Mass shooting at e-sports event in US: 3 confirmed dead

Knoyleo wrote:But why do so few women "nutjobs" do this?

There are no women nutjobs.

Knoyleo wrote:But why do so few women "nutjobs" do this?

EDIT: I always love the sweeping generalisations of mental health issues that follow a shooting like this too. It invariably turns out the perpetrator had some history of mental health problems, and people act like that made it innevitable, as though anyone with a history of mental illness of any kind is just one bad day and a gun away from doing the exact same.

Pretty sure it was taf who said that most (maybe even none) mass shooting are not committed by people with mental health problems. So, I dunno if not many nutjobs or even no nutjobs do this then what does gender have to do with it?

I guess with this guy is it's not that he was just a nut job but a nutjobs who has been know for various violent outbursts.

There are plenty of well-adjusted men out there, obviously. But why are men statistically both more suicidal and more violent than women? Why are there far more male mass-shooting nutjobs than female mass-shooting nutjobs?

Well, there are two fundamental differences between men and women: male socialisation, which is to do with societal expectations of male behaviour, and male hormones, which is to do with having testes instead of ovaries.

We've studied, scientifically, the effect of testosterone on things like violence and aggression, and found they're largely unrelated - some studies suggesting no link at all, some studies suggesting very vague and blurry links - despite the popular belief that they are closely related.

So the answer must lie in the "manliness as a social concept" stuff, which we call masculinity. There must be some elements of masculinity which are unhealthy. If we could change those things about society, we'd make men as a whole happier and healthier...

i honestly dont understand how anyone can look at the stats for a) male violent offending rates, b) male suicide rates, c) mass shooting event data and go
"nothing wrong with the way men are socialised, women are just as bad!"
strawberry float me

more heat than light wrote:

Dig Dug wrote:Unfortunately we are at the point where the obvious solution (gun control) feels like an impossibility.

If you think it's difficult taking America's guns away, I look forward to you trying to persuade American men that it's ok to cry now and again.

Well that’s just it, we’re trying to resolve the issue in ridiculous ways because the actual solutions aren’t an option.

<]:^D wrote:i honestly dont understand how anyone can look at the stats for a) male violent offending rates, b) male suicide rates, c) mass shooting event data and go
"nothing wrong with the way men are socialised, women are just as bad!"
strawberry float me

Yes but Spongebob is effeminate so a), b) and c) there are all irrelevant.

Karl wrote:There are plenty of well-adjusted men out there, obviously. But why are men statistically both more suicidal and more violent than women? Why are there far more male mass-shooting nutjobs than female mass-shooting nutjobs?

Well, there are two fundamental differences between men and women: male socialisation, which is to do with societal expectations of male behaviour, and male hormones, which is to do with having testes instead of ovaries.

We've studied, scientifically, the effect of testosterone on things like violence and aggression, and found they're largely unrelated - some studies suggesting no link at all, some studies suggesting very vague and blurry links - despite the popular belief that they are closely related.

So the answer must lie in the "manliness as a social concept" stuff, which we call masculinity. There must be some elements of masculinity which are unhealthy. If we could change those things about society, we'd make men as a whole happier and healthier...

I'm not going to argue with you about any of this. I agree with you. It's definitely a male problem and I don't doubt that Male toxicity is aassive problem in the majority of the incidents. I was merely suggesting that this time that wasn't the problem and maybe his mental health was the reason. The problem seems to be that on this forum there is no middle ground it's either 'oh no men are evil' or 'No, women are just as bad and feminist seem to want to get the boot in'.

My point is that not every mass shooting is going to have the exact same reasoning, this one could genuinely be that the guy was nuts.

Pedz wrote:I'm not going to argue with you about any of this. I agree with you. It's definitely a male problem and I don't doubt that Male toxicity is aassive problem in the majority of the incidents. I was merely suggesting that this time that wasn't the problem and maybe his mental health was the reason. The problem seems to be that on this forum there is no middle ground it's either 'oh no men are evil' or 'No, women are just as bad and feminist seem to want to get the boot in'.

My point is that not every mass shooting is going to have the exact same reasoning, this one could genuinely be that the guy was nuts.

