Also, a few weeks ago his family called the police after he posted videos to you-tube setting out in detail what he was planning and how he intended to do it.
The cops spoke to him out the front of his house for about five minutes and then declared “nothing to worry about here”.
It may well be insignificant that he was pale-skinned, rich, connected and living in a ‘good’ part of town but ‘social meeja’ is pondering what his fate may have been if he had been a poor, dark-skinned person of non-Christian origin posting that sort of stuff.
I would have thought that was a valid and important question. We are told that we have to give up all our rights and freedoms so that we can be spied on, and the majority of my fellow citizens seem to accept this.
Similarly we are supposed to accept NSA spying on every aspect of our lives – for our “security” of course.
But this person posted his mass murder plans on you-tube, the police had to be called by his family, it was declared ‘no problem’ and he went ahead and carried it out almost exactly as warned.
I’m worried about how much evidence it is going to take before my fellow citizens accept that this mass-surveillance has absolutely nothing to do with protecting us and everything to do with protecting our rulers FROM us.
> Insane asylums are required for some.
Sure. But the federal budget appears to be driven by the same mix of hate, resentment and insecurity as this guy, and will kill rather more people.
“Rodger’s full manifesto, (which) is a document that oozes hate for women, that causes the hair on the back of your neck and your arms to prickle with sick recognition:
“this might be mental illness, but it is an illness that is not unfamiliar to women who routinely and disproportionately are the victims of harassment, neglect, violence, and death at the hands of men.
“Rodger’s actions were an extreme manifestation of a cultural view that is not actually uncommon: that women “owe” men attention, that women who don’t put out are bitches, that women who do put out — for other guys, of course — are sluts, and all these women get what they “deserve” — violence from men.”
I think that our PM has said something to the effect that a woman does not have the right to absolutely ‘withhold’. I presumed that he was not advocating rape but was referring to married woman who apparently having ‘married’ lose the right to have a choice and say no.
I think that it is probable that it was the ‘class’ or wealth of the family as well as his ‘race’ that deterred the authorities from taking it seriously and apparently the person himself, who is said to be a high functioning aspie, was totally coherent when interviewed and presented himself as quite sane and rational.
I do know about high functioning aspies and it seems to me that this man could have been capable of ‘acting’ normal, when being interviewed by less intelligent authorities and ‘becoming’ whatever personality and adopting whatever attitude it took, to convince people that he was ‘just joking’ when he wrote that stuff.
I think the insanity comes from the unimaginable emotional pain – unimaginable for ‘normal’ people – that some young aspie men can feel in this society that values only certain types of intelligence and attributes and this pain turns to hatred of course.
Fundamentally the problem seems to be that some kids, even with all the privilege that comes with wealth, do not get an upbringing or a society that provides them with a way of fitting in and succeeding.
He was mentally ill. He couldn’t help himself. Others should have helped him. Having said that, it may have been difficult for professionals to assess the level of risk he posed to himself and others. Further, it seems possible to me that individual mental pathologies “vibrate harmonically” in accord to prevailing social pathologies. That is to say, bad social values that de-humanise women appeal to such persons and the pathology reaches new levels in them. Just a lay opinion though.
@Ikonoclast
Even if he was mentally ill, I don’t see how that’s sufficient basis for the assertion that he couldn’t help himself. But how do you know he was mentally ill? What’s the basis for that assertion?
For sure, Ikon, individual mental pathologies – and this is just a convenient term this society uses to categorise unacceptable ‘difference’ – vibrate harmonically with the prevailing social pathologies or values.
I’m pretty sure that personality is ‘all’ upbringing in that almost any genetic mix in an individual can be modified by a clever and supportive environment so as to be a positive part of that society. This makes sense, to me anyway, if you think of the genetic/culture question as the genetic input being 100% deterministic and the environment also being 100% responsible for how the genetic endowment is managed.
The behaviourist Watson said he could raise any child to be any profession, and the Jesuits apparently claim that they can own a child if they have exclusive socialisation rights. So the idea that children are not tabula rasa but inherently malleable by their culture is not new or radical.
