crackerjack
Well-known member
Oh shit. And he lives in the same borough as me. I'm staying in tonight, with the locks on.
Virginia Gun Massacre
- Thread starter IdleRich
- Start date
Oh shit. And he lives in the same borough as me. I'm staying in tonight, with the locks on.
hundredmillionlifetimes
Banned
I Did It For The Media Big Other
No doubt, the Virginia Tech killer's fave movie was the one so beloved of indy film morons [yeah, I've been one too], Scorsese's Taxi Driver, the wannabe Travis Bickle demanding [suicidal] ontological security via a psychotic passage a l'act. Or maybe not [maybe Le Haine, instead, as the French prefer].
What's interesting - and telling - and distinctly novel about this particular act [a characteristic nowhere covered either in mainstream media or in supposedly alternative blogoland] is its startling similarity as a viral simulation of the Middle Eastern suicide bomber narrative: the organised video pre-recording of the planned suicidal mass-murdering mission; that he was Asian, was Korean, only reinforces this growing phenomenon [though I'm not sure that the subsequent killing-spree of the disgruntled NASA contractor was due to him being a home-video enthusiast]: the evil demon of [pre-recorded] images, as previously summarised by K-punt in the Baudrillard thread ...
"The 'if no-one saw it, it didn't happen' position is not one entertained by Baudrillard. He argued that, increasingly, things only happen BECAUSE they are, or will be, seen. The media gaze instigates pseudo-events, 'happenings' which would never take place unless they were filmed or reported. Who can seriously gainsay this, in an age of ubiquitous PR and spin - activities, which, as we well know, dominate military logic as much as anything else? Terrorism, too, is unthinkable outside the media responses it seeks to evoke."
A hierarchy of death
Why do 32 deaths in Virginia receive blanket coverage while nearly 200 fatalities in Iraq are barely reported?
No doubt, the Virginia Tech killer's fave movie was the one so beloved of indy film morons [yeah, I've been one too], Scorsese's Taxi Driver, the wannabe Travis Bickle demanding [suicidal] ontological security via a psychotic passage a l'act. Or maybe not [maybe Le Haine, instead, as the French prefer].
What's interesting - and telling - and distinctly novel about this particular act [a characteristic nowhere covered either in mainstream media or in supposedly alternative blogoland] is its startling similarity as a viral simulation of the Middle Eastern suicide bomber narrative: the organised video pre-recording of the planned suicidal mass-murdering mission; that he was Asian, was Korean, only reinforces this growing phenomenon [though I'm not sure that the subsequent killing-spree of the disgruntled NASA contractor was due to him being a home-video enthusiast]: the evil demon of [pre-recorded] images, as previously summarised by K-punt in the Baudrillard thread ...
"The 'if no-one saw it, it didn't happen' position is not one entertained by Baudrillard. He argued that, increasingly, things only happen BECAUSE they are, or will be, seen. The media gaze instigates pseudo-events, 'happenings' which would never take place unless they were filmed or reported. Who can seriously gainsay this, in an age of ubiquitous PR and spin - activities, which, as we well know, dominate military logic as much as anything else? Terrorism, too, is unthinkable outside the media responses it seeks to evoke."
A hierarchy of death
Why do 32 deaths in Virginia receive blanket coverage while nearly 200 fatalities in Iraq are barely reported?
i would say that the people in the Smiths and the Cure lacked the feeling of true powerlessness. they were empowered thru their music.
believe me, i am speaking from experience here. as an adolescent, i listened to tons of the Sex Pistols, Black Flag, Metallica, NWA, Jerry's Kids, Meatmen, Cop Shoot Cop, Anal Cunt, and other nihilistic hateful music... i still listen to that stuff now, but it doesn't mean the same thing to me. i am more or less a happy person now and i wasn't then. at a certain age, if you still have that base, black and white and no gray areas, adolescent anger, you have a problem. you are Rorsarch from the Watchman or something... (when i read that when i was 15, i was so fucking angry he got killed. now i understand there was no othr option for his charector)
but, you see the Cure and the Smiths are musics for the pill overdosers, not the "take the busload with them" people... they are crybabies where SAD is more important than MAD. do not confuse that issue. again, not every alientated person could commit this act. it needs to be someone who not only feels no CONNECTION with humanity, but no KINSHIP, either...