I'm really sorry if you feel I'm not meeting you halfway, or if I'm being extremist. My post was genuinely just a general musing based on the discourse so far, but if I had to "aim it" at anyone I suppose it would be Rightey -- not in a rude way, but I guess he's the poster most suspicious about whether "toxic masculinity" exists. I don't hate men, it's not about that, that's really not my position.

I was (obviously) socialised male, and I have mental health difficulties. (I don't believe I should be sold a gun; I would never hurt anyone else, but with my history I couldn't guarantee I wouldn't hurt myself.) Mental health advocacy is an incredibly important part of a leftist perspective on shootings. It's not just about making sure people with issues don't get guns; it's about getting people with issues access to the help they need before they hurt themselves or others. I support that wholeheartedly.

Mental health, gender, and gun control are all valid and important leftist talking points here. From my point of view, I think the most effective way to talk about shootings is to make sure they're packaged together, because then you get all the perspectives and all the pieces of the puzzle, and you can understand the problem from every angle.

Mafro wrote:

KK wrote:On the basis this guy appeared to weigh no more than 10 stone, can I just say that if you're able to punch a hole in a door may I suggest you buy some strawberry floating better doors. I mean how is this even possible? Never mind the guns, let's have a discussion here on the flimsiness of US homes.

They do all seem wafer thin in all those dumb Vine clips of people accidentally smashing through them when doing a handstand or whatever.

Reminds me of WWE in the attitude era. I'm sure Big Show fell through one wall by simply leaning against it.

I can just imagine my Dad walking around these homes shouting “Look at this gooseberry fool, flimsy as strawberry float. My foot has just gone through your wall. Look! You’ll have to get that sorted now, it’s strawberry floated” while kicking and hitting everything, leaving a trail of destruction around their home. “Pile of shite that is, mate. You’ve been had...bet if I pissed on that your whole house would corrode...”

And so on and so forth.

Drumstick wrote:

Mafro wrote:

KK wrote:On the basis this guy appeared to weigh no more than 10 stone, can I just say that if you're able to punch a hole in a door may I suggest you buy some strawberry floating better doors. I mean how is this even possible? Never mind the guns, let's have a discussion here on the flimsiness of US homes.

They do all seem wafer thin in all those dumb Vine clips of people accidentally smashing through them when doing a handstand or whatever.

Reminds me of WWE in the attitude era. I'm sure Big Show fell through one wall by simply leaning against it.

Dry wall and plywood everywhere.

Moggy wrote:

<]:^D wrote:i honestly dont understand how anyone can look at the stats for a) male violent offending rates, b) male suicide rates, c) mass shooting event data and go
"nothing wrong with the way men are socialised, women are just as bad!"
strawberry float me

Yes but Spongebob is effeminate so a), b) and c) there are all irrelevant.

People in here were saying men are taught they should be always be angry, yelling, winning, and fighting. I brought Spongebob up because it proves that's not always true. But sure, you just continue to believe whatever you like about what I said.

are you suggesting that one counterexample should throw the whole theory out?

Well, I think the thrust of the discourse here so far has been largely framed in terms of intersectionality - in this context, how we need multiple models of human behaviour to understand the problem of shootings - and how one of those models is the idea that male socialisation could predispose some subset of men towards anger/violence, and how statistics on male suicide and male violence support the relevance of that model to the problem, and how we might adjust the parameters of that socially constructed masculinity to help those men who are affected by that negative element of male socialisation.

Rightey's misapprehension is, I think, that we think this is the only useful model, and/or that we think every portrayal or exhibition of masculinity is negative. This isn't the point I've made, and I don't think it's the point Taf or Knoyleo or you (Hat Guy) has made. I don't think I can respond to his point directly because it's a non-sequitur in the context of the discourse.

It's impossible to argue against directly because, fundamentally, I don't disagree with his assertion that SpongeBob is progressive -- I disagree with the implication that this has wider ramifications for how men are socialised. I think the existence of progressive-leaning cartoons represents some progress in this area, but because I don't foundationally base my understanding of patriarchy or masculinity on cartoons, the existence or even prevalence of progressive cartoons does not for me destroy or deconstruct the ideas of patriarchy or masculinity. I'm left with the choice of arguing against either his statement - which taken in isolation is in and of itself correct - or his implication, to which he will always respond that I am misrepresenting what he really meant (as Moggy just found out).

