I caught the news from Omaha late tonight.
The first thoughts always are visceral – imaging (not imagining) the same thing here in the bustle of the Del Amo Mall just up the street from my house. Then I imagine the holes ripped in families and communities, the faces I will see tomorrow in halftone in the morning paper.
My view on this stuff is simple; it’s best summarized by the book ‘Stand on Zanzibar‘, where author John Brunner coined the term ‘mucker’.
Blogger Cosma Shalizi – who blogs at ‘Three Toed Sloth‘ wrote a good summary some time ago:
“Mucker” is a word coined by the science fiction writer John Brunner in his great novel Stand on Zanzibar. The word derives from “amok,” which will require a bit of history. It is a Malay word, and a person who goes violently insane, rushing through the village and murderously attacking everyone in his path, is said to have “run amok.” In what was an egregiously idiotic statement, even for him, the eminent French critic Georges Bataille called running amok the purest manifestation of revolt, “the movement by which man rises up against his own condition and the whole of creation.” (Bataille never ran through the streets of Montparnasse madly slashing with a kris, so he either lacked the courage of his convictions or was a hypocrite with a small – a very small – modicum of brains.) The Malays, inevitably, were and are more sensible: they kill those who run amok.
A “mucker,” then, is someone who runs amok; the times havin’ a-changed, now they use guns. As always, they are people driven to murderous madness by intolerable frustration, repression and conformity, whether in an isolated kampong or the Postal Service. So far muckers seem to have been mostly Americans, but just the other day the radio carried news of one in Germany.
It does Mr. Brunner’s prescience great credit to have foreseen the need for this word, back in 1964; and it does the rest of us no credit at all, for letting such a word be needed.
There is something dark and bloody in the human heart.
I suggest that there is a more appropriate real-life parallel with Franz Fanon, who said that when a man kills his oppressor (whoever he imagines his oppressor to be; anybody happier than you are will do) he kills two people: the oppressor, and the slave within himself. The slave who got fired from MacDonalds and who gets hassled by his mom for sitting around smoking pot.
inside every person is an animal, the only question being “what kind of animal?”
This concept also came up in a book by Robert Sheckley called Immortality, Inc. Published in 1958.
The rich could afford immortality and certain of the poor would go on murderous rampages in revolt against the inequity.
We could reduce this sort of action if we could stop the damn press from parading every detail of the shooters life. His note said “now I’ll be famous” – well, stop plastering the guys name on a billboard! This person was a self indulgent egocentric- rewarding his actions posthumously is garanteed to cause more of the same.
This type of thing is a social phenominon that is found in many cultures (but not all, at least to a ritualized degree). Its referred to by anthropologists as culture bound syndromes. Running amok is one- Cafard in Polynesia, Cabin Fever, Windigo, etc. Some don’t involve violence, different sexual oddities or behaviors are also common.
They are usually triggered by or in response to cultural taboos- if you find yourself running naked through the streets with an axe its probably not out of any rational thought or emotion. Often its some perceived loss of honor or dignity in the community, but more than anything else its a cry for attention.
This is why we need to approach these acts not simply as crimes (not that they shouldnt be prosecuted, but socially) but as the culturally induced acts they are.
When people argue that media coverage encourgaes copycats, they are right. And thats not a throw away, ‘too much violence on tv’, family values nonsense statement. Media coverage absolutely, definitively propagates this cultural syndrome just as surely as a celebrities new fashion line.
Media doesnt ‘produce’ this phenominon as the violence on TV people suspect, but they propogate it. The shooters name and face and story _should not be broadcast._ That is exactly why these guys do it, psychologically. The idea that we can somehow get a better understanding of these people by knowing their story is bunk. They are just as likely to be ‘normal’ highschool kids like the Columbine shooters as distressed abuse victims. There is no thread to follow besides feelings of outcast and powerlessness- gee, about all of us at one time or another. Nothing we can come to understand will prevent this (statistically speaking, on individual levels its possible), but removing the motive would. Nobody wants their ‘blaze of glory’ to be ignored.
I understand how tempting it is to boil down a complex and seemingly inexplicable act to a readily graspable motive and therefore arrive at a simple solution: take away the media coverage and the crazy f@ckers will stop doing it since they just want the attention.
But does anyone really think that someone who commits such an irrational act is going to be governed by the rational thought process required of them for this solution to have any effect?
I don’t have any idea what the answer is, but I know this one is the wrong one.
_”But does anyone really think that someone who commits such an irrational act is going to be governed by the rational thought process required of them for this solution to have any effect?”_
Well lets examine the act for a moment. There is obviously _some_ level of rationality involved- ie, this wasnt a schzitsofrenic act that could instead have been wearing a diaper and sucking his thumb while pouring buckets of gravy over his head.
Shooting a bunch of people is obviously done for SOME reason (irrational though it may be) as opposed to throwing yourself off a bridge or doing something else entirely. Psychologists argue that these are desperate grasps at attention by individuals past their breaking point in a given culture. What pushed them past their breaking point could be anything, so attacking that angle isn’t productive (school bullying vs getting fired from McD’s?).
