Men, your take on this.....

[Heartstrings]

https://byrslf.co/thoughts-on-the-vegas-shooting-14af397cee2c

[MontanaMama]

1. Wow.

Just wow. Heartbreaking and I believe, profoundly important.

[LakeArenal]

2. I could never speak for another, especially a man...

I think there are a lot of angry, lonely, disenfranchised people. I have no idea how to fix it.

[Orsino]

3. I think men are wired to want to do brave deeds...

...but in the absence of bravery, they fall back on merely wanting to matter, to assert the fact of their existence and their right to prevail occasionally in matters personal, professional and political. This is in our biology and therefore in our culture, two aspects reinforcing each other. When MRAs talk about how hard it is to be a man, it's not all a lie; society has some expectation that each and every one of us must make his mark somehow.

Unfortunately, some men find themselves incapable of deeds as extraordinary as they think they our culture demands, and that's going to be a toxic influence. The weakest of these men will seek shortcuts: harassment and rape of potential sex partners, belligerence with perceived rivals, or the shortest cut of them all--the murder machines we call guns. The mere possession of a gun is a balm to feelings of inadequacy, I think, but some men will need to stockpile them or to carry them about (concealed or openly).

Here I am, their weapons proclaim for them. You don't dare touch me as I exercise this entitlement. You must make way for my wishes, and you must be sufficiently impressed to be agreeable to my desires. I have a gun, so I am right; you don't have a gun, so you are wrong, and are less than I am.

Even that's not going to be enough for some. A man who stockpiles guns, carries them everywhere he's allowed, who is full of big talk about them, but who still doesn't get the recognition he feels he deserves, or should deserve? There, I believe, is a genesis of shooter or mass shooter. The display was not sufficient; he must brandish or otherwise use a gun to ensure people take notice.

I suppose that all of the above could just as easily be said of a woman...but statistically it doesn't happen nearly as often.

[underpants]

5. Great post

[ProfessorGAC]

9. You Ain't Kidding

Great post, Orsino!

[Nevernose]

14. I think this is far more insightful

Than the Medium article for the most part. I think the idea of toxic masculinity pressuring some men into taking shortcuts could be a path for actual, critical analysis & argumentation.

[Major Nikon]

15. I think the answer here is a bit simpler

Some of the things you are mentioning are more of an immediate emotional reaction to some sort of situation. This isn't really what happened with this latest shooter. His actions were planned over a long period of time and at least for him, heavily rationalized.

When you look at other people who do these types of things, inevitably there is some sort of perceived injustice that eats away at them. The law of the instrument binds them to one particularly violent solution. They convince themselves often months or years in advance and the only thing left is the planning and orchestration. I'm sure there's a lot of Stephen Paddocks out there. When someone is found with a massive arsenal, there's a good chance they have moved into the planning stage.

[ProudLib72]

17. I wanted to add something but, on second read, you mentioned it

Career choice (professional) was what jumped out at me as a major motivating factor in the pursuit of happiness. Also, I have to wonder how much salary plays into perceived job satisfaction and determination of self worth. The first thing anyone asks someone they've just met is what that person does. It's just so standard. Sometimes I like to mess with the person and tell them I mountain bike, x-country ski, mess around with my 4x4. I know perfectly well what they mean, but the fact that our identities are based mostly (if not entirely in some instances) on what we "do" is a pretty lame and dangerous way of going through life. How would the LV shooter have responded to that question? "Oh, I'm an inveterate gambler" doesn't sound as good as "I'm a plastic surgeon".

So, yes, I can totally understand collecting guns as a substitute for status/power in an age when worth is determined by occupation. It's not right, but I understand how it happens.

[sarisataka]

4. Bookmarked

For future reading in detail

I will only note that many people are not interested in "why" only "how". A very myopic viewpoint.

[Nevernose]

6. Ridiculous and insulting

While at the same time accurate. Just not accurate about the Vegas shooter. He wasn’t a boy who’d been helicopter parented. He was 64 years old.

He was, by almost everyone’s account, an asshole. He’d apparently always been an asshole. If he was lonely, it was probably because he was an asshole and not because society had shorted him. If he didn’t want to be lonely, maybe he should have contacted one of his many family members (most of whom he’d broken off contact with); if he was lonely, maybe not sending his common law wife out of the country would have been a way to not be lonely? Maybe keep in mind that he was such an incredible asshole that he bought a an isolated house, refused to talk to the neighbors, and put up a twenty foot tall privacy fence?