For what it's worth, right-wing sources always misrepresent identity politics as ridiculous soundbites without any nuance, and their rhetorical arsenal focuses on forming simple & catchy rebuttals to those misrepresentations. You can see that rhetorical style at work here.

Now that the mental state of the shooter is a bit clearer, it's a bit more useful to start talking about the social conditioning that could have led to this.

Personally, I always think that the idea of toxic masculinity gets some people's backs up because they believe the emphasis is on the 'masculinity' bit; ie, masculinity in all it's forms is a toxic thing. That's clearly bollocks, as anyone can see. But the emphasis isn't on 'masculinity', it's on 'toxic'; ie, that sub-part of masculinity (which has many overwhelmingly positive aspects) which is awful, stunting and, if un-addressed, dangerous.

Yes, there are some efforts to try and give growing lads a more balanced outlook, but they're few and far between. Spongebob Squarepants is not presented as a role model who is able to articulate complex feelings constructively; he's just not presented as the new lead of a Commando remake.

Lads are still told that feelings are weaknesses, that success is measured monetarily and failure to be successful is shameful. Stay at home dads whose partners out earn them still get stigmatised. Virgin is still an insult. The choice to take a woman's surname in marriage is one that would need to be explained at length. Many guys cite Fight Club as their favourite film having (mistakenly) interpreted it as a story of reclamation of manhood in the face of a feminised society. John Wick, Death Wish, Taken, The Equaliser, Man on Fire; there's a whole genre of power fantasy action film where the protagonist is emasculated by having something taken from him by force (usually a woman, because they're just things that a man owns that can be taken from him) and he must reclaim his manhood by violently getting it back.

There's vast swathes of societal norms that breed really damaging (often conflicting) messages in young boys, and these ideas in the mind of someone who is already mentally ill can have massive impacts.

Have you guys ever read the manifesto of Elliot Rodgers? It's a horrendous read, especially knowing that he went on to commit such a horrific crime. But when you read it, it's not the ramblings of a completely off the wall lunatic. He's not talking about lizard people in authority and deep-state pizza conspiracies. Most of his ideas are ideas that we see and encounter in pretty much everyday life; just taken one or two (alright maybe twenty) steps beyond that which is socially acceptable. His views were toxic and appalling, but I see watered down versions of his talking points posted here, uncontroversially, every day.

I may be a bit off with this belief, but I always thought the term "toxic masculinity" had nothing to do with feminism at all. As Skarjo said, it's not being a man that is "toxic", nor are people slow-hand-clapping women for not shooting up public spaces.

It's hard to narrow this down to just one factor - easy fun access, mental health issues, toxic masculinity etc - instead it's probably a myriad of reasons all tangling together.

There's got to be a factor though, in why often the shooter is a young, white male. There's normally some frustrating or resentment in there towards society in general and a conflict between what they expect to have in life (or, more aggressively, what they feel they have a God-given right to have) and what their lot actually is.

I think this is quite a male-dominated personality trait. When I say "a God-given right" to have certain things, I'm not talking about basic human wants and needs, like clean water, a criminal justice system equality, the vote etc. I'm on about a type of long-harboired resentment towards society in general for how they are treated.

I don't think this is necessarily solely something that manifests itself in shootings either. I'd argue we probably see it with Trump and the rise of the Right in recent years. These people think they deserve better than what they've got ( and I guess, given the poverty involved in some corners, they could have a point). They feel like they've been wrongly overlooked or forgotten about, perhaps the success going to more unworthy quarters. Or, as we see in politics, perhaps there's someone else, or another group, to blame for them not getting the success and life they deserve.

We can see it here by the reaction to a defeat. No rational person acts like that when they lose a video game. Not even Chalky and his Dark Souls disc. Something has become warped where success (in this case a Madden victory) was something he was owed or deserved and it was taken away from him unjustly. Someone else was to blame and this time it was his fellow players.

Likewise, I guess an inferiority complex or something similar might have lead to an increased focus on the money involved in the Madden tournament. Or seeing better players, or more popular streamers, get the success. It's become a twisted example of someone not thinking "I could be like that" and instead violently demanded "I should be like that" and seeking revenge on the people who have been stopping you getting what you deserve.

And then there's also the twisted fame and infamy that a shooting brings. These men have been denied popularity, fame, achievement by their peers, but this is one thing they can (sadly) control. It's power. Not a power any of us would want to yield, but for these men - who are told men must be powerful, successful, strong - it's pretty much all they can get.

