by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
U.N. Visitor’s Plaza, New York, New York
A gift from Luxembourg.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last forty-eight hours, you have no doubt seen the coverage concerning the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado. If you possess even a minimal level of empathy for your fellow human beings, twelve dead and fifty-eight wounded when their only crime was wanting to see a movie can only be properly described as tragic. Among the dead accounted for up to this point are a man who had been celebrating his twenty-seventh birthday (Alex Sullivan), a member of our Navy (Petty Officer Third Class John Larimer), a twenty-four year old aspiring sports journalist (Jessica Ghawi), and a six year-old girl. Some less responsible outlets are reporting this little girl’s name (Huffington Post, looking your direction), but other more responsible outlets are not. I will not post her name for the same reason others have declined: the little girl remains unidentified because her mother, also a victim of this horrific crime with gunshot wounds to the neck and abdomen, remains paralyzed in hospital and has not yet been told of her daughter’s death. Even in reporting on events, sometimes a little discretion goes a long way and does not impair the “public’s right to know” in any substantive manner.
Over the next few days, you will see many attempts by people with various political agendas trying to monopolize on this shooting to promote their pet causes. In fact, it has already started and in a most heinous manner. During a radio interview on The Heritage Foundation’s “Istook Live!” show, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said Friday that the shootings were a result of “ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs” . . . and questioned why nobody else in the theater had a gun to take down the shooter. Gohmert in one fell swoop illustrated that not only is he a base political opportunist, but that he apparently doesn’t understand the 1st or 2nd Amendments very well – a common affliction among Texas pols. Others pols are already using this as a way to promote their anti-gun agendas, their pro-gun agendas and the Twitter-verse is filling with statements from “our leaders” about this tragic event and all of them in some way self-serving.
I urge you to ignore these opportunists for a moment and to think about something else related to the Aurora shooting.
Multiple outlets are reporting that the accused gunman, James Holmes, had dyed his hair red and told the police he “was the Joker”.
There is the fantasy of violence. There is the reality of violence. They could not be more different in outcome. This presents the issue of instances like this where the line between fantasy and reality have clearly been crossed in some meaningful manner. Does this problem exist in the individual or in society itself? I submit the answer might be “a little of both”.
Consider this: one of the elements of drama is that the hero (or something or someone the hero holds dear) must be in peril. It creates tension, it moves the story. You cannot have drama without an element of danger or risk and very often that danger or risk is portrayed in the form of physical violence. As a species, we are wired to find this entertaining. There is nothing wrong with a bit of wish fulfilment in seeing the hero overcome adversity as entertaining.
The reality is starkly different. Witness real heroes like Jon Blunk who was killed defending his girlfriend Jansen Young during this rampage. Witness Jarell Brooks, a 19-year-old from Aurora, who put himself at risk to help Patricia Legarreta and her two young children escape, but not before he and Legarreta were wounded. Witness Eric Hunter, a 23-year-old from Aurora, who found two wounded girls and dragged them to safety in an adjoining theater before blocking the door to Theater 8 and preventing the alleged gunman from spreading his gunfire in to a new room of innocent theater goers.
All three possible outcomes. Death, wounding, escape from physical harm. All three equally heroic in that other lives were saved, some of them strangers with nothing in common but a love of the same kind of cinema and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s a funny thing about heroism though. As F. Scott Fitzgerald famously quipped, “Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.” In real life, the tragedies and the heroics are real and have real consequences. The hero does not always win the day as they are prone to do in fiction.
Does our propensity for dramatic entertainment, let alone dramas involving violence, feed a propensity for violence? This is a question as old as drama itself. On one side of the argument is the catharsis argument put forth by Aristotle in Poetics; that in viewing tragic events, the audience’s negative feelings like fear and pity are purged. This line of reasoning was later supported by psychologists and psychiatrists such as Sigmund Freud and A.A. Brill. On the other side are modern researchers who have found correlations between watching violence and the rate of violence in society, but causal connections between the two in the general population have been difficult to pin down. What is clear is that “exposure to media violence does not produce violent criminals out of all viewers, just as cigarette smoking does not produce lung cancer victims out of all smokers. This lack of perfect correspondence between heavy media violence exposure and violent behavior simply means that media violence exposure is not a necessary and sufficient cause of violence.” (“Media Violence and the American Public” by Brad J. Bushman and Craig A. Anderson, Iowa State University, American Psychologist, June/July issue, p. 482, 2001.) That a small segment of society seems particularly susceptible to being prodded in to violence through the consumption of media violence though seems undeniable. To me, this seems to comport with the rate in society of people with mental problems revolving around empathy like sociopaths and psychopaths. People who lack empathy would naturally not connect the actuality of violence with the fantasy of violence as they don’t care about the impact of their actions on others to begin with. Correlation is not causation and the root causes of violence are more complex than just a person’s entertainment choices. There are also environmental, social, economic, and personal history to consider. Some people in certain situations are simply going to be more prone to violence. While causation in the general population has been found in desensitization toward violence and violent entertainment, causation of real life violence with fictional violence has been more elusive although desensitization in itself has been can “[increase] aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physiological arousal and aggressive behaviors, and decreases helpful behaviors.”
