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Thoughts on the California Mass Murder
11 years ago
I pretty much turned off the news from Friday to Monday so I could enjoy a long weekend. So I was surprised by the news of yet another mass killing, and yet another manifesto written and left for us to read by the killer, when I tuned in again on Tuesday.
As I read through the usual range of news stories, comments sections, and editorials, to try to see what direction the most recent discussion of such an event had inspired, I came across a lot of loud, edgy and political responses that felt a lot like everyone just trying to attach whatever social cause they wanted to apply to the killings. Disturbingly, proponents of saying one thing or another issue was what the murders were "about" were competing with each other, each claiming the other was taking away important attention from their supposedly more important cause that they were relating the killings to.
The killer used guns for some of the killings, so the matter was "about" gun control, according to some, while others pointed to the killer's misogynist video rants and said it was all about "rape culture", and still others pointed to the racist rantings in the killer's manifesto and the fact that half of his victims were minorities and brought up the subject of race. Finally, some argued it was about the mistaken notions of the men's rights movement, or perhaps the pickup artists, or maybe the misogynist views sometimes found in "geek culture"... so many cultures so little time. Everyone had a shouty political ax to grind and were eager to tell us that this subject was what it was all about.
There is not necessarily anything wrong with using an event as a discussion starter. Many writers do it all the time, and I can certainly understand the impulse. But it was striking how many issues this one event brought up thanks to the variety of ugly hangups the killer seemed to have. He really did have some views related to sexism and racist feelings, a sense of entitlement, and a privileged background.
Oh, so much ammunition for today's political blogging! But when you actually take a longer look at the killer's manifesto, you see that nothing was as simple as one political angle or a single headline. Was he a privileged rich white kid of Hollywood with a wealthy director father? Well, actually he was of mixed race and, though he did grow up arguably spoiled, both his parents had hit on relatively rough times and he did not seem to think he would be taken care of forever. Was he another neglected person with mental illness? He had several counselors. Was he a gun nut? He found a twisted sense of empowerment through guns, but only in the last months of his life, and killed half his victims with a knife. Was he an abusive male symbolic of typical harassers with a sense of entitlement and hidden rape fantasies?
More like a hopeless geek who had never even approached a girl in his life, let alone harassed one. And his fantasies mostly involved consensual sex with cuddling in the afterglow, like many an inexperienced young person idealizing romantic action. (Though he certainly had quite a twisted sense of entitlement to a lot of things, love just being one of them. But not in quite the way some editorials are suggesting.) Was he even a victim of bullying, so we can talk about bully issues? Some former classmates, probably from his brief time in public high school, admit to having abused him. But he was only in that environment for a few months before moving to a more controlled part-time school where he didn't face open abuse. As for his earlier school days, most of his descriptions of "abuse" sound a bit delusional as his definition of abuse includes simply not being paid immediate attention to and such, and he weirdly inflates minor incidents.
There was much to disturb in the manifesto, from the ugliest racist assumptions to ravings about wanting to kill everyone. The incredible narcissism on display was ugly enough, and the final results just made it all the worse a read. But the glimpse of a sick mind it provided didn't fit one simple and politically convenient line of thought about the events. This was someone who was very disturbed since childhood. When we let him focus for us the whole of his problems on sexual or gender issues it's buying into the mad man's version of events, forgetting what an unreliable narrator he really is. If you read between the lines of his writing, you can see how he is even more twisted than he lets on, and that his problems went way beyond unfulfilled romantic longings. This is someone who was obsessed with status issues since grade school, well before adolescence even.
I dislike the way so many Internet discussions, including some of the ones about controversies involving Fur Affinity of late, have started to center around various labels, isms, and political band wagons, placing people in with us or against us camps and leading to attempts to label events and anyone you disagree with. Such struggles seem to reflect attempts to control the discussion through labels and name calling rather than honest considerations of events in all their complexity. Are you an apologist? A sexist? A racist? Pick one now before making whatever statement you have, cause that's what you will be called at some point. Then huddle around your choice of competing hashtags on twittter.
I don't mean to be an apologist for this murderer. His manifesto stinks of evil. But his sick self just doesn't make for a good poster kid for any of these issues people are yelling at each other about on-line. I want to write about some of these issues myself and don't mean to belittle their importance, but this is not the best springboard for those discussions.
This event was "about" the horror of getting stabbed to death only due to having unwittingly taken up residency with someone who turns out to be mentally ill. It's about the tragedy of young lives snuffed out for nothing more than having been by the road at the wrong time when someone troubled came along looking for a target to take misplaced rage out on. And yes, admittedly, maybe it's also, for the rest of us, about the uneasy feelings that recognizing parts of our own society in the killer's views gives us. But that doesn't make him the symbol of any of those problems, no matter how inconvenient that is for our political discussions.
Rave
As I read through the usual range of news stories, comments sections, and editorials, to try to see what direction the most recent discussion of such an event had inspired, I came across a lot of loud, edgy and political responses that felt a lot like everyone just trying to attach whatever social cause they wanted to apply to the killings. Disturbingly, proponents of saying one thing or another issue was what the murders were "about" were competing with each other, each claiming the other was taking away important attention from their supposedly more important cause that they were relating the killings to.
The killer used guns for some of the killings, so the matter was "about" gun control, according to some, while others pointed to the killer's misogynist video rants and said it was all about "rape culture", and still others pointed to the racist rantings in the killer's manifesto and the fact that half of his victims were minorities and brought up the subject of race. Finally, some argued it was about the mistaken notions of the men's rights movement, or perhaps the pickup artists, or maybe the misogynist views sometimes found in "geek culture"... so many cultures so little time. Everyone had a shouty political ax to grind and were eager to tell us that this subject was what it was all about.
