Loughner, meaning and mental illness
Jan. 13th, 2011 09:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrMark Tiedemann wrote an excellent and thoughtful blog entry about Palin's speech. I commented
I've been thinking a great deal about the gunman, Loughner. One thing that has bothered me is the way that the media has been attempting to frame him (i.e., is he a political liberal or a conservative), without sufficiently taking into account what seems in hindsight to be blindingly obvious: the man was mentally ill. Sarah Palin characterized him as "an evil man." Obama did better, referring to him in factually more neutral terms, i.e. 'the gunman' and 'the killer' and said, in rather more measured nuance
As some have taken care to say, the mentally ill are not in most cases likely to become violent; on the contrary, they are most often likely to become the victims of violence, because of their vulnerability. Whatever his actions, I do believe that because of his illness he has diminished responsibility. I do feel very deeply for his parents, who according to all reports are in desperate anguish over their son's actions.
Obama sounded a note of compassion in his speech about almost all parties in his speech involved in the events in Arizona with I think one exception: Mr Loughner and his parents. He did touch about the necessity of discussing the adequacy of our mental health system, and that, I suppose is something. Perhaps it just wasn't politically feasible for him to say something sympathetic about a man who commited such a heinous act. I still wish that he had. I understand that he visited and spoke with many of the people he mentioned in his speech. I wish and hope that he had visited and spoke with Loughner's parents too, but I suppose political realities might make that impossible--people would be outraged at the idea that the parents of "such a monster" might need comforting, too.
But the situation of the medically ill in this country can be truly desperate. There is so little help for parents of a child who is sick in the mind, so little assistance, so little guidance, and most bitterly of all, very often so little compassion.
So many have expressed their condolence for dead and the wounded. I wish that more could have spared a sympathetic thought or even dared to speak aloud condolences for the family of this young man who lost his way in darkness and madness. I am sure they are hurting, too.
Edited to add: Saw this link elsewhere: a truly stunning first person article written by Susan Klebold, mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the perpetrators of Columbine, talking about what insights she has gleaned, ten painful years afterwards.
What no one seems to have pointed out yet is one way that, weirdly enough, Palin allied herself with Loughner. By insisting that her words should not be taken as having had any effect on events, she seems to agree with one of the thoughts that came to be an obsession for Loughner: that words in fact have no meaning (other than, perhaps, the meaning he personally attributed to them).As peeved as I've been with the man lately, I thought Obama's speech was really excellent, and quite a pointed contrast with Sarah Palin's.
I've been thinking a great deal about the gunman, Loughner. One thing that has bothered me is the way that the media has been attempting to frame him (i.e., is he a political liberal or a conservative), without sufficiently taking into account what seems in hindsight to be blindingly obvious: the man was mentally ill. Sarah Palin characterized him as "an evil man." Obama did better, referring to him in factually more neutral terms, i.e. 'the gunman' and 'the killer' and said, in rather more measured nuance
Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, "I looked for light, and then came darkness." Bad things happen, and we have to guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.I am sure that Mr. Loughner will be carefully assessed, and I suspect that the diagnosis will be something close to paranoid schizophrenia. This is a disease that often shows up right when he started showing symptoms, in the late teens, early twenties. He showed classic symptoms: incoherent thought, inappropriate laughter and hostility, and confusion about causality.
For the truth is none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped these shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man's mind.
As some have taken care to say, the mentally ill are not in most cases likely to become violent; on the contrary, they are most often likely to become the victims of violence, because of their vulnerability. Whatever his actions, I do believe that because of his illness he has diminished responsibility. I do feel very deeply for his parents, who according to all reports are in desperate anguish over their son's actions.
Obama sounded a note of compassion in his speech about almost all parties in his speech involved in the events in Arizona with I think one exception: Mr Loughner and his parents. He did touch about the necessity of discussing the adequacy of our mental health system, and that, I suppose is something. Perhaps it just wasn't politically feasible for him to say something sympathetic about a man who commited such a heinous act. I still wish that he had. I understand that he visited and spoke with many of the people he mentioned in his speech. I wish and hope that he had visited and spoke with Loughner's parents too, but I suppose political realities might make that impossible--people would be outraged at the idea that the parents of "such a monster" might need comforting, too.
But the situation of the medically ill in this country can be truly desperate. There is so little help for parents of a child who is sick in the mind, so little assistance, so little guidance, and most bitterly of all, very often so little compassion.
So many have expressed their condolence for dead and the wounded. I wish that more could have spared a sympathetic thought or even dared to speak aloud condolences for the family of this young man who lost his way in darkness and madness. I am sure they are hurting, too.
Edited to add: Saw this link elsewhere: a truly stunning first person article written by Susan Klebold, mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the perpetrators of Columbine, talking about what insights she has gleaned, ten painful years afterwards.