As a society, do we have a duty to mitigate all factors that can induce violent behavior in individuals? Even if that susceptible segment of society is a very small percentage of society? With complex compound causation, this is a practically impossible task, and even if “perfect mitigation” of contributing factors was had there are a certain percentage of society that are going to be violent psychopaths no matter what their environment is like. Where to do we draw the line a social inputs that can encourage violence and personal responsibility for individual action? Consider this as well: do we have the same duty to mitigate when the violence perpetrated by sociopaths and psychopaths is economic (as in the banking industry shenanigans that birthed the OWS movement), is purely psychological (as seen in pathologically verbally abusive spouses) or is purely political (as in the religious far right attempting to trample history and the Constitution to institute theocratic laws if not outright theocracy)?
Perfection is not possible. Evil cannot be eliminated in the world for without it we have no definition of good. The perfect removal of error from complex systems is a mathematical impossibility. Does that mean we should not try?
What do you think?
Source(s): ABCNews.go.com (1, 2), NBCNews.com (1, 2), Huffington Post (1, 2, 3)
~ submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
UPDATE: The names of all the victims have been officially released by the Arapahoe County coroner’s office. These are the names it is important to remember. Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 6, Jessica Ghawi, 24, Alex Sullivan, 27, Jonathan Blunk, 26, John Larimer, 27, Matt McQuinn, 27, Micayla Medek, 23, Jesse Childress, 29, Alexander Jonathan (AJ) Boik, 18, Alex Teves, 24, Rebecca Ann Wingo, 32, and Gordon W. Cowden, 51.
A Personal Note to the Aurora Victims and Their Families and Friends:
My sincerest condolences. May your loved ones lost live on in your memories and may your memories be long, robust and full of happiness. May the wounded heal and take every advantage of their good fortune at surviving this senseless act of violence. May this harm done to you and yours not keep you in the depths of lament, but transform to a celebration of life – both theirs and yours. Peace, love and long life.
Gene H.
NOTE: For those of you waiting for the next Propaganda installment, I’ll either publish it tomorrow or publish next weekend depending upon time constraints. I thank you for your patience in the face of breaking news.
“The reason I did not watch the Batman movie with the Joker in it. the man who played that role ended up killing himself, so it was a model of pure evil.”
You are ill-informed on that point, shano. Heath Ledger’s death was an accidental interaction of prescription drugs. “Toxicology tests have now confirmed the cause of Heath Ledger’s death. He was killed by a deadly combination of FDA-approved medications prescribed to him by his doctors. The drugs found in Ledger’s system were OxyContin (a painkiller), Valium, Xanax (an antidepressant), Restoril, Unisom and Vicodin. This toxicology report ends any speculation that Ledger might have been killed by taking recreational drugs. The cause of death is now clearly FDA-approved pharmaceuticals.”
http://www.naturalnews.com/022602.html
Now go watch the movie and enjoy one of the truly great cinema performances of our time. 😉
I don’t know about mood stabilizers, but the proliferation of booby traps and other gadgets in the apartment, plus the apparently sudden drop in the quality of his schoolwork, makes me wonder if there wasn’t meth (or some other stimulant) involved.
I wouldn’t read too much into the mother’s “You have the right person”– we don’t know what qustion she was responding to. They may only have asked if she was a family member, or something like that.
The reason I did not watch the Batman movie with the Joker in it. the man who played that role ended up killing himself, so it was a model of pure evil. We know what that is, psychotic evil, but I do not need to see it realistically depicted on a huge screen.
But then I cannot watch any of the current genre of horror movies. Alfred Hitchcock and black humor is fine. The slasher movies, the chainsaw movies, the crap they make now.
If you want a good review of this current Batman move, go read Rex Reed:
http://observer.com/2012/07/the-dark-knight-rex-reed-christian-bale-michael-caine-christopher-nolan/
As usual I wish to take a step back. GeneH did very well in putting this is a wide context, so no fault there or anywhere. Just bear with me.