There is not necessarily anything wrong with using an event as a discussion starter. Many writers do it all the time, and I can certainly understand the impulse. But it was striking how many issues this one event brought up thanks to the variety of ugly hangups the killer seemed to have. He really did have some views related to sexism and racist feelings, a sense of entitlement, and a privileged background.
Oh, so much ammunition for today's political blogging! But when you actually take a longer look at the killer's manifesto, you see that nothing was as simple as one political angle or a single headline. Was he a privileged rich white kid of Hollywood with a wealthy director father? Well, actually he was of mixed race and, though he did grow up arguably spoiled, both his parents had hit on relatively rough times and he did not seem to think he would be taken care of forever. Was he another neglected person with mental illness? He had several counselors. Was he a gun nut? He found a twisted sense of empowerment through guns, but only in the last months of his life, and killed half his victims with a knife. Was he an abusive male symbolic of typical harassers with a sense of entitlement and hidden rape fantasies?
More like a hopeless geek who had never even approached a girl in his life, let alone harassed one. And his fantasies mostly involved consensual sex with cuddling in the afterglow, like many an inexperienced young person idealizing romantic action. (Though he certainly had quite a twisted sense of entitlement to a lot of things, love just being one of them. But not in quite the way some editorials are suggesting.) Was he even a victim of bullying, so we can talk about bully issues? Some former classmates, probably from his brief time in public high school, admit to having abused him. But he was only in that environment for a few months before moving to a more controlled part-time school where he didn't face open abuse. As for his earlier school days, most of his descriptions of "abuse" sound a bit delusional as his definition of abuse includes simply not being paid immediate attention to and such, and he weirdly inflates minor incidents.
There was much to disturb in the manifesto, from the ugliest racist assumptions to ravings about wanting to kill everyone. The incredible narcissism on display was ugly enough, and the final results just made it all the worse a read. But the glimpse of a sick mind it provided didn't fit one simple and politically convenient line of thought about the events. This was someone who was very disturbed since childhood. When we let him focus for us the whole of his problems on sexual or gender issues it's buying into the mad man's version of events, forgetting what an unreliable narrator he really is. If you read between the lines of his writing, you can see how he is even more twisted than he lets on, and that his problems went way beyond unfulfilled romantic longings. This is someone who was obsessed with status issues since grade school, well before adolescence even.
I dislike the way so many Internet discussions, including some of the ones about controversies involving Fur Affinity of late, have started to center around various labels, isms, and political band wagons, placing people in with us or against us camps and leading to attempts to label events and anyone you disagree with. Such struggles seem to reflect attempts to control the discussion through labels and name calling rather than honest considerations of events in all their complexity. Are you an apologist? A sexist? A racist? Pick one now before making whatever statement you have, cause that's what you will be called at some point. Then huddle around your choice of competing hashtags on twittter.
I don't mean to be an apologist for this murderer. His manifesto stinks of evil. But his sick self just doesn't make for a good poster kid for any of these issues people are yelling at each other about on-line. I want to write about some of these issues myself and don't mean to belittle their importance, but this is not the best springboard for those discussions.
This event was "about" the horror of getting stabbed to death only due to having unwittingly taken up residency with someone who turns out to be mentally ill. It's about the tragedy of young lives snuffed out for nothing more than having been by the road at the wrong time when someone troubled came along looking for a target to take misplaced rage out on. And yes, admittedly, maybe it's also, for the rest of us, about the uneasy feelings that recognizing parts of our own society in the killer's views gives us. But that doesn't make him the symbol of any of those problems, no matter how inconvenient that is for our political discussions.
Rave
I've heard about the murders near UCA and I was shocked and appalled on what happened and why he did it. Though, there was now "why" he did it. He just....did it. That scares me. There was no reason or any trigger that caused him to do this. He planned it all and he's been this way since the day he was born. It's almost like seeing The Joker in real life. The type we see in comic books. The one person we say the type that cannot be bought, reasoned, and threatened. He just wants to see the world burn. A true sadistic narcissist. I mean, they even said he went through some consoling and he fooled everybody. This pretty much says that he wants his name posted in the news. He wants to be famous. Well, his wish came true. He is famous.
There's no political angle he's using. There's no racism, sexism, bully abuse, parent neglect, gun mentality, or any other hot issue the news likes to stir. He just does it, because he felt like it and he wants the world to get mixed up on what he did as that's his plan.
Scary...
To me, the root cause of THIS tragedy is either the kid was born evil, or has some mental disorder. Because sane, good people don't murder randomly. Guns might make killing easier, movies and media might give specific ideas on who to shoot, but in the end there is only ONE person responsible, him.
You are quite right, everyone will be using this for political points, and that is sad.
People are talking about geek culture and various political stuff, but I do get the impression that the roots of the California incident were very personal and involved someone full of rage at every turn for much of his life. The one distinguishing factor that keeps coming up in his manifesto is that he can't understand how his geeky friends don't share or even relate to his constant rage. For all the things he may have had in common with other troubled young people, he was quite different in that respect. Lots of people get frustrated, but he experienced blinding rage and perceived insult at every turn. Our everyday politics don't cover that strangeness.
The rage you mention he has is an interesting thing though. Just wish there was a way to catch that in someone before something like this happens.