It's weird.

So far anyway.

He was seeing a therapist! He was sick!

Mental illness is no "scapegoat." That's exactly what this was.

Im just tired of people twisting tragedies around so that they can score a victory for their political agenda. It ignores the truth of what causes these shootings.

that causes people to be violent? And was he diagnosed with it? Not twisting anything, just trying to inject truth into the movie educated masses who think people with mental illness are dangerous when every bit of evidence shows the opposite.

It takes a level of psychosis to go out with a gun and just start mowing random people down.

Look at most of these recent shooters and most of them have a common denominator. They are socially isolated. Many of them were bullied. They had a great struggle fitting into society. There is something to that....

That was not psychosis. He planned it, and carried it out pretty cold and calculated. Not what psychosis is at all. Lots of people are isolated, and don't go on shooting sprees. Clearly isolation is not to blame.

It's obvious no one on DU wants to legitimately discuss the mental health aspect of these things... So just go on and believe whatever the hell you want. Im not wasting time on people who are more determined to advance their agendas.

People are using the mental illness angle irresponsibly and it's not consistent with what peer reviewed research shows to be true about mental illness. It's not about agenda, it's about an argument from ignorance that assumes there is some mental illness that makes people kill. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I don't understand upon what people are basing their claims.

than there is evidence that 'mental illness' causes shootings? And if so, I'd be keen to see the research that backs this up. Because I sure don't remember a case where a mass shooter particularly targeted females, nor any that left behind documentation that stated that their hatred of the fairer sex drove them to commit their atrocities.

I've watched one of this sick dude's video, and I have to say that I'm not hearing all that much of what I'd call 'misogyny' in it. In fact, I'd say there's more hatred of other dudes than there is hatred of women. Most of his 'criticisms' were directed at other guys, as opposed to women.

To try to pin something like this shooting spree down to something as basic as 'misogyny' is to seriously over-simplify the situation. In fact, to me it sounds like the kid has completely idealized 'women' and 'relationships', to the point where the consistent denial of these things he considers ideal ... literally drove him into a homicidal/suicidal rage.

The fact that the kid COULD be driven into this state by being rejected pretty much demonstrates to me that he was either suffering from some kind of mental illness, or he was raised in such an 'unrealistic' environment that he never properly learned the skills needed to cope with the 'unfairness' of life on the planet earth.

that anyone who would shoot people MUST be mentally ill. Are all soldiers mentally ill, in your view too? Your blanket statements that someone MUST be mentally ill to shoot someone are based on your own prejudices, not scientific fact. There is no "agenda" when it comes to the FACT that mentally ill people are the victims of violent crimes far more than the perpetrators of it.

I think people like to call anyone who carries out heinous crimes 'mentally ill'. Being depraved and pissed off enough to kill does not equal mentally ill. Being a psychopath or a narcissist does not equal mentally ill. Having no impulse control does not equal mentally ill. I think people don't want to acknowledge there are some assholes out there who kill just because. It's easier to label them and stick them in a neat little box, and pretend like it won't happen to them or anyone they know. It's denial at its finest. Most people who kill are not mentally ill. They are just assholes.

I see that a lot- people discount 'mental illness' when a horrific act is perpetrated by a person and that action required much thought and planning.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

He is very bright but also very disturbed. He wasn't so terribly disturbed so as to preclude the advance planning.

"no psychotic is psychotic 24 hours a day." And the term is sometimes used loosely for people with delusions who are relatively functional.

Is that what you think of people in the Military? Its Memorial Day.. Many Veterans of wars like World War II, Korea and Vietnam had orders to mow down random enemies. Did they have a level of Psychosis? Yeah, you might say, "That's different" ...if so, how so?

There's a difference between- "If any of those guys over there stick their head up, shoot it." or "If someone starts shooting at you, shoot back." or "Go capture that hill and shoot anyone who objects." and "just start mowing random people down".

You saw his quote in my post title. It was in quotes. I respect people in the Military. I honor those who observe Memorial Day. SO, no, I do not think that way. Perhaps you should read what he said. gEEZE.

As if you wanted to make that connection yourself.

If I misunderstood, my apologies. If not.. I stand by my comments.

Taking what he said to the next conclusion does not make any sense at all.

Where do you get your news from, huh?

So no, having spoken with them at length, none of them were told to "start mowing random people down".

