April 05, 2009

• "Quit doggin’ people. That’s the answer we’ve been seeking." Those of us, like me, who've never been dogged, can probably feel intense sympathy for his story, but have a hard time really understanding the rage it engenders. As a woman working in the 50s and on, the idea that violence was a way to deal with the discrimination I experienced was never an issue. In fact it was a challenge to prove that I could out-do the assholes. Is this a male/female issue. Do we raise our sons to think that literally fighting back is the only way to overcome big problems?
• Quite a few twists and turns in this story. But yeah, it always amazes me that people are surprised when someone who's been treated like dirt decides to mete out their own justice.
• Well path, I think it helps you a lot just having your complaints recognized as legitimate issues. Even people who disagree are people who have a stance. The people who actually go postal, I think a big reasons is that their issues aren't being taken seriously. Even after the incident, if a paper even bothers to bring up the persons reasons for going off, they do so dismissively, poo-pooing them. I think they feel backed into a corner, that they have to do something, and eventually there doesn't seem like there's any other way for them to be taken seriously.
• I still think that some men react differently to being backed into a corner than do most women. I was refused job opportunities because I was a woman - that's what my boss said, and equal rights for women was not yet in the statutes. And I realize that the discrimination I experienced would have been poo-pooed on the same grounds, but I was brought up to think that I had other ways to deal with the situation. this was an era when men applying for a job were eligible for a career path and women were given typing tests. I'm not really equating my experiences with those of Mr. Frazier, but there's just enough similarity that I still wonder about the difference in response to the resulting frustration.
• The situation that drove Mr. Frazier to planning a shooting spree wasn't just discrimination at work, but also a failed marriage in which he didn't "wear the pants". Plus, judging from the fact that one of the last things he did before carrying out his plan was taking his dog to a better home, I bet he was saving the last shot for himself. So, Path, I don't think that he chose violence as a way to overcome his problems. I think he just got fed up with the unfairness of it all and decided to check out early, taking a few select asshats with him as a consolation prize. As for the different response between the sexes, this reminds me a lot of suicide method preference. Men tend toward no-return methods like a gunshot and women tend toward less-certain methods like overdose. I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate that, assuming "backed into a corner" means that all options have been exhausted, men tend to think "if I'm going down, I'm going down fighting" and women tend to think "maybe, just maybe, someone will come along and save me." Yes, that's a stereotypical generalization that will certainly fall apart on individual cases, but so is the age old toilet seat argument.
• Men tend toward no-return methods like a gunshot and women tend toward less-certain methods like overdose. I always heard it as: Men tend towards more messy, violent methods like a gunshot and women tend toward less-messy, less-violent methods like overdose.
• I think the idea of being a man who doesn't back down for anyone continues to have a malign influence. I've read so many books where the hero was said to be the type who never stepped aside for anyone except women and cripples, conjuring up a vision of a town full of men with their chests thrown out having homicidal duels every time they go out for a newspaper. Frazier clearly has not got over this attitude, since he says "I’ve learned over the years how to live without letting anyone else have very much power over my life and am usually in a position where no one can fuck me over—at least, not without suffering consequences." Is that a healthy attitude, or in the final analysis, deeply misanthropic? I must admit that personally I entertain violent ideas of revenge every day, to an extent I suspect women don't. Every time a commuter steps on my foot an engrossing vision of me nailing them to the floor lingers undismissably in my mind. In my case there are plenty of reasons why these fantasies never even start on the road to realisation, and over the years I have got better at seeing them for what they are - not my own rational thoughts but the moronic effluvia of the lizard brain down there somewhere. I think it might help if we had fewer stories where honour is said to require a man to fight everyone who challenges him in any way, and more where belligerence is depicted as a ludicrous and shameful loss of dignity.