Instead- lets focus on why the individuals choose this particular act as opposed to something else. If we can remove the incentive, we may shift the action. Even irrational people respond to percieved incentives.
Mark B, wrote “If we can remove the incentive, we may shift the action.”
perhaps so. I didn’t mean to imply that I was opposed to such an attempt. I was merely expressing my very very strong doubts about how effective that approach would be. But the more important point I was trying to make is that it would be naive to think that is ALL that needs to be done. To me, your solution is a long shot and, therefore, a belief in its efficacy could reduce the chance that other, more complicated and difficult approaches being sought.
I think that if you expect schizophrenics to be only those who wear diapers and suck their thumbs and don’t include those who “decide” to solve their problems of isolation, despair, or whatever it is they think they feel, by mass murder and/or suicide, then you are just blocking off the problem from further investigation.
to put it another way, “What pushed them past their breaking point could be anything, so attacking that angle isn’t productive (school bullying vs getting fired from McD’s?).” is a point of view I’m not conviced has any foundation beyond wishful thinking and lack of proper information.
it is possible that there is no “breaking point” and that there is a cumulative or developing, progressive breakdown. Further research may throw some light upon the matter and certain factors may stand out as signals of such degeneration that would make intervention and prevention possible. There could even be a chemical basis for such behavior in the way that we now undertand exists for depression, which was once thought just a moral defect.
Maybe mark. And to some extent i think thats inarguable. But every time you hear about one of these people, the next breath is ‘yeh he was a weird guy but i never imagined’… Very rarely do you hear ‘man that guy was a ticking timebomb’.
I guess my point is this society does a large amount of navel gazing, for good or for ill. How many of us are in therapy, or medicated, or read self help books? Its really hard, and maybe impossible, to weed out the guy on the tower with the rifle from the guy who fronts The Cure? Or more likely the guy sitting at the desk down the hall who never does anything noteable.
I don’t know te answer to that question either, but i suspect its going to be extremely difficult to weed out the shooters without massively imposing on the right of the rest of us to be weird and depressed from time to time.
Obviously that doesnt preclude working hard to reach out to ALL the people in trouble in various ways. Its just that its not at all a sliding scale- the people with real BAD problems dont tend to be the ones who snap. So how do you get to the kid who gets bullied on the bus? He’s one amongst millions.
Mark B, I recall that the Columbine shooters were generally thought to be “ticking time boms”, actually.
Mark B.,
Well if I were working on the problem I would start with the following hypothisis:
The guy who is bullyed on the bus who becomes a mass murder is different from all the millions of guys who are bullied on the bus who DON’T become a mass murder. What other characteristics are there, if any, that we don’t presently see, the distinguish the two, and which of those might be helpful in indentifiying them.
You seem to have already concluded—based upon what I’m not sure—that there is no way to tell the difference—or that there is no difference—between those who are bullied on the bus who committ mass murder and those who don’t. You also seem to have concluded that being bullied in school is a direct cause of these muckings, whereas it is entirely possible that they simply share some characteristics with the type of people who get bullied in school and that there is no further correlation. Mabye people who have it in them to commit massmurder have personality disorders that lead others to shun, isolate or bully them.
_”Mark B, I recall that the Columbine shooters were generally thought to be “ticking time boms”, actually.”_
Middle class kids, intact families, decent grades, had friends, one of em had just taken a girl to prom _three days_ before the shooting. The only trouble theyd gotten in was arrest for petty theft during their set up for the event. Even the idea that they were systematically bullied apparently is a myth.
All the warning signs are clear in retrospect of course- one was medicated for depression, violent creative writing papers, swearing at teachers, a fight in the workplace, blogs full of threats and anger. Obviously if their parents were more attentive, something might have been done. But why should they have been, these were kids that never were any trouble until that very year? Nobody expects their average kid to degrade into a mass murdering sociopath in 12 months time. Nobody _wants_ to think of that.
I’m just saying- these arent 10 year olds cutting the legs off animals. This stuff is pretty commonplace in any highschool in America. If there is a common thread, great! I hope there is. But i fear there just may not be. Do we want to psychoanalize every troubled youth in America under the assumption that they may be one step from a rampage?
_”You seem to have already concluded—based upon what I’m not sure—that there is no way to tell the difference—or that there is no difference—between those who are bullied on the bus who committ mass murder and those who don’t.”_
I suspect there are ways to tell the difference. Just as there are ways to tell the difference between needles and hay.
Mark B., well I guess I advocate additional research in hopes of discovering something akin to a magnat that might then make separting the two a less cumbersome process than it would otherwise be. And if finding the needle saves a few innocent lives, then effort might be considered worthwhile. I just don’t see the foundations for your conclusions as to the causes or for your belief that they cannot be identified.
