Thread: Violent rhetoric and the shooting in AZ

Originally Posted by gwahir

Also, if anyone would like to debate the gold standard issue, please do so! In another thread. I'd be very happy to see more threads pop up in here, after all.

EDIT: I moved the existing posts on that topic into their own thread anyway.

You bastard.


Anyway, the one real message that people can take away that hopefully might make some good come about out of a tragic situation is: if this kid got the help he needed to treat his mental illness, this wouldn't have happened. Sure, accuse me of placing blame on a condition that no one has control over, but it's a simple fact that treating this guy would have prevented this shooting.

On the other hand, the more likely message about mental illness that people will take away from this is that all mentally ill people are a potential psychopathic murderers. So the stigma of mental illness deepens, making it less likely that people with mental illnesses receive treatment and more likely that people whose mental illnesses are well-controlled will be unfairly treated because of their condition, or at least live in fear of this.

Even though most people with mental illnesses wouldn't commit an act like this, it's been estimated that the productivity lost from people who aren't getting treatment for the most extreme sorts of mental illness (schizophrenia, extreme bipolarism, etc.) is worth the profits of a Fortune 10 company. That's not including productivity lost from the emotional strain placed upon others nor that lost from people with more moderate but untreated mental illness.

Originally Posted by sycld

Anyway, the one real message that people can take away that hopefully might make some good come about out of a tragic situation is: if this kid got the help he needed to treat his mental illness, this wouldn't have happened. Sure, accuse me of placing blame on a condition that no one has control over, but it's a simple fact that treating this guy would have prevented this shooting.

On the other hand, the more likely message about mental illness that people will take away from this is that all mentally ill people are a potential psychopathic murderers. So the stigma of mental illness deepens, making it less likely that people with mental illnesses receive treatment and more likely that people whose mental illnesses are well-controlled will be unfairly treated because of their condition, or at least live in fear of this.

Even though most people with mental illnesses wouldn't commit an act like this, it's been estimated that the productivity lost from people who aren't getting treatment for the most extreme sorts of mental illness (schizophrenia, extreme bipolarism, etc.) is worth the profits of a Fortune 10 company. That's not including productivity lost from the emotional strain placed upon others nor that lost from people with more moderate but untreated mental illness.

the productivity thing comes from a distinctively puritan utilitarianism; colour me uninterested
as for the rest of the mental illness thing, thins is a natural result of the language used to refer to and cultural significance given to "mental illness"; now, I'm no Thomas Szasz, but the psychiatric institution's cultural and intellectual structure is in desperate need of overhaul, and, as for the public understanding of "mental illness", it verges on a category error.
You're right that, with treatment, he could have been ok, but it depends to some extent on who he was treated by. To imagine that "treatment" as a reified, objective thing would have made him better doesn't simply underestimate chance (as it would with a physical malady), it reflects a deeply mistaken view about the level to which the psychiatric profession offers objectivity and universality.
Unless, by treatment, you mean powerful sedatives and ounces of lithium. In which case sure, this wouldn't have happened.