He could have helped himself if he had a clear idea of what he was expected to do and others ‘should’ have helped him because it is in their self-interest to help him, unless they want to live in a society that makes war on those who are ‘different’.
Why did he not ‘want’ to help himself? What motived his choice to take revenge on those who rejected him?
This society and some upbringings, give young men with a certain type of genetic input, those without social skills and a tendency to think a certain way, no help in managing the essential problem of how to feel good about themselves in a society that doesn’t value them.
@Megan
The failure of the police to act on the family’s warning in this case should be scrutinised, but I don’t see the connection with surveillance programs. That the police decided not to intervene because he came from a privileged background, that’s a plausible case; but are you suggesting also that the police failed to intervene because they were too preoccupied with surveillance programs? or is this just your delenda Carthago?
@Julie Thomas
Pathology is not just a term this society uses to categorise unacceptable ‘differences’, and it’s also not just a term this society uses to categories unacceptable differences (you must be supposing that it’s worth making a distinction between difference and ‘difference’, although I can’t see what).
The idea that children can be moulded by the way they’re raised is indeed neither new nor radical, but that does not make it correct to conclude that there are no limits on how they can be moulded.
Have you considered that you might have some sort of pathological personality trait that inclines you to make picky little comments pointing out other people’s shortcomings?
But I think that you need to explain/define both ‘abnormality’ and what is a ‘significant impairment’ for your definition to be in any way useful.
On what rational basis would you conclude that because you don’t know the limits that you can assume that there are none?
There are two apposite quotes that come to mind on the issue of terrrsm, the surveillance/police state, privacy/freedom:
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
-James Madison
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
-Benjamin Franklin
@Julie Thomas
I am not assuming that there are no limits to how children can be moulded. My position is that I don’t know what limits, if any, there are. What’s your position? that there are no limits? or that there are limits? or what?
I value precision. That’s not pathological: it doesn’t significantly impair my functioning, but rather the reverse.
An abnormality is something that differs from what is usual; an impairment is something that reduces ability to function. How would you define ‘disease’ without invoking these or similar concepts?
> But how do you know he was mentally ill? What’s the basis for that assertion?
1: Murder a half-dozen people
2: ????
3: Oceans of pussy
@Collin Street
> But how do you know Collin Street is talking bollocks?
1: Blithe assumption that murder has something to do with mental illness
2: ???
3: Completely unjustified conclusion
Take the anti-mental illness bigotry over to Catallaxy, or some other cesspit.
As a rather more bizarre adjunct to Megan’s comments on the police response, the more rightward corners of the internet are now proclaiming that the Rodgers mass murder is actually an Obama/Liberalfeminazi false flag operation to take away our gunz!!!1!!
> 1: Blithe assumption that murder has something to do with mental illness
Look. Any specific behaviour, in its original context, sits somewhere on a continuum between “healthy” and “not very healthy at all”.
@Collin Street
I’ll take the bafflegab as a withdrawal of your offensive assumption.
@Collin Street
It looks as if you are suggesting that it was irrational for the killer to think that his spree killing would lead him to the success he apparently longed for with sexual partners. It’s not clear that he did think that, but if he did then those expectations were unreasonable. However, unreasonable expectations cannot be validly equated with mental illness.
Maybe I’ve misunderstood, though, and your actual meaning was something different from what I’ve guessed.
Have you ever looked for any evidence? And would you be able to ‘see’ it if it was there?
@Julie Thomas
Have you ever looked for any evidence about how the frequency with which you misunderstand people compares with the frequency other people have that experience?
Yep an intensely critical parent and years of depression and anxiety and intense inappropriate self-criticism dogged me in the first half of my life and I remain very aware of my faults.
I use Buddhist techniques to cope with my failure to be a perfect person.
John Quiggin 
Also, a few weeks ago his family called the police after he posted videos to you-tube setting out in detail what he was planning and how he intended to do it.
The cops spoke to him out the front of his house for about five minutes and then declared “nothing to worry about here”.
It may well be insignificant that he was pale-skinned, rich, connected and living in a ‘good’ part of town but ‘social meeja’ is pondering what his fate may have been if he had been a poor, dark-skinned person of non-Christian origin posting that sort of stuff.