Gavin
booty bass intellectual
Oldboy.
Rather convoluted revenge plot with incredible action sequences. I think it's pretty neat.
As far as "expecting" society to provide happiness for us: isn't that why we suffer through the stupid crap we all have to do every day? Because there's some reward (paycheck, heaven, satisfaction) at the end? And no one except the most sheltered of my undergrads thinks that this generation's "rewards" will compare to the last ones: should we choose to continue to reproduce this society as our parents did, we will work harder for less (although we will have way more porn and drugs along the way). My students laugh nervously when I tell them real wages peaked in 1972 and that many of them be working the same dead-end service sector job (or a similar one in a slightly different town) they do now even once they have their marketing degree. I don't think the old "stiff upper lips, gents" will cut it -- we have to drug large percentages of the population just so they can get through their day, and many of the rest self-medicate one way or another.
And my previous comments were not meant to imply agency does not exist, that some objectified society MUST provide all good things to people or they won't get them. But at the same time we are lied to continually about what possibilities we have -- the logic of "waah, give me satisfaction now!" is the slogan of consumerism. We see it a thousand times a day, one of the most potent ideologies
Also, a lot of my comments imply an American perspective, and from what I can tell the U.S. is way more batshit insane than the U.K. And I live in rural Ohio, not some international megacity. There's a weird feeling of gritting the teeth, grabbing the handlebars, but with a forced smile, a pushing back of the inevitable shitty future that awaits, especially for places like this should things continue course. Powerlessness doused with an optimism that is steadily crumbling. So forgive me if I think people are much closer to snapping than those of you fortunate to live in cultural meccas at the center of slightly less batty nations. I can't really articulate it, but it's the same weird giddy-yet-totally-exhausted-but-fuck-it-full-speed-ahead tone I find in mainstream movies these days.
And you can give me the kiss off but I find these things more interesting if substantive criticisms are lodged.
hundredmillionlifetimes
Banned
Come again? With his "small arms" he managed to kill even more. But maybe his victims were all just matching small people, and so we can therefore relax gun controls even further.
Gee, if only you were around, you could have advised him to use a stapler instead, bound to jam at some point. Or maybe that's why American academia is falling apart at the seams.
Loner psycho? Isn't that the very stereotype that is most celebrated and encouraged in a culture obsessed with predatory "individualism", broadcast daily by all of its institutions? Rambo, Dirty Harry, Mel Gibson, Mr Bush and on and on ...
hundredmillionlifetimes
Banned
For The Scientists: The Chemical Angle
"It's hard for people to understand. They say 'you must know what you're doing,' but you do not. You cannot distinguish reality. I could never tell if I was awake or asleep. That was the hardest thing for me to determine. I would lay down in bed and I would think 'Now am I dreaming this or am I awake and doing this?" My mind constantly ran, it never would stop. I could be having this conversation with you and the whole time if I was drinking coffee, I could be thinking about running it on my hand and wondering what it would feel like. Thinking irrational thoughts. And yet still able to communicate at what would appear to be a rational level. That's why I think psychiatrists and psychologists and doctors who are dealing with people on Prozac are totally oblivious to what's going on. These people are the best liars in the whole world in terms of being able to come to you and say 'I'm fine.' But the whole time they might be thinking 'I wonder what it would feel like to stick this knife in my hand?' And, 'I can take on a motorcycyle gang and kill 'em all.' Most of these people on Prozac like myself lose all natural ability to love. It becomes a spiritual dullness. You cease to know right from wrong. Because there's no wrong and you're right 100 percent and the hell with the rest of you."