He might have had some paranoia but it didn't seem like he was hearing voices telling him to kill people.

if they use a gun to shoot and kill a bunch of people? Are you also saying that all of our soldiers MUST be mentally ill because they are trained to kill and sent off to war to kill a bunch of people?

Name the mental illness you magically armchair diagnosed him with having from that one video. Quit blanketing all mental illness as the cause of all violence. That's bullshit. Without a gun, he was just a bloviating, mouthy, narcissistic, self centered arrogant, MISOGYNIST asshole who felt entitled simple because he was a man.

Because they're incredibly stupid people. They hear a mention of "misogyny" and the pervasive nature of female sexual objectification and male sexual entitlement in our culture, and what do they do? They get defensive. They swell up and bristle like an angry pufferfish and indignantly remind you that "not all men are violent misogynists!" These are the exact same guys who hear "all men are potential rapists" and think "but I'm not a rapist!" because they're totally incapable of considering things from any perspective but their own.

Really, I'd like to challenge these guys to conduct a thought experiment and imagine that they suddenly found themselves in a world where they were approximately four to six inches shorter, twenty to sixty pounds lighter, and half as strong as 50% of the people they ran into in the course of a given day, and, further, that some significant percentage of these bigger, stronger, and more powerful people insisted on making unwanted sexual advances to them, commented on their clothing and hairstyle, felt entitled to tell them "you should smile! you'd be a lot prettier if you smiled!", thought they had a right to their attention, found themelves catcalled, followed and harassed on the street, and, really, all of the things that most women have to deal with on a regular if not daily basis, and consider for a moment how they'd like it.

What answer do you actually want to hear? It sounds like you have closed off all possibilities to qualify for any answer.

So what do you want to hear spoken from a perfect human example?

You mean you don't have the capacity to imagine that? I'm very terribly sorry for you, then. (Because for quite a lot of women? That's everyday life.)

I didn't say I couldn't imagine it. I said it's an imaginary experiment that is impossible for anyone to participate just within their mind and sum it up as empathy... sympathy maybe but that is a lesser condition than an experiment should accept. But, I can actually walk that path and know in fact. I can be there. I have participated. Imagination is imagination and can never truly represent reality.

Now please answer the question I posed which is a real question not a straw man non existent position that one shoots down to make a nonexistent point and falls into a simple fallacy.

I really think you have a great answer to that question. What do you want to hear a perfect example say?

And the question was "why do some people not want to address the role of misogyny in fostering violence against women?" The answer is generally "because they're misogynists", or "because they're oblivious". I don't really see any other possible answer. (I'm not the one who posed the question in the first place, so your comments are misdirected anyway.)

someone I feel like wasting my time with."?

I think you are correct, I am not. And your ad hominem, straw man, lack of logical argument is not worth my time either. I thought you may be someone who had something to say of interest and was just caught up in angry rant.

I was mistaken.

For the record, I believe men are by far the worst offenders in society and misogyny is a sickness and is rampant especially in America. But I am also distressed when people take up the cause of women or the importance of understanding the source of screwed male dominance in society just to botch up the job so bad that it hurts the cause. If you don't wish to think and you want others to dream fantasies called experiment continue while many of us have to clean up the mess.

Be well and good bye.

Have these men imagine their being in prison.

whether it is about misogyny, mental health or guns is saying IT IS ONLY THIS. But for some reason that is all some people can hear.

I was raised by binary thinkers. You might as well discuss these things with a brick wall.

Rather than looking at it being a combination of things, they'll tack to the angle that fits their own agendas. You can pretty much see that there are multiple issues here but it's become an absolutism that it is This One Thing for many and they go at it based on that only.

What's telling is which ones people choose to downplay, e.g. "It wasn't guns, he stabbed three people!" or "What misogyny? He was criminally insane!"

the Admin will not add misogyny and sexist comments to the list of bigoted shit for which DU has zero tolerance and instead expressly told us to "educate" them.

That will work just about as well as "educating" a gun lover to give up his/her love of guns.

Time to be realistic about what "progressive" means on "Democratic" Underground.

If the mods and admins won't do it, then the rest of us need to. Fuck "educating" self-centered whiny shitheads who won't listen to anybody else anyway.

"Hey, I know your life sucks offline, we thought we'd add to your burdens by letting you see the same shit here, but now it's gloves off time. Have fun!!"