And JFC: didn’t “play” enough? His job for the last thirty years was literally MILLIONAIRE PLAYBOY. The quack author gets around that by saying “oh, I meant a different kind of play than what any normal person would consider play.” He’s talking about MANLY play, like fightin’ and rasslin’ and tough stuff sixty fucking years ago when he was a child ... right after his section on how our society fucks up boys by not letting them be emotionally vulnerable or expressive (which is the part I agree with). The author can’t have it both ways.

Finally, he starts off with “I’m not going to talk about guns” and then in the same sentence explains that it’s not the precious, important gunses fault, and repeats the entire essay that he’s not going to talk about guns while explaining that guns aren’t the issue.

He admits he’s not a psychiatrist. He’s a average crackpot on Medium with some pop-psychology bullshit he’s been peddling retrofitted, poorly, to a guy who shot 250 people mostly because he A)wanted to and B) had fifty fucking machine guns.

[Orrex]

10. I was about to post more or less exactly what you wrote (nt)

[FSogol]

13. +1 n/t

[better]

7. Sounds pretty spot on to me

There is a hardening of the soul through which traditional American life does tend to put young men. I remember being very keenly aware of this as a young man, and consciously rejecting it. Very thankfully, I grew up in a family that supported me in this, rather than brow-beating me into being the stereotypical "manly man". Sure, I've been into martial arts more or less my whole life and I can handle myself rather well, but I do have the benefit of that capacity being tempered by kindness and gentleness.

And perhaps most importantly, at least in my case, I developed a very healthy fear of what I'm capable of at quite a young age, thanks to my martial arts training, and I developed very good self-control and mental discipline, so that I wouldn't ever lose control and hurt someone when it wasn't absolutely necessary and justified.

Toxic masculinity is, without any sliver of doubt, a huge problem in our society. We do really need to re-evaluate the way we raise our young men, along with the values we instill in them, and the preconceptions we give them about what it is to "be a man", with specific focus on the notion that being a man doesn't mean you don't feel or show pain.

It means you do what has to be done despite the pain.
Acknowledging weakness can damage the phyche, but failing to acknowledge it damages the soul.

[LuckyCharms]

8. I agree with his general take the factors affecting men's emotional health.

The items he listed are real, and they are described quite well. Loneliness and lack of touch are devastating for all genders, men included. And men are sometimes conditioned not to express their emotions.

Here is where I have a big disconnect with the article... Unless a mans emotional issues are so severe that they cause a reality lapse (which is certainly possible), and the ability to determine right from wrong (insanity), then it is a pretty big leap to tie mens issues to gunning down other people. Most men would merely suffer in quiet desperation, engage in self-destructive behaviors, or kill themselves depending on the severity of his problems. Both men and women get in some horribly bad head spaces, but most men or women don't commit mass murders. That would be taking it to a whole different MORAL level.

In other words, the discussed emotional issues would have to be critically heinous to drive men to that level of depravity, or, there would have to be other factors involved, specifically, psychosis.

[HopeAgain]

11. Maybe if carried through multiple generations.

I don't believe loneliness and simple isolation causes things like mass murder. I think the article describes a modern phenomena that may explain things like increased addiction, greed, overeating, and etc. Carried into multiple generations, however, the addictions/disconnections can result in parents causing trauma to the children, which can cause more serious mental health issues.

I believe that there has to be either a serious organic mental defect or some deep psychological injury to cause such a profound lack of empathy and degree of hate/anger to become a random shooter.

Paddock spent his formative years in a family headed by a fugitive that the FBI described as psychotic. His brother's demeanor, eagerness to speak to the press is not a normal reaction either. I think they grew up in a very emotionally damaging early childhood, not to mention the possible genetic link.

[ProfessorGAC]

12. Ok, But. . .

. . .i got the feeling that the conclusions were reached before the piece was written.

[WyattKansas]

16. A lot of the problem in this country is selfishness and greed.

For the last 30 - 40 years, our country has only been taught that selfishness and greed is the only path forward, because honesty and integrity have only been exploited to harm people with that. There are millions of people in this country who have not been taught that their rights end where others rights begin... Meaning any one person does not have the right to trample on another person's rights, regardless of how entitled that person thinks they are. You see it every day over simple petty crap all the way up to the most evil sewage that rigs this country and kills others in the process. Life is not a damn game to see how many others you can beat or destroy, but that is the present pride and glory of this country.

And before ANYONE jumps on a pedestal with their own self righteous dogma... Are you sure you did not harm others, who meant and did nobody any harm, in your personal or group crusade?

[treestar]

18. Many women dont have

Emotional support either. It’s not like merely being female means the females you know are supportive.