===Bonnie Leitsch, explaining what Prozac did to her thinking
The media just can't fathom Seung Hui Cho's lethal outburst, but Bonnie Leitsch -may she still be going strong- can fathom it all too well.
A Killer Cocktail
Prozac Madness
By FRED GARDNER
The lard-assed cops at Virginia Tech spent two hours interrogating the wrong suspect and failed to prevent the massacre. Now they're "investigating." What is there to investigate - which brand or brands of anti-depressant Seung Hui Cho was taking?
A lonely, picked-on boy was given Prozac (or one of its chemical analogs) like Kip Kinkel in Oregon, like Eric Harris in Colorado. This is not a scoop, America: Prozac causes horrible, bizarre flip-outs. It is a fact that has been known for 20 years and that Eli Lilly and the other manufacturers of "selective" serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have relentlessly denied and are still trying to suppress.
On the very day after the shootings at Virginia Tech, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study challenging the "black box" warning that the Food and Drug Administration had finally attached to Prozac in October, 2004. "Antidepressants Get a Boost For Use in Teens" read the Wall St. Journal headline. "Despite Warnings on Labels, Study says Benefits Outweigh Risk of Suicidal Tendencies."
The New York Times ran its account of the new pro-Prozac study on the page facing the obituaries of students and faculty members killed at Virginia Tech! "Scales Said to Tip in Favor of Antidepressant Use in Children -A risk of suicidal thoughts is found to be more than offset." You'd think that 33 deaths would more than offset it back.
Evidence that Prozac induces suicidal ideation and actions emerged when the drug was in clinical trials in Germany in the mid-1980s. The German findings were misrepresented to the FDA by a Lilly employee named Joachim Wernicke. U.S. marketing approval was granted in December, 1988, with no warning required. More ...
"It's hard for people to understand. They say 'you must know what you're doing,' but you do not. You cannot distinguish reality. I could never tell if I was awake or asleep. That was the hardest thing for me to determine. I would lay down in bed and I would think 'Now am I dreaming this or am I awake and doing this?" My mind constantly ran, it never would stop. I could be having this conversation with you and the whole time if I was drinking coffee, I could be thinking about running it on my hand and wondering what it would feel like. Thinking irrational thoughts. And yet still able to communicate at what would appear to be a rational level. That's why I think psychiatrists and psychologists and doctors who are dealing with people on Prozac are totally oblivious to what's going on. These people are the best liars in the whole world in terms of being able to come to you and say 'I'm fine.' But the whole time they might be thinking 'I wonder what it would feel like to stick this knife in my hand?' And, 'I can take on a motorcycyle gang and kill 'em all.' Most of these people on Prozac like myself lose all natural ability to love. It becomes a spiritual dullness. You cease to know right from wrong. Because there's no wrong and you're right 100 percent and the hell with the rest of you."
===Bonnie Leitsch, explaining what Prozac did to her thinking
The media just can't fathom Seung Hui Cho's lethal outburst, but Bonnie Leitsch -may she still be going strong- can fathom it all too well.
A Killer Cocktail
Prozac Madness
By FRED GARDNER
The lard-assed cops at Virginia Tech spent two hours interrogating the wrong suspect and failed to prevent the massacre. Now they're "investigating." What is there to investigate - which brand or brands of anti-depressant Seung Hui Cho was taking?
A lonely, picked-on boy was given Prozac (or one of its chemical analogs) like Kip Kinkel in Oregon, like Eric Harris in Colorado. This is not a scoop, America: Prozac causes horrible, bizarre flip-outs. It is a fact that has been known for 20 years and that Eli Lilly and the other manufacturers of "selective" serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have relentlessly denied and are still trying to suppress.
On the very day after the shootings at Virginia Tech, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study challenging the "black box" warning that the Food and Drug Administration had finally attached to Prozac in October, 2004. "Antidepressants Get a Boost For Use in Teens" read the Wall St. Journal headline. "Despite Warnings on Labels, Study says Benefits Outweigh Risk of Suicidal Tendencies."
