The globalization of the macabre

Fri, 11/06/2009 - 6:53pm

Greetings from tomorrow. 