I would have thought that was a valid and important question. We are told that we have to give up all our rights and freedoms so that we can be spied on, and the majority of my fellow citizens seem to accept this.
Similarly we are supposed to accept NSA spying on every aspect of our lives – for our “security” of course.
But this person posted his mass murder plans on you-tube, the police had to be called by his family, it was declared ‘no problem’ and he went ahead and carried it out almost exactly as warned.
I’m worried about how much evidence it is going to take before my fellow citizens accept that this mass-surveillance has absolutely nothing to do with protecting us and everything to do with protecting our rulers FROM us.
> Insane asylums are required for some.
Sure. But the federal budget appears to be driven by the same mix of hate, resentment and insecurity as this guy, and will kill rather more people.
“Rodger’s full manifesto, (which) is a document that oozes hate for women, that causes the hair on the back of your neck and your arms to prickle with sick recognition:
“this might be mental illness, but it is an illness that is not unfamiliar to women who routinely and disproportionately are the victims of harassment, neglect, violence, and death at the hands of men.
“Rodger’s actions were an extreme manifestation of a cultural view that is not actually uncommon: that women “owe” men attention, that women who don’t put out are bitches, that women who do put out — for other guys, of course — are sluts, and all these women get what they “deserve” — violence from men.”
http://wonkette.com/550091/sunday-bloody-nyt-sunday-special-dont-you-dare-say-not-all-men-edition#ScwPodK3PcygV0k0.99
I think that our PM has said something to the effect that a woman does not have the right to absolutely ‘withhold’. I presumed that he was not advocating rape but was referring to married woman who apparently having ‘married’ lose the right to have a choice and say no.
I think that it is probable that it was the ‘class’ or wealth of the family as well as his ‘race’ that deterred the authorities from taking it seriously and apparently the person himself, who is said to be a high functioning aspie, was totally coherent when interviewed and presented himself as quite sane and rational.
I do know about high functioning aspies and it seems to me that this man could have been capable of ‘acting’ normal, when being interviewed by less intelligent authorities and ‘becoming’ whatever personality and adopting whatever attitude it took, to convince people that he was ‘just joking’ when he wrote that stuff.
I think the insanity comes from the unimaginable emotional pain – unimaginable for ‘normal’ people – that some young aspie men can feel in this society that values only certain types of intelligence and attributes and this pain turns to hatred of course.
Fundamentally the problem seems to be that some kids, even with all the privilege that comes with wealth, do not get an upbringing or a society that provides them with a way of fitting in and succeeding.
He was mentally ill. He couldn’t help himself. Others should have helped him. Having said that, it may have been difficult for professionals to assess the level of risk he posed to himself and others. Further, it seems possible to me that individual mental pathologies “vibrate harmonically” in accord to prevailing social pathologies. That is to say, bad social values that de-humanise women appeal to such persons and the pathology reaches new levels in them. Just a lay opinion though.
@Ikonoclast
Even if he was mentally ill, I don’t see how that’s sufficient basis for the assertion that he couldn’t help himself. But how do you know he was mentally ill? What’s the basis for that assertion?
For sure, Ikon, individual mental pathologies – and this is just a convenient term this society uses to categorise unacceptable ‘difference’ – vibrate harmonically with the prevailing social pathologies or values.
I’m pretty sure that personality is ‘all’ upbringing in that almost any genetic mix in an individual can be modified by a clever and supportive environment so as to be a positive part of that society. This makes sense, to me anyway, if you think of the genetic/culture question as the genetic input being 100% deterministic and the environment also being 100% responsible for how the genetic endowment is managed.
The behaviourist Watson said he could raise any child to be any profession, and the Jesuits apparently claim that they can own a child if they have exclusive socialisation rights. So the idea that children are not tabula rasa but inherently malleable by their culture is not new or radical.
He could have helped himself if he had a clear idea of what he was expected to do and others ‘should’ have helped him because it is in their self-interest to help him, unless they want to live in a society that makes war on those who are ‘different’.