We are concentrating on this for many reasons, as are
the media, our political, religious or whatever leaders who feel they are so.
Spectacular, insane, motiveless as to who the victims are, fate of which movie you went to that night, etc.
There are many factors which make this special.
And in a way, it is a cathartic release for us (idea cited by GeneH) from the everyday headlines
(if headlined) of the latest murder at your neighborhood gas station for reasons of who goes first; on to the quietly insane who doesn’t know it and one day flips after his rage at society builds to the point of booby trapping his apartment and this deed in Aurora.
Why do we swallow the daily murders and NOT seek the solution to them? In a concerted, organized and funded way? And has the fact of Columbine murders helped in CO? Apparently not.
GeneH says, rightly I feel, that it is society’s failure to clearly, in our education process, show the real effects of violence.
Does that mean that children to be able to look at violent TV games must wear helmets that give them a painful shock at each death on the screen?
Will this innure them or cure them? Apparently they are innured already today by our current process.
Is there a difference from a society which produces lynchers of blacks, and murderers in Aurora, and ones piloting drones, and ones sitting in the President’s chair?
I think not.
Mike,
“What is clear to me is that we and our media tend to focus on the violence that is overt directly resulting in pain and death. Too often the economic and sociological violence caused by corporations is ignored because the destruction caused is slower in taking effect.”
A very astute observation. That is the insidious nature of the “death by a thousand cuts”. A feature of cognition all too often exploited by sociopaths.
id707,
Thanks. Typo corrected although I will have to say it was one of my funnier typos.
Malisha,
Magnificent. Only one word needed. Your description the crescendo…..and it ending in the ultimate motiveless massacre.
I will only cite these words by you:
“Could we have gotten used to that, as a society? Random extreme well planned out murderous intent and extreme violence and no known underlying motive?”
And I refer to our “wars” which do these same things, and we are aware but do not take responsibility for that which we dislike (or can control? Are the drones motivated? I will not drive that longer. For you all to consider.
Jusr for comparison:
the murders at Fort Hood—-motivated in his eyes.
the murders in Oslo and the island in Norway—-ditto
other terrorist murders—-ditto
Timothy Veigh—–ditto
Columbine—–ditto
VA murder by oriental student—-ditto
Here, in Aurora, I think we have the same problem as in Norway, although in Norway a motive was given. I believe it was a matter of hunger to assuage his nothingness in his own eyes and his lack of acknowledgement. Maybe this was partly a factor here. Particularly as he waited quietly to be taken by police, hoping to see himself on TV during his trial days in his cell’s TV. Hope he is denied the pleasure.
Someone mentioned mentioned Tarasov to me. Is it relevant here?
One of the secrets of comedy is repetition.
They are terrorists who want to burn in Gods light that is hot enough to dry up all of the water on the earth. Danger as a risk is devils in the body of a human not wanting to die.knowing one day it will be eternal death.The hero as we see him uses the same method of overcoming evil as seen in the movies as the villain. We need to have a different roll model.That roll model overcomes evil with good being kind, and forgiving, patient, long suffering, humble, meek, slow to anger, never rude, never speaks down to anyone. Is not boastful or full of false pride having self control. The hero would not be dumb or act stupid.. The hero would be cunning, and smart knowing the weaknesses of his enemy, knowing when the enemy is having a problem of whatever not doing what humans in war would do. The enemy would have physical needs. You know all of the things humans needs to live physically, and emotionally.. Instead of taking advantage to harm his enemy he would use them to hopefully win his enemy over to not have an enemy That is the kind of role model we needs to have. The hero is a risk taker to put himself in harms way to do good not to do harm.overcoming evil with goodness, and kindness when every fiber of your being says no don’t do it.
People have made the evil human look invulnerable to the needs of life.
A couple of thoughts :
Bron asked my question. What drugs was the guy on?
And here comes more of big brother. Is this another opportunity for TSA ?
http://www2.tbo.com/entertainment/business/2012/jul/20/15/some-tampa-theaters-plan-extra-security-after-colo-ar-437110/
Excerpt:
TAMPA —
Some theaters in Tampa plan extra security this weekend, and some plan to scan patrons with metal detectors, following a deadly shooting at a Batman movie premiere in Colorado.
Channelside Cinema 10 normally has security on staff, owners say, but they’re calling in reinforcements throughout the weekend, including more off-duty police and U.S. Marshals.