The New York Times ran its account of the new pro-Prozac study on the page facing the obituaries of students and faculty members killed at Virginia Tech! "Scales Said to Tip in Favor of Antidepressant Use in Children -A risk of suicidal thoughts is found to be more than offset." You'd think that 33 deaths would more than offset it back.
Evidence that Prozac induces suicidal ideation and actions emerged when the drug was in clinical trials in Germany in the mid-1980s. The German findings were misrepresented to the FDA by a Lilly employee named Joachim Wernicke. U.S. marketing approval was granted in December, 1988, with no warning required. More ...
Uhg, for the last time, we aren't trying to come up with EXCUSES for this guy, we are trying to UNDERSTAND the motivation behind his actions, which could come from a variety of sources. Is this too hard to grasp? No one here is trying to prove that the guy is totally innocent, and was somehow forced to kill all those people by the invisible hand of capital or something. Why is suggesting he was influenced by various factors in society around him so crazy? The negative side of prozac is well documented, for instance, and it's perfectly reasonable to ask whether it played a role.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I get the impression that far too many psychiatric drugs are handed out willy-nilly to anyone who seems the slightest bit odd, or down, or simply uncomfortable to be around - or, most disturbingly of all since it applies to kids, the slightest bit difficult to bring up or teach.
People who are having difficulty of one sort or another should talk to other people, or if necessary be talked to. Powerful drugs should be the last, not the first, resort.
And I agree entirely that we're trying to look at reasons for this, not moral excuses. The reason may just turn out be "because he was a horrible, fucked-up man", but there's presumably a reason he became a horrible, fucked-up man, right?
People who are having difficulty of one sort or another should talk to other people, or if necessary be talked to. Powerful drugs should be the last, not the first, resort.
And I agree entirely that we're trying to look at reasons for this, not moral excuses. The reason may just turn out be "because he was a horrible, fucked-up man", but there's presumably a reason he became a horrible, fucked-up man, right?
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Come over here and say that, you scurvy dog!
Ahhh, I've just re-read the last page and got the bridal veil/Daily Mail reference - I thought zhao was just calling me a DM reader, hence the threats!
Yes, exactly. And I think more generally, the interesting question is what has happened recently (ie, since 1980) that has brought about these horrilbe, fucked-up men? Though I've actually been wondering about that stat...wasn't there some lone gunman in texas who went up a clocktower and started shooting people at some school in the 60s or 70s? I wonder how exactly they separate those kind of events from the more recent ones...
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I think I heard about the clocktower shooter - in fact I think there was a Simpsons episode based on it, with Ned Flanders as the gunman? Anyway, I see no particular reason to separate that incident from the more recent one.
Ahh, it did happen (albeit in a dread):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman#References_in_popular_culture
Anyway, with regards to Cho Seung-hui, I think it's worth adding that it's not necessarily the case that a series of events specifically led to his becoming fucked-up - some people are just less well-equipped to deal with everyday stress, I think - but it could be that not enough was done to prevent this fucked-up-ness worsening: it's quite clear he was well known to both colleagues and mental health workers as, at the very least, a bit of a weirdo. Not that all weirdos are sinister or dangerous, of course, but by the sound of it he was definitely sinister and at least potentially dangerous, even before the shooting.
Ahh, it did happen (albeit in a dread):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman#References_in_popular_culture
Anyway, with regards to Cho Seung-hui, I think it's worth adding that it's not necessarily the case that a series of events specifically led to his becoming fucked-up - some people are just less well-equipped to deal with everyday stress, I think - but it could be that not enough was done to prevent this fucked-up-ness worsening: it's quite clear he was well known to both colleagues and mental health workers as, at the very least, a bit of a weirdo. Not that all weirdos are sinister or dangerous, of course, but by the sound of it he was definitely sinister and at least potentially dangerous, even before the shooting.
crackerjack
Well-known member
He was the first on the list I posted.