Why did he not ‘want’ to help himself? What motived his choice to take revenge on those who rejected him?
This society and some upbringings, give young men with a certain type of genetic input, those without social skills and a tendency to think a certain way, no help in managing the essential problem of how to feel good about themselves in a society that doesn’t value them.
@Megan
The failure of the police to act on the family’s warning in this case should be scrutinised, but I don’t see the connection with surveillance programs. That the police decided not to intervene because he came from a privileged background, that’s a plausible case; but are you suggesting also that the police failed to intervene because they were too preoccupied with surveillance programs? or is this just your delenda Carthago?
@Julie Thomas
Pathology is not just a term this society uses to categorise unacceptable ‘differences’, and it’s also not just a term this society uses to categories unacceptable differences (you must be supposing that it’s worth making a distinction between difference and ‘difference’, although I can’t see what).
The idea that children can be moulded by the way they’re raised is indeed neither new nor radical, but that does not make it correct to conclude that there are no limits on how they can be moulded.
@J-D
So what is pathology then in your understanding?
And what are the limits on how a brain can be moulded?
@Julie Thomas
A pathology is an abnormality that significantly impairs function (in other words, a disease).
I don’t know the limits on how children can be moulded, but that’s not a sufficient basis for concluding that there are none.
@J-D
Have you considered that you might have some sort of pathological personality trait that inclines you to make picky little comments pointing out other people’s shortcomings?
But I think that you need to explain/define both ‘abnormality’ and what is a ‘significant impairment’ for your definition to be in any way useful.
On what rational basis would you conclude that because you don’t know the limits that you can assume that there are none?
There are two apposite quotes that come to mind on the issue of terrrsm, the surveillance/police state, privacy/freedom:
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
-James Madison
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
-Benjamin Franklin
@Julie Thomas
I am not assuming that there are no limits to how children can be moulded. My position is that I don’t know what limits, if any, there are. What’s your position? that there are no limits? or that there are limits? or what?
I value precision. That’s not pathological: it doesn’t significantly impair my functioning, but rather the reverse.
An abnormality is something that differs from what is usual; an impairment is something that reduces ability to function. How would you define ‘disease’ without invoking these or similar concepts?
> But how do you know he was mentally ill? What’s the basis for that assertion?
1: Murder a half-dozen people
2: ????
3: Oceans of pussy
@Collin Street
> But how do you know Collin Street is talking bollocks?
1: Blithe assumption that murder has something to do with mental illness
2: ???
3: Completely unjustified conclusion
Take the anti-mental illness bigotry over to Catallaxy, or some other cesspit.
As a rather more bizarre adjunct to Megan’s comments on the police response, the more rightward corners of the internet are now proclaiming that the Rodgers mass murder is actually an Obama/Liberalfeminazi false flag operation to take away our gunz!!!1!!
> 1: Blithe assumption that murder has something to do with mental illness
Look. Any specific behaviour, in its original context, sits somewhere on a continuum between “healthy” and “not very healthy at all”.
@Collin Street
I’ll take the bafflegab as a withdrawal of your offensive assumption.
@Collin Street
It looks as if you are suggesting that it was irrational for the killer to think that his spree killing would lead him to the success he apparently longed for with sexual partners. It’s not clear that he did think that, but if he did then those expectations were unreasonable. However, unreasonable expectations cannot be validly equated with mental illness.
Maybe I’ve misunderstood, though, and your actual meaning was something different from what I’ve guessed.
@J-D
“Maybe I’ve misunderstood, though, and your actual meaning was something different from what I’ve guessed.”
This happens quite often to you does it not?
@Julie Thomas
I have no evidence to suggest that it happens to me more often than it does to other people.
@J-D
Have you ever looked for any evidence? And would you be able to ‘see’ it if it was there?
@Julie Thomas
Have you ever looked for any evidence about how the frequency with which you misunderstand people compares with the frequency other people have that experience?
@J-D
Yep an intensely critical parent and years of depression and anxiety and intense inappropriate self-criticism dogged me in the first half of my life and I remain very aware of my faults.
I use Buddhist techniques to cope with my failure to be a perfect person.