Welcome to the Why Mobile
Mar. 23rd, 2005 10:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydySo, here we are again. Minnesota is a bit more intense, I suspect, what with it being in our state and all, but it really doesn't matter. Every time there's a school shooting, we get on the why-mobile: Why do crazy people do crazy things?
Q. Why do crazy people do crazy things? A. Because they're crazy.
Oh, you want something more scientific and precise. Ok. Crazy people do crazy things for the same reason that you get drunk when you drink.
There isn't a why here. Psychiatry reminds me of the astrological get-out-of-jail-free card: The stars incline but they do not compel. What we know about brain chemistry is minute. The brain is vast. Why do some people respond to stimuli by learning compassion, while others burn with fury and eventually shoot their neighbors? We Don't Know. Brain chemistry inclines, but it does not compel. Adults who experienced traumatic childhoods are more likely to become chronically depressed after a stressful incident as an adult, but adults with childhood traumas do not always do so, and adults with happy childhoods can become chronically depressed because of stress.
Look, ok? Lots of kids play violent video games. A frightening number (like, more than one) groove on Hitler. Lots of kids have broken homes, nasty school mates, and scary parents. What percentage of them take a gun to school and deliberately murder as many people as they can? Anybody want to figure the odds? There is no why here. It's just a thing. Like baseballs and rocks and catfish. People's brains do weird things, and we don't know why. Sometimes we can help, but sometimes it's impossible to know that someone needs help. And sometimes, it's impossible to help. "He was such a quiet boy." "He kept to himself, but always stopped to pat my dog." "She was always so charming at church functions." "I don't understand, he seemed so happy." "There was no reason for him to kill himself." We just don't know.
Hind sight isn't just 20-20. It's comforting. If only we could figure out what went wrong, we could fix it. It gives us a false sense of control. Oh, look, he did this, he did that, he wrote these things, he went to that website. It doesn't tell you anything. None of that is a diagnostic for a crazy person. It's just retcon to make people feel like they're doing something.
People go crazy, and we don't know why. Spare some compassion, please, for the parents and other adults that were in the child's life, the ones who are being eaten alive by guilt and the press. Spare some compassion for a kid so crazy that he shot himself into a school and murdered his classmates, and then himself; this was not a sane decision, and in a very real sense, he was not responsible for his actions. He was crazy.
The victims deserve compassion and comfort. But compassion is a bottomless well. A crazy person is also a helpless victim. He deserves some compassion, too.
Q. Why do crazy people do crazy things? A. Because they're crazy.
Oh, you want something more scientific and precise. Ok. Crazy people do crazy things for the same reason that you get drunk when you drink.
There isn't a why here. Psychiatry reminds me of the astrological get-out-of-jail-free card: The stars incline but they do not compel. What we know about brain chemistry is minute. The brain is vast. Why do some people respond to stimuli by learning compassion, while others burn with fury and eventually shoot their neighbors? We Don't Know. Brain chemistry inclines, but it does not compel. Adults who experienced traumatic childhoods are more likely to become chronically depressed after a stressful incident as an adult, but adults with childhood traumas do not always do so, and adults with happy childhoods can become chronically depressed because of stress.
Look, ok? Lots of kids play violent video games. A frightening number (like, more than one) groove on Hitler. Lots of kids have broken homes, nasty school mates, and scary parents. What percentage of them take a gun to school and deliberately murder as many people as they can? Anybody want to figure the odds? There is no why here. It's just a thing. Like baseballs and rocks and catfish. People's brains do weird things, and we don't know why. Sometimes we can help, but sometimes it's impossible to know that someone needs help. And sometimes, it's impossible to help. "He was such a quiet boy." "He kept to himself, but always stopped to pat my dog." "She was always so charming at church functions." "I don't understand, he seemed so happy." "There was no reason for him to kill himself." We just don't know.
Hind sight isn't just 20-20. It's comforting. If only we could figure out what went wrong, we could fix it. It gives us a false sense of control. Oh, look, he did this, he did that, he wrote these things, he went to that website. It doesn't tell you anything. None of that is a diagnostic for a crazy person. It's just retcon to make people feel like they're doing something.
People go crazy, and we don't know why. Spare some compassion, please, for the parents and other adults that were in the child's life, the ones who are being eaten alive by guilt and the press. Spare some compassion for a kid so crazy that he shot himself into a school and murdered his classmates, and then himself; this was not a sane decision, and in a very real sense, he was not responsible for his actions. He was crazy.
The victims deserve compassion and comfort. But compassion is a bottomless well. A crazy person is also a helpless victim. He deserves some compassion, too.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-24 05:06 am (UTC)E,
taking a brief break from napping
no subject
Date: 2005-03-24 06:18 am (UTC)Thanks, by the way.
Do you remember Andrea Yates, the woman who drowned all her babies? What they are doing to her is cruel. How much crazier do you have to be than having voices in your head?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-24 07:23 am (UTC)MKK
no subject
Date: 2005-03-24 04:24 pm (UTC)Seriously, I don't know how real the voices sound to you, but to a schizophrenic, there is never a moment's doubt. It took doing psychedelics for psychiatrists to understand that when a schizophrenic said, "My hair is on fire," he didn't mean, "It is as if my hair is on fire," or "It's like my hair is on fire." What he meant was, "My hair is on fucking fire!" The line between objective and subjective reality disappears. I think I'll stick with my own set of brain disorders.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-24 06:59 pm (UTC)Shooting holes in people whose only crime appears to be that they go to the same school you go to (or used to go to): BIG problem.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-24 11:33 pm (UTC)My favorite gun ever was a .22 semi-auto tricked out for Olympic competition. It didn't even look like a handgun. It had all these bits that could be moved around for absolutely perfect balance. Recoil? What's recoil? A sweeter gun I cannot recall. I could make a group of 5 in the space of a quarter. Of course, it was significantly to the left and below the bulls-eye, but man, was that piece of paper wounded.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-24 03:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-24 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-24 07:21 pm (UTC)My hunch, which may well be completely wrong, is that this kid was being abused, probably sexually, probably at home. Maybe not, but there's a few things that seem like flags to me, both in the profile of those he lived with and in his LJ. Further, again from his LJ, it hints to me that he had some sort of escape plan that fell through, and that loss of hope may be part of what pushed him over the edge.
Now, we won't ever know why he went over this particular edge at this particular time. But if we can identify contributing factors, like an abuser, we may be able to stop that person from doing further harm, or, if that was one of the people he shot, identify other victims and get them the couselling they need.
Now, it's possible that there was nothing like that going on in this case -- but I think it is important to do some investigation, ask "why" questions, to rule out the possibility.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 04:54 pm (UTC)Certainly, if flags are there, investigate them.
Sometimes the only abuse taking place is the "kids will be kids" bullying/teasing that happens in schools. I've been a victim of such. Most school administrators seriously underestimate (a) the frequency of such behavior, and (b) the severity of its impact.
Why? I don't know. Some of it may be genuine cluelessness. Some of it almost certainly is good old-fashioned Denial. And some of it is the mistaken but socially prevalent assumption that teasing is a normal, healthy behavior that all kids engage in, and is not a symptom of underlying problems (psychological, physiological, or environmental) in the perpetrator.