared of whether is be a minority group, terrorist organization, or a sick person.
Besides, whackos, nutjobs, and silly people are much more fun to be around then so called normal people, it is stupid people that I can’t stand.
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Do you appreciate that ‘if p then q’ does not entail ‘if q then p’? Assholiness was introduced as a contrast to assholishness. Are you using my ‘play on spelling’ against me now?
And as I said, there’s not a lot I can do about that (i.e. ‘my’, not ‘the’, usage).
Nobody’s disputing that ‘whacko’ is pejorative. You believe I meant it as a compliment, perhaps?
And I’m quite sure you know the etymology of lunatic. And also that when it was used as an ‘incarcerating incantation’ - if you will - that the nature of mental illness was not particularly well understood and that it was not necessarily the case that those labelled as such had anything at all mentally ‘wrong’ with them. Not that the term ‘mental illness’ is particularly well defined now.
You may quote all the non-technical dictionary definitions of whacko that you please, but until you point me at a medical definition of whacko, I’ll likely remain unpersuaded that you have any authority over my use of the term or what it means to me.
And do let me put your mind at rest over my possible use of the terms retarded or faggot. These are not in my idiolect and never have been. I’m slightly bothered that you’ve made me feel obliged to explain my non-use of such words to you, but only slightly.
Please don’t. At no point did I think this. And what’s more, I’m pretty sure that will not surprise you.
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By the time I had posted it was on the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s website, as well as that of the TZ. My first guess when I heard of the shooting was that it was an Amoklauf (which is very American, yet why do the Germans have a word for it and we don’t?), but then people told me there were multiple attacks at once, and then people started running away from whatever startled them.
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I don’t think those people are mentally healthy. Just because one’s culture acknowledges a fucked up activity doesn’t make the individual actor sane, it just means their whole culture is insane.
I suppose it’s a matter of semantics. Does “sanity” mean acting in one’s own best interest, which is strongly correlated with what one’s society expects? If everyone around you expects you to hack the nearest Tutsi to death with a machete, is it “sane” to accede to that? Maybe! If the alternative is getting yourself hacked to death as a traitor. A Mongol horseman transported into modern day America would be regarded as crazy, but so would a social media director transported back to the Central Asian steppes of the 13th century.
I don’t have an answer, but I don’t think enculturating particular strains of mental illness make them any less ill. I could be wrong.
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Er - you’re mixing sanity with what people consider social norms or ethics, which of course change over time.
1000 years from now we might all be vegans and the notion of eating animals for food is considered insane. But, assuming you aren’t a vegan or vegetarian, I doubt eating a steak right now makes you feel especially crazy.
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Deviating too far from social norms could be considered insane. Right now mass murder is not a social norm. When that Mongol horseman raped and pillaged, it was behaviour considered acceptable and even expected by his peers. When you or I do the same things today, we’re considered “wackos” and get “arrested” and put in “prison.”
And can we please get that spelling standardized? I don’t have a preference either way as long as everyone gets on the same page.
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