Hmm, you might be, and Turtles might be, but there are several comments on this thread that have come perilously close to making those excuses, or at the very least, expressing sympathy ("of course I wouldn't have blown 33 people, including one septuagenarian holocaust survivor, away for no fucking reason...BUT"). We can go over them again if you want, but I'm kinda bored of that.
Agreed. Any suggestions? Unnnecessary resort to psychoactive drugs might well be one (shouldn't be too hard to spot a pattern there), atomisation of society, increased personal expectations and pressures, etc etc. And, though I'm sure this won't be popular here, I think it might be wishful thinking to claim that popular culture plays no part whatsoever.
Guybrush
Dittohead
Do you mean popular culture as in entertainment and everything related to it? If so, I most definitely agree. But your first two examples matter, too, I think.
crackerjack
Well-known member
Yes: idolisation of violence is writ large through film, video games and also music. The left has ceded too much of this ground to the right, largely because they're arguments that in the past originated from the authoritarian Christian (and often racist) right, from showing Elvis from the stomach up to anti-rave measures. I think that will change and you'll see more clearly defiined lines between a libertarian right and some leftist thought that places social cohesion above individual primacy.
My own hunch (and it's nothing more since i've no background in anything relevant) is that the atomisation of society maybe the single most important factor.
John Zerzan (the crazy anarcho primitivist) accurately described modern life as having neither real autonomy nor real community. 2 things which i would think are central to the well being of humans.
hundredmillionlifetimes
Banned
Popular culture can also be invoked to address that query:
Senior Drill Instructor Sgt. Hartman: "Does anyone known who Charles Whitman was?"
Blank faces.
"None of you dumbasses knows?"
Cowboy slowly raises his hand.
"Private Cowboy?"
"Was he the guy that shot a lot of people from a roof?"
"That's right, Private Cowboy. He shot and killed twelve people from a 28-story observation tower at the University of Texas, from distances of up to four hundred yards."
The recruits look impressed.
"Does anybody know who Lee Harvey Oswald was?"
That's easy. Almost every hand goes up.
"Private Snowball?"
Private Snowball says, "He shot Kennedy, Sir!"
"That's right. And do you know how far away he was?"
"It was pretty far. From that book suppository building, sir!"
Much laughter.
"Two hundred and fifty" feet. He was two hundred and fifty feet away and shooting at a moving target. He got off three shots with an old Italian bolt action rifle in six seconds, and got two hits, including a head shot. Do you know where those men learned to shoot like that?"
No one knows. Joker raises his hand.
"Private Joker."
"In the Marines sir?"
"In the Marines. Outstanding! Now those people showed what a Marina with his
rifle can do, and before I am through you will all be able to do the same thing."
==========From the script of Full Metal Jacket.
BTW, a very compelling film version (the first such film to examine the phenomenon) of the Whitman story was Peter Bogdanovich's Targets, released around 1967, which also featured a horrified Boris Karloff (in one of his last screen appearances), playing himself, attending one of his own horror movies at a Drive-In where sniper Whitman starts gratuitously taking potshots at the audience from his position behind the movie screen ...
I don't know if I would go so far as to politicize this rage-killing phenomenon. While an aggressive, imperialistic government and violence-obsessed pop culture certainly may have contributed to to the de-sensitization of the public yadda yadda, I lean more towards the belief that it has more to do with a macho, overly-competitive, status and wealth-seeking, cultural ethic, that may or may not have started during the 80s (hard for me to tell as I was born in 1980); which tends to reward or exclude different personality types and arguably races. The personal is political is personal, but I'd emphasize the personal for this situation. These killings were more about the killer's personal relationship, or non-relationship, with his (it's always a he isn't it?) immediate community, which failed to provide a place for him. While I wouldn't condone the killers' actions, I guess I could say I kind of understand what drove them to it, and I actually do feel sorry for them (not to say I don't feel sorry for the victims and their families too), that their situation had been so unpleasant that they felt this was the only way.
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