• For what it's worth, having a broken wrist has pretty much made me into a zeta male. I mean, my therapist said she'd break my arm if we arm wrestled. The lady next to me on the bus said "if you ever touch my ass again I'll HURT you!" after she moved into my passive hand sitting harmlessly on the long seat we were sharing. Everyone laughed at her (except for me) after she got off, but the point is, once a man is down, women leap to fill the dominance violence void. I like Plegmund's line about men walking around with their chests thrown out, but once the boobs are pushed forward, all bets are off.
• It is interesting that just in the past week we've seen far, far too many shootings, and all have involved "angry" men. Can anyone recall a multiple shooting involving a female shooter? The only one I can think of offhand is the "I don't like Mondays" woman back in 1979. It's interesting that in the recent cases, the killers have been described as "frustrated" or "angry," upset about failed marriages or ambitions. The Binghamton shooter may have been delusionally paranoid, based on his note, but clearly felt "angry and frustrated" over his life's course. It is troubling that the vast majority of killings--be they in war or peace--are committed by men. Not all, mind, just most. Is there too much testosterone around for today's world, where instincts to fight and kill are all but useless? Or is there something more sinister afoot here? And frankly, I have a tough time equating a woman expressing anger at a perceived molestation with homicidal aggression.
• Monkeyfilter: The moronic effluvia of the lizard brain down there somewhere.
• I wouldn't equate just being threatened to homicide either, kinnakeet. But the tendency is definitely out there, all humor aside. For example, there WAS a woman, dressed in military camo, armed with a rifle who killed several people, including a six year old child, during a lone attack on a mall in Pennsylvania back in the nineties, if it wasn't the eighties. Of course whenever I bring that one up around here, my wife, who remembers the news item, says "it doesn't count because the madwoman was acting like a MAN!"
• Of course, you BOTH may be right, and certainly I wouldn't go so far as to say that you are wrong.
• But you know what? I'd prefer to think that male aggression was not hard wired.I think women tend to use stealth and guile to get even, and I think that's learned. I did a bit of googling, but everything bent toward "men are just more aggressive, maybe fueled by testosterone. If that's the case, is there anything that society can do to keep these people from going postal?
• "A man can only take so much. Take note, America." A lot of black men were overtly discriminated against in the employment arena of 1968. Heck, a lot of black men are overtly discriminated against today. Most of them find solutions other than murderous rampages. I find it interesting that he blames "America" for his problems, rather than admitting that he is (was) not psychologically stable. Despite the rather harrowing account of a psychotic break, with which he closes the article. While his "Quit doggin' people" is certainly an admirable sentiment, I think "encourage unstable people to seek psychiatric assistance" might have been a more accurate conclusion.
• path, it's an interesting question. The cynic in me says that women don't go on shooting rampages because we're supposed to be used to feeling powerless. It doesn't seem as outrageous a situation to us as it does to men. Particularly men who have been raised to be Real Men What Fight And Be Boss. I'd tentatively say that women tend to collapse in upon themselves and turn to self-harm in situations where men tend to explode outwards. Or that men kill strangers, while women drown their children. But maybe that's too pat.
• But, you know what? seeking psychiatric assistance is pretty much beyond many of those who live among us, and when Mr Frazier was younger, it was pretty much limited to white, upper-class folks who wanted to talk about their neuroses and could afford it. If things got really bad, they could be committed to state hospitals where tereatment was largely prescription of massive amounts of drugs that made them zombies, since adequate staffs of shrinks were not funded. They were effectively warehoused, and Frazier was lucky to find a woman who could pull him out of his madness."One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest" was ptetty much right on, from my experience working in one of those hospitals.
• Men, for whatever reason, seem more susceptible than women to the violent impulses of their, as Pleggy termed them, lizard brains. Their urges are compounded by a popular culture that celebrates ideas of personal retribution (often by using a gun) and enabled by a legal system that enables easy access to guns. Still, crossing the line between feeling murderous and actually going on a shooting spree seems to me to be an act of profound insanity. Making access to guns, particularly handguns and assault rifles, more difficult might prevent some of those who cross the line from wreaking such havoc.
• Hmm good point on the state of psychiatric assistance in the late 60s, path! Retracted.