_”I just don’t see the foundations for your conclusions as to the causes or for your belief that they cannot be identified.”_
You’re mistaking me. I never said they _couldn’t_ be identified. I said I thought it would be very difficult due to the wheat and chaff issue. I have no problem with further research to find some clues that might help.
I think maybe you are missing my point as to what kind of a person does this. Serial killers are apparently wired to be who they are early in life- there are warning signs. But what if there aren’t previous signs to identify in these big shootings? Perhaps because even a couple years before they happened, _they didn’t exist._
Its comforting to think that killers are born or develop into killers in some sort of logical or linear fashion that might be impeded or at least identified. My thought is that simply might not be the case with this kind of event- because its a different psychological phenominon. This isnt acting out nightmares or an abusive past, or even miscrossed nuerons _per se._ This is a social event, as hard as it is to look at it that way. What if a lot, if not most of us have this in us, and a small handful just decide to go down the rabbit hole? Not because they are evil or brain damaged, but because they are weak?
Maybe these are the people that 30 years ago just killed themselves crashing their car off a cliff in a ball of fire. And whats murder but extroverted suicide (to quote Monte Python)?
I dont know that is a fact, but it definately seems the window to catch these guys when they flip the switch is distressingly short.
Sorry to say I don’t see this as a major problem. A tragedy for those involved, obviously, but the death toll from the acts of amok-violence in one year are dwarfed by gang-related murders for one year in one major American city.
The media is fascinated by this since it involves a white middle-working class kid using violence (killing people). As opposed to black or latino poor kids using violence to kill people — for gang related reasons most of which boil down to money.
The media CERTAINLY would not like to focus on the brutal and senseless killing of say, a fourteen year old black boy coming home from Jefferson High, shot and killed by Latino gang members (for the crime of being black in an area contested by Latino gangs). Too many uncomfortable questions not the least of which is the obvious solution to stop it: uncompromising policing.
There is NO solution for the problem of amok-killing by otherwise unremarkable white boys and men (and sometimes girls — the I Don’t Like Mondays girl). There are not enough police to spread around white middle-working class America to stop it.
By contrast there certainly ARE enough police available to flood poor black-latino gang infested areas, arrest any likely gang member, and put them in prison. Presto! Gang killings drop dramatically. Many lives saved.
But oh no, we can’t have that. Since it would require police arresting, and courts convicting, black and latino gangsters.
[The alternative explanation is that white working-middle class unstable people, perhaps also Cho Seung Hui, wanted to copy Black Rapper gangsta poses of hyper-masculinity and “respect” — they want to be “powerful” like the Game, or DMX, or any other gangsta rapper. There the blame would not lie with the media but with gangsta rap which offers a template for masculine respect — kill people.]
Dear Sirs,
John Brunner was perhaps the most prescient sci-fi writer of the 20th century. His 1975 novel “Shockwave Rider” describes in chilling detail the world wide computer networks of the 21st century with almost all of its current nasties. He coined the term “worm” and described the current phenomenon. He also described viruses and network attacks. “Stand on Zanzibar” was an apocalyptic description of environmental disaster.
Regards,
Roy
It wasn’t about environmental disaster, it was mostly about overpopulation. His _The Sheep Look Up_ was more about environmental disaster. 🙂 That said, I too consider it a seminal work. And 2010 isn’t all that far away.
Christ, what an imagination I’ve got!
i am thinking an American version of the (French) Foreign Legion would be a good outlet for these types of person. this one tried to enlist in the regular army but was rejected. with the right advertising it would appeal to a lot of trouble makers, espcially as an alternative to prison.
“the movement by which man rises up against his own condition and the whole of creation.”
IMHO he rises against the society’s rules.
There is a natural egocentric tendency in all of us since the better we control our environment, including the surrounding persons, our chances of survival increase. However, such impulses are contained and balanced among individuals through social rules and laws, developed in a second stage, in which humans noticed that chances of survival were higher if they adopted an organized structure.
Going amok seems to be related to returning to that primary state in which anyone else is considered a threat.
Of course, the answer of the society to such individuals is clear: death.
In “Under Old Earth” (1966), Cordwainer Smith talked about “gentlemen suicides”, and used the term “fundeath” for disaffected kids finding a way to go out with a bang.
This is different from a depressed kid taking company along when committing suicide.
It’s a worthwhile story.
I think “fundeath” could have had an at least partly ironic tone. Can’t ask Linebarger (“Smith”) about his intention for the expression now, more’s the pity.
Depression can be the furious kind, too.
Answer this:
If these people can’t use depression, opression, insanity or anything as any type of excuse except that they are evil and the world around them is their victims..
What about this, if these people are to shoot up a mall or school on just the fact that they are evil, then that means there is only one way to stop them, and that is before they do it by education, prison or whatever you think it is..
People try to figure this stuff out so that we can prevent it from happening in the future, it’s not about glory as some people define it to be, it’s about helping society from hurting itself.
You can call it whatever you think it is, but just calling these people stupid or whatever is not going to stop somebody from doing it in the future..