“We’re hiring extra police the whole weekend to help people feel more secure,” said Howard Edelman, owner of the Channelside Cinema in Tampa. “Anyone with a package or pocketbook will be wanded … It’s the safest thing we can do under the current situation.”
“Could we have gotten used to that, as a society? Random extreme well planned out murderous intent and extreme violence and no known underlying motive?”
I don’t know about “used to it” but desensitized to violence to the point that any restraint to violence prone individuals may have eroded. To be clear, I don’t blame the entertainers here. I think the underlying question of one of individual psychology. Were society is failing is in enforcing the barrier between fantasy as reality though education. I find that people who are sane and really understand violence – in particular those with martial arts training – are very reluctant to engage in violence themselves because they know the reality of the consequences. To others less educated and/or mentally maladjusted, violence is an abstract game or a simple means to an end. You don’t need to give kids MA training (although it certainly doesn’t hurt) to impart an understanding of the reality versus the fantasy of violence, but you do have to honest and upfront about the long and short term consequences of violence as to both victim and attacker.
In this particular instance though, the seeming randomness (we don’t yet know the shooter’s motivation and we might never know) is part and parcel of the character of the Joker as established in the comic books. Even when he has a “rational” motive, it is often only logically formal but completely insane. For example, one of the tales Health Ledger used to build his Oscar winning performance as the Joke in “The Dark Knight” (which was indeed truly extraordinary and worthy of the award) was from a graphic novel written by Alan Moore (of “Watchmen” and “V for Vendetta” fame) called “The Killing Joke”. In this book, the Joker escapes from Arkham Asylum and kills a lot of people in doing so – all to get the attention of the Batman. Why?
He wanted to tell Batman a joke.
If we ever find out the shooter’s motive in this case, don’t be surprised if it is just as nonsensical. But if we as a society failed this person? It was in allowing the barrier between reality and fantasy to weaken so that when combined with underlying mental defect, failure was inevitable. In the end though, despite this fact, the ultimate responsibility rests with him. Even if his family did know there was a problem, there is only so much a concerned “other” can do in dealing with mental illness. The impetus for treatment must come from the afflicted to both start in earnest and stand a chance at being affected. That so many mental defects come with a form of anosognosia (where the patient doesn’t realize they have a problem) makes for a vicious circle in treating mental illness.
Gene,
I don’t believe we have the ability to mitigate such behavior, simply because as you’ve alluded there is a percentage of all humans with violent sociopathic and psychopathic predilictions. Science is not yet at the point where they can grasp what triggered Holmes’ behavior. I’m not sure if he even knows himself, despite what he may eventually explain.
What is clear to me is that we and our media tend to focus on the violence that is overt directly resulting in pain and death. Too often the economic and sociological violence caused by corporations is ignored because the destruction caused is slower in taking effect.
GeneH,
Hope you will accept my compliments as genuinely meant.
A VERY difficult task done very well. Two sentences were not understood.
The only 100 percent prevention would require psychological monitoring not possible now and not desireable in my view.
I was reminded by the mother’s words of the case of the banker in Nigeria who got through to the Embassy there, but to no avail.
One can wonder if this mother had tried and also failed, or simply had not tried due many possible reasons.
Families can’t always detect, nor friends, neighbors, etc.
Am glad you mentioned the causation ackknowledged in the general populations reaction to violence and/or viewing films etc on violence. Why this is less certain in the individual case is not understood by me.
Of course the multi-factor causal aspect diffuses the causal chain.
Lastly, let me cite a typo, which I can say I wish were true, literally:
“statements from “our leaders” about this tragic event and all of them in some way self-severing.”
Think if if would SEVERE them.
They are terrorists who want to burn in Gods light that is hot enough to dry up all of the water on the earth. Danger as a risk is devils in the soul of a human calling it good.The hero as we see him uses the same method of overcoming evil as seen in the movies as the villain. EWE need to have a different roll model.That roll model overcomes evil with good being kind ,and forgiving patient long suffering slow to anger, never rude or never speaks down to anyone..Has self control..The hero would not be dumb or act stupid.. The hero would be cunning, and smart knowing the weaknesses of his enemy, knowing when the enemy is having a problem of whatever not doing what humans in war would do. The enemy would have physical needs,you know all of the things humans needs to live. physically, and emotionally. ,and instead of taking advantage to harm his enemy he would use them to hopefully win his enemy over to not have an enemy Thjat is the kind of role model we needs to have. The hero is a risk taker to put himself in harms way to do good not to do harm.overcoming evil with goodness, and kindness when every fiber of your being says no don’t do it.