Obviously if we are looking at causes, it's going to be a massive spider diagram of tangled lines and connections. Why do women who feel this way not lash out like this? Is there a reason disillusioned young women don't shoot up a school and whatnot. Is there a reason (some) men channel their anger in this way?

And then you obviously have the gun control laws, which make this sort of violent against society possible and more attainable. And most of the time, the crime is meant to hurt society. It's not simple revenge, as the shooter often doesn't have a single target and just shoots indiscriminately, trying to cause as much carnage as possible. They don't just hunt out the person or persons that wronged them, as it's nowhere near as calculated like that and the killing doesn't stop with a single murder, it goes on until the shooter has no option but to kill themselves.

It's an act designed to hurt society - the same society that has hurt them. In one case, a school where he wasn't as popular as he should be, in this case, a tournament where he wasn't as successful as he should have been.

Rightey wrote:

Moggy wrote:

<]:^D wrote:i honestly dont understand how anyone can look at the stats for a) male violent offending rates, b) male suicide rates, c) mass shooting event data and go
"nothing wrong with the way men are socialised, women are just as bad!"
strawberry float me

Yes but Spongebob is effeminate so a), b) and c) there are all irrelevant.

People in here were saying men are taught they should be always be angry, yelling, winning, and fighting. I brought Spongebob up because it proves that's not always true. But sure, you just continue to believe whatever you like about what I said.

It’s interesting that you are ignoring most of the well thought out and reasoned arguments in here, but jump on that clearly lighthearted mockery of a post.

I’m sorry Rightey, Spongebob is obviously the cure to all of this and we should force all men to watch cartoons and solve violence for ever. And yes, that is also lighthearted mockery.

Surely the reason men are more prone to violence/aggression/domination is because that's our evolutionary past? Men have always been the hunters that have had to kill to feed their tribe, they've had to kill other people to protect their tribe, they've had to kill to maintain their position as leader(s) of the tribe, they've had to kill others at the command of their tribal leaders and so on and so on.

Violence, anger, domination, blood feuds, crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing the lamentation of their women - it's all part of the male DNA that goes back countless generations. That gooseberry fool is hard-wired into us, and will likely always be hard-wired into us, whether you like it or not. Civilisation has evolved so that there's now a thin veneer of civility on top of that caveman DNA that the overwhelming majority of men have managed to (subconsciously) maintain so that civilisation doesn't descend into chaos, the psychos that commit these mass murders weren't able to do that, and combined with a mental illness that just exacerbates the situation and leads to these outbursts of extreme violence.

If women had been doing all of the killing on humanity's behalf instead of men over the last 250,000 years you'd see them being the more aggressive sex, guaranteed.

Tafdolphin wrote:There are no women nutjobs.

Don't be silly, of course there are.

Preezy wrote:Surely the reason men are more prone to violence/aggression/domination is because that's our evolutionary past? Men have always been the hunters that have had to kill to feed their tribe, they've had to kill other people to protect their tribe, they've had to kill to maintain their position as leader(s) of the tribe, they've had to kill others at the command of their tribal leaders and so on and so on.

Violence, anger, domination, blood feuds, crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing the lamentation of their women - it's all part of the male DNA that goes back countless generations. That gooseberry fool is hard-wired into us, and will likely always be hard-wired into us, whether you like it or not. Civilisation has evolved so that there's now a thin veneer of civility on top of that caveman DNA that the overwhelming majority of men have managed to (subconsciously) maintain so that civilisation doesn't descend into chaos, the psychos that commit these mass murders weren't able to do that, and combined with a mental illness that just exacerbates the situation and leads to these outbursts of extreme violence.

If women had been doing all of the killing on humanity's behalf instead of men over the last 250,000 years you'd see them being the more aggressive sex, guaranteed.

Tafdolphin wrote:There are no women nutjobs.

Don't be silly, of course there are.

You know DNA isn't exclusively patrilineal or matrilineal for boys or girls, right?

Knoyleo wrote:You know DNA isn't exclusively patrilineal or matrilineal for boys or girls, right?

Obviously I was using the term "it's in our DNA" in the same way that Barcelona say that attacking football is in their DNA (i.e. not scientifically).