In my
last article, I discussed the topic of what motivates the mass murders that are
unfortunately occurring increasingly frequently in today’s world. Now I would like to shift the focus to
comparing these mass shootings to other forms of pathological behavior that are
present today and to discussing the common denominator among them. To summarize, I have concluded that modern
mass shootings are at least partly based on the growing numbness in certain
individuals as a result of living lives that have been made too frictionless
and too mediated from modern technology.
Obviously, although numbness is a pervasive problem among all of us in
today’s world, only a very small number of us turn into violent mass
shooters. So the growing numbness
affects the rest of us in many different other ways, creating or contributing
to other psychopathologies.
For
instance, all the different kinds of addictions that lead to many people
joining 12 step programs. One of these
addictions has received a lot of coverage in the press in recent years, because
it is so pernicious and so lethal. I’m
talking about the opioid epidemic that is killing so many people. Whereas a mass shooting is a vehicle by which
a numb person can feel alive by creating a lot of abrasive friction in the
external world, an opioid addiction is a way for a numb person to feel alive by
generating a lot of abrasive friction directly inside of himself. The person generates abrasive friction
through internal events rather than through external events. On one level, an opioid addiction is safer
and less explosive than a mass shooting.
A person doesn’t usually die the first time he takes an opioid, whereas
a person committing a mass shooting has a very good chance of being killed by
police, assuming he doesn’t kill himself first.
In comparison to a mass shooter, the opioid user is able to stretch out
his self-destruction, is able to stretch out the period of time that he feels
the abrasive friction that pulls him out of his numbness. In truth, the opioid user does not even
conceive of himself as killing himself in the long run, but instead just
desperately being able to enjoy the abrasive friction from the kicks he experiences
for as long as possible. The mass
shooter knows he has very little chance of surviving the shooting and
frequently has contingency plans for killing himself in the event he senses he
has no way out of the shooting.
Still
a third kind of solution for generating abrasive friction in order to pull a
person out of numbness is that of supporting and identifying with an
authoritarian leader like Trump. This is
perhaps the safest of the three situations under discussion so far. A person can go to political rallies and,
most of the time, will not be directly impacted by violence. On the other hand, there are so many benefits
to getting involved in authoritarian politics, particularly with a leader like
Trump. The fact that Trump is constantly
shifting his opinions on different issues and making surprise provocative
statements creates a lot of vicious abrasive friction that can stimulate a numb
person to life without creating any significant personal danger. In his identification with Trump, a numb person
can experience Trump’s abrasive random comments and actions as if he was
directly involved with them himself. The
numb person becomes a safe observer of Trump’s intensity and a vicarious
participant. The numb person
psychologically merges with Trump and mentally feels the action.
Of
course, sometimes a person can combine two of these solutions to deal with his
numbness during the same period of time.
The mass shooter in El Paso was a big supporter of Trump and considered
himself aligned with the white nationalist movement. Obviously, his identification with Trump and
white nationalism did not indicate a desire for vicarious aggression to pull
himself out of his numbness. In this
case, the identification with Trump and white nationalism served instead to
embolden him in his plans to kill Mexicans.
The killer found inspiration in the mass murder of Muslims in New
Zealand. Mexicans and Muslims are two
groups that Trump has verbally attacked repeatedly.
The
mass shooter in Dayton had cocaine, alcohol and an anti-depressant in his
system when he carried out his attack.
No, there was no opioid present, but all these other drugs certainly had
the effect of freeing and bolstering his psyche, pulling him physically out of
his numbness temporarily in order to be able to carry out the explosive
anti-numbness action of the mass shooting.
In this case, abrasive friction was generated internally in order to be
able to perform an action that was going to generate even more abrasive
friction in the external world.
Finally
the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study in 2018
showing there was an incredible correlation between communities in the U.S.
with high opioid use and communities with the highest support for Trump. Obviously, the high of the opioids reinforced
the high obtained from supporting Trump.
The abrasive kicks from the opioids helped people to enter the abrasive
kicks-filled world of Trump’s mind and philosophy. In a way, both can be viewed as incredibly
destructive addictions.
But underneath the abrasive friction that underlies all
three of these different human behaviors is the numbness that is created as a
result of the frictionlessness and mediation that are such an intrinsic part of
the experiential vacuum that is found in modern technological society. As long as people feel this pathological
numbness, they will continue to search out pathological forms of behavior to
fight it. And it doesn’t always have to
be Trump, opioids and mass shootings.
Defeat Trump in his reelection and some Americans will search out and
find some other random authoritarian leader to support. Make it difficult to obtain opioids, and
there are so many other drugs which people can start using, as the Dayton
shooter could have attested to, if he had survived. Make it difficult to obtain guns, and people
will eventually find other means to kill.
If we want to get rid of all these problems, we can’t just deal with the
symptoms they present. We also have to
deal with the causes.
© 2019 Laurence Mesirow
No comments:
Post a Comment