People have made the evil human look invulnerable to the needs of life.That is not how it is..
They are terrorists who want to burn in Gods light that is hot enough to dry up all of the water on the earth. Danger as a risk is devils in the soul of a human calling it good.The hero as we se him uses the same method of overcoming evil as seen in the movies as the villain. EWE need to have a different roll model.That roll model overcomes evil with good being kind ,and forgiving patient long suffering slow to anger, never rude or never speaks down to anyone..Has self control..The hero would not be dumb or act stupid.. The hero would be cunning, and smart knowing the weaknesses of his enemy, knowing when the enemy is having a problem of whatever not doing what humans in war would do. The enemy would have physical needs,you know all of the things humans needs to live. physically, and emotionally. ,and instead of taking advantage to harm his enemy he would use them to hopefully win his enemy over to not have an enemy Thjat is the kind of role model we needs to have. The hero is a risk taker to put himself in harms way to do good not to do harm.overcoming evil with goodness, and kindness when every fiber of your being says no don’t do it.
People have made the evil human look invulnerable to the needs of life.That is not how it is..
In Nabokov’s “Speak, Memory” (I believe) he speaks about pornography and he observes that as the pornographic texts proliferate, the sexual liaisons have to become more extreme, more bizarre, and more populous. He mentions, with his typical acerbic wit and unsubtle show of disdain, that at one point the participants become so bored with ordinary multi-party orgiastic sex, that they have to “call in the gardener” to add to the scene. I have thought this was a sort of applicable principle to the violent scenarios we see set up on TV and in the movies. First there is a building blown up and a bunch of folks involved in a public shoot-out; then we need several blown up buildings and multiple shoot-ups; then shoot-ups from tops of buildings and into swimming pools and involving high speed car chases with trucks and vans; then buses full of nuns and blown up cars blowing up buildings simultaneously in three states; then some building blowing up or car going off a cliff every 90 seconds; then…
…and finally, simultaneous building blowing up with mayhem in a movie theater while showing mayhem in a movie theater and blood and popcorn all over while…
and ladies and gentlemen in the third ring…
and it’s all in such bad taste to comment on it when it really happened and ladies and gentlemen…
It really happened. Pinch me.
Thanks for the article; I was hoping to see it since early Thursday morning when I heard of the rampage. I haven’t ironed out my thoughts about it yet, of course, even to the point where I feel like I can comment intelligently, except for one thought: this present Aurora shooting rampage is, in the quality of bizarre-ness, TO the past shooting rampages, in the quality of bizarre-ness, as
This present Batman movie is to _______________________ [what]?
This “equation” is fascinating me for the moment.
I remember walking down a street in Manhattan with my friend’s two children, for whom I was baby-sitting. They were maybe 7 and 10 at the time, and they saw lots of the current movies of the moment (at that time, which was probably about 1995 or so). I had just taken them to some movie, at their mother’s request. I couldn’t follow the movie. I didn’t understand why the hero in the movie was being targeted by “them” and why “they” wanted to kill the hero in the movie (who ultimately killed “them” as it turned out).
I asked a few questions and the two boys gave me their answers. But their answers did not answer my questions. Finally, I said, very emphatically: “But I do not understand why THEY wanted to kill HIM in the first place!”
Both boys fell silent. They hadn’t even THOUGHT OF IT.
Finally the older boy said, “I dunno.” I checked out the younger boy. No expression on his face. Discouraged, I said: “Oh. I thought you guys would know.” Neither one looked particularly uncomfortable. They didn’t know of any motive for a nefarious murderous intent on the part of the bad guys!
Could we have gotten used to that, as a society? Random extreme well planned out murderous intent and extreme violence and no known underlying motive?
Also, I agree in general with your statements about over-medicating children and extend it to psychological treatment in general. Pills can aid the right people, but without therapy their effectiveness is usually marginal.
Bron,
I’ve seen no indication of whether he was getting any mental health treatment or not, although I think at least his parents were aware something was wrong with him by his mother’s reaction when told: “You’ve got the right person.”
Gene H:
my question is was he on any mood altering drugs for depression, anxiety, etc.?
This is a very big problem in our society, parents drugging their children to control them. The end result is sometimes suicide and sometimes mass murder.
If he was on some mood altering drug like Paxil, the question is do we keep drugging our children so they sit still in class?
And more to the point why do we feel a need to drug our children? These drugs are very powerful and take away the need to learn to control our moods and recognize when we are down in the dumps. Drugs should be reserved for especially hard cases and certainly not children unless all other avenues have been tried.