Last edited Mon May 26, 2014, 08:59 PM - Edit history (1)

I feel very strongly that TOS should be explicit in banning sexism, misogyny and advocating restrictions to reproductive rights. It should be as explicit and enforced as strongly as advocating against gay marriage.

BTW, the hosts will likely lock this very thread up before the night is up.

UPDATE: Doesn't look like it will be locked. Lots of sensible hosts weighed in. yay

Only one host has 'voted' so far, but it was to lock.

this place....

Might as well lock up all of GD if that's the case.

Maybe that will be the only vote that way.

I am not currently a GD host and was treated like shit for weighing in on a couple discussions, since, you know I should "RESPECT THEIR AUTHORITAY!!1!!" and all. So I am just watching.

I assume you are aware that the admin have specifically stated that being anti-choice is okay on DU. Misogyny and sexism is a gray area but being anti-choice got a green light.

I have had rather passionate PM's with Skinner about it. I think it's shameful.

No surprise there.

It's fucking ridiculous.

That's why the feminists here won't stop hammering this issue. Because it's not being addressed from the top down. We wouldn't have to keep screaming louder than the ones who think it's ok to make sexist comments, dismiss women's issues or call abortion "murder/homicide" because that would stop happening.

That's a shame.

It is BEYOND shameful. The right to have autonomy over one's own body shouldn't even be a matter of debate here. It's called a basic human right.

misogynistic and MRA posters here, many of them long-term, and they're often quite proud of it. If they were any other kind of "ist" other than sexist (racist, classist, homophobic, etc.) then their shit wouldn't be tolerated for a second here. But, because it's directed against women, well, meh. Disgusting.

Not that it will happen but it damn well should.

We can try to educate them, but we get denigrated, ignored, hated, objectified, belittled, and told that only male chauvinist men are right and we are wrong. You cannot educate willful stubborn stupidity.

If there's a clear case of it, it's Rodger.

thanks. I guess there really are some in deepest denial.

These threads are so ubiquitous that I have begun skipping most of them. Then this call-out showed up, and back to the never-ending (never progressing) war I tip-toed. Hopping back out now.

Last edited Mon May 26, 2014, 09:06 PM - Edit history (1)

Some people just aren't ready. No one can stop you or others from talking about except for SOP and community standards issues.

And maybe realize that their attitudes, conscious or unconscious, are part of the problem.

how many people are seemingly completely incapable of even the smallest amount of introspection.

by the media, in particular.

some people are vested and invested in denial.

Rodgers was severely mentally ill, as are all or most spree killers. He also happened to be carrying a grudge against women, which made his illness worse, and prompted his final act. No one is denying this, so why do we need new threads every couple hours?

I really don't get it.Tired of posting about a certain subject,stay out of threads on that subject.

though I think those are OTT. The is a crossover and it's normal to think mental illness might be part of the explanation.

why we need new threads.

The assumption you had to have made to post this comment was that those new threads were just beating a dead horse. As you see, they weren't. That horse is still alive and kicking and running free in the fields.

Also, even if you had been correct in your assumption, why even make this comment? If you don't like other threads, do you post in them how uninterested you are in them. Because that's just silly. Pass on by if you aren't interested. Don't assume that you need to instruct others in what they should talk about and what they shouldn't.

The guy that viciously attacked Dan Rather didn't do so because someone made him believe Rather was beaming messages inside his head. He did it because his mental illness robbed him of rationality.

There seems to be a considerable attempt to ascribe reasoned motives for an act that was clearly irrational. This might be excusable out of ignorance if nothing else when they were doing so before all the facts were known. Now that we know there's a strong possibility serious mental health issues were involved it seems even more bizarre to continue.

Well done.

I'm not willing to make those assumptions.

And much of it happens to be targeted specifically at women, or at least a woman.

Beyond that, I have no particular definitive answers.

However, in this particular case it appears as if there's a pretty strong possibility this particular killer had a pretty strong disconnect from reality. To what extent we may never know. Making unprovable and possibly unreasonable assumptions about cause and effect just doesn't seem like it's helping anyone.

Du as a group now has had at least 20 threads, all of them made it to the greatest pages. Far more than any other of the weekly gun massacres. Which is fine, but to claim that people don't want to discuss it is bizarre

The fact that "pick up artists" and misogynists are so accepted in our culture is what allowed his mental illness to find a home, and then people to blame.

