Obligatory Reminder That "Sickeningly Evil" Does NOT Equate to "Mentally Ill"

[TygrBright]

Last edited Mon Nov 6, 2017, 04:28 PM - Edit history (1)

And yes, those of you who've been around a while probably know exactly how sad and angry I am that I just KEEP. HAVING. TO. DO. THESE. POSTS...

So, misogynist failure with LOTS O' GUNZ heads down to where people are busy praying and sprays them full of bullets.

He ain't black, he ain't Muslim, he ain't an immigrant, so... HE MUST BE MENTALLY ILL!!

I suppose you can make a case for patriachy-induced misogyny as a mental illness (indeed, I personally consider it would be appropriate under Axis II in the old DSM, but there's an obvious problem with a diagnosis that would include so large a percentage of the population, right?)

So, as I noted in this post clear the hell back in 2013, "Some people are mentally ill. Some people make catastrophically poor decisions. Some people do evil things... (and) none of these things necessitates any of the others."

Why do I keep getting so jacked off about this, every time the NRA shills trot out the "mentally ill!" flag and wave it to distract from the Too Many Gunz thing? (Oh, and BTW, will some journo kindly trot out the recent action EarlG highlighted in today's Pic of the Moment at the various Thoughts and Prayers press conferences with those same shills?)

Because I resemble that remark, for a start. And I promised myself and all my fellow human beings here on DU who have struggled with mental illness that I will challenge the language and assumptions and tropes that keep building the walls of stigma and bigotry around us.

And finally, for those NRA shills who would be seen as "enlightened" and who are willing to walk back the whole "hey, let's allow the mentally ill people gunz just like everyone else, protect their 2ndA rights, TOO!" weirdness and put the onus on some mythical "mental illness detector" that can be installed in gun shops and carried around to gun shows, let's pop that bubble, too:

Why Can't Doctors Identify Killers

Unless, of course, we're willing to go with the whole "patriarcy-induced misogyny" thing as a bona-fide diagnosis of mental illness that will legally disqualify those diagnosed therewith from ever getting their pattypaws on anything resembling a firearm.

THAT, I could support, yep.

wearily,
Bright

[niyad]

1. I am so very sorry that you have to keep reposting this very important reminder.

[Girard442]

2. In principle yes, but...

...in this case, the shooter's actions were so self-destructive, it's hard for me to see him as evil-but-rational.

[TygrBright]

3. Even self-destructiveness, per se, is not a form of mental illness.

It may be the result of, or symptomatic of, some forms of mental illness.

But what about a soldier who makes the decision to dive into an active fire zone to take out a sniper, even though they know the chance of succeeding is low and the chance of being injured or killed is high? Or the first responder who charges into danger to rescue another?

Or the person of less-than-economically privileged status who votes GOP?

Self-destructiveness doesn't necessarily mean "mentally ill" even when it involves perpetrating great evil upon others.

It may seem as though anyone or anything who can even think of perpetrating such things without regard to their own safety, even courting their own destruction, is so far from what we regard as 'normal humanity' that they must fall into some category of "abnormal" that relates to how they think and act... and we call that category "mentally ill."

But it still doesn't make it so. You can apply all kinds of diagnostic tests to them and never be sure they're not knowingly, intentionally, being deceptive and simply, yes... evil.

Which is the OTHER category for people who perpetrate sickeningly horrible things, with or without regard for their own safety and future.

Evil.

It's NOT the same as "mentally ill."

Trying to see it that way may seem like we're being compassionate and extending some kind of "benefit of the doubt" to people whose actions an thoughts are so repugnantly incomprehensible to us that we can't allow them to be anything but 'abnormal', and therefore "ill" and perhaps in some sense diminished of their own responsibility for the horror thereby.

But that still doesn't make them "mentally ill," and trying to shoehorn evil or criminal actions into the box labelled "mental illness" is the perpetration of stigma and bigotry.

Please think larger than that.

Maybe this prick IS mentally ill... but without a reliable diagnostic assessment, we cannot and should not make that assumption.

And maybe this prick IS mentally ill... but so the fuck what? That's neither an explanation nor an excuse for what he did. Mentally ill people don't go around shooting up churches as a 'thing.' So addressing mental illness isn't necessarily going to keep this shit from happening again...

...and again...

...and again...

...and in the mean time it'll do untold damage to mentally ill people who already have to fight with their own self-assessments and the horrors of their diseases on a constant basis.

You don't have to see beyond "evil" if you're not the examining psychiatrist, a jury member, or perhaps an advocate or journalist doing analysis and examination as a larger contextual exploration. You're free to stop at "what he did was evil" and focus on the various social and cultural mechanisms AND TOOLS that enabled him to do it.

helpfully,
Bright

[smirkymonkey]

4. I completely agree. I never bought into the idea that just because someone does something

heinous that they are automatically mentally ill. Some people are just hateful, bitter, un-empathetic assholes, but I don't think that qualifies as mental illness. It lets them off the hook too easily and stigmatizes many decent, non-violent people who have been diagnosed with mental illnesses.

[happy feet]

5. I too cringe every time I hear this

Thank-you for your diligence in posting.

[loyalsister]

6. Indeed!!

I was annoyed with Obama's response that targeted people with mental illness for exactly that reason.

The belief that it is okay to kill people is embedded in our culture because it is consitent with the flawed interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.

If we are entitled to own guns designed specifically to kill people, we are entitled to use them. Thus, we have a right to kill people.

There is no self defense caveat. Even if there were, the concept of self defense has been manipulated to favor people who may be inclined to kill. People who believe they have a right to kill others are not necessarily deluded or irrational. And, they're not even wrong. They have drawn a valid logical conclusion.

We need to face the fact that our political system, the NRA, and our fellow citizens have given these shooters permission and helped them along every step of the way.