Yes, he was irrational, but that irrationality found a target because of the groups he was immersed in.

Valerie Solanas found plenty of sympathy for her man hate before she shot Andy Warhol and Mario Amaya. That doesn't mean those who gave her encouragement were responsible for the actions of someone who was crazy as a shithouse rat.

You might not be legally responsible, but if you point them at someone and say "She's the one putting voices in your head", then you're responsible for what will obviously come next.

... There should be no problems.

In my thread, I show how I think Roger Waters argues in Pink Floyd's The Wall that male reactions to a rapid loss of power (call that misogyny, if you will), combined with a concurrent increase in female power, leads directly to violence (i.e. a re-assertion of male power--physical strength, war, bombs, death, destruction, etc.)

That thread, of course, has not generated a whole lot of positive responses.



-Laelth

-Laelth

and NOT used in the academic sense, but just because it's cute and fun to call feminists 'bitches'.

I hope these people realize how very, very obvious they are.

and feminists who agree with brogressives.

As long as you hate us mouthy uppity feminists more than you hate actual misogyny you're good!

See? There's no misogyny. It's the fault of the women.


(<<<for those readers who don't know that I'm a host of a feminist group here.)

I'd certainly like to see more participation in the "Women's Rights & Issues" group.

What, do all duers have to respond in every one of those threads? Gimme a break.

excuses why women are treated like second class citizens.

The educators will not be satisfied until they are convinced everyone is sufficiently educated, and probably not even then.

of a lot of people who just don't want to think about anything but whatever personally affects them. And even then, denial is a powerful mental defense.

Their unwillingness has as much to do with their capacities as probably anything else.

It's a free country. Not all the same things are important to everyone.

To me, oppressive systems are like facts. They exist whether people want to believe they exist or not.

I've participated before, but was (I believe) willfully misinterpreted and then ganged up upon. That's why I will avoid those discussions. My fidelity to my core beliefs needn't be proven to anyone. Thank you, bb!

So, as LM asked, are you claiming misogyny is not involved because his execution of his crime failed?

FYI: his hateful misogyny is what got those 4 men killed, too.

I assume Elliot is the 5th you count.

The rest of their arguments, for most, are just cover-ups for the misogyny.
And not used to agreeing with Boston bean, so this is strange.

Kind of like how Communism was used in the 50s or terrorism is used now, the word is used like a hammer. There are way too many nails around. As such, it's lost a lot of its meaning. Like if everyone says "fuck," nobody gives a fuck when someone says "fuck" anymore.

Now here, we have a pretty clear case of misogyny. Unfortunately, people's misogyny sense has been burned out from overuse.

Which is really sad, especially when actual misogyny DOES pop up, some of these people really do end up jumping to conclusions because of stuff they've seen thrown around on here. I've seen it myself. So, to be truthful, the radfems DO share a good chunk.....maybe even a majority, of the blame for the problems in regards to lack of communication on this site. And I'm a feminist myself, by the way.

and I'm trying to figure out why. I guess it's essentially derogatory, but the real thing that gets me is that it sounds like a convenient name - one that doesn't capture the full problem that I see. That problem is that, if someone goes around looking for something, they'll find it. Republicans looking for a scandal will find it. After 8 years, they found Lewinsky. They found Benghazi. For a certain subset of feminists who are looking day and night to find misogyny, they will and have found it almost everywhere. It's kind of like when someone has a strong ideology, that overrides reality, no matter what side of ideology they're on.

With misogyny, it's the same thing. It ends up being everywhere. Then just like the "terrorist" label, it loses all meaning (or most). If everything and everyone is a misogynist, then when someone actually is one, everyone kind of just ignores it. The classic example is the boy who cried wolf. In that respect, people who see misogyny in everything end up making the problem worse.

Maybe it's the word "misogyny." If that word causes instant denial and stress as well as the compulsion to get in the last word during discussions, try thinking about it differently. Lets break it down. First, think of a warm soothing bowl of miso soup. Mmmmmmmm. Tastes good. Now enjoy a cool glass of gyn with a twist of lemon. Ahhhhhhh, refreshing! You are feeling relaxed, you are feeling open-minded. Now gently ask yourself, "y get so upset about discussions of misogyny? Hey man, go with the flow. Can I have more gyn?"

A little labored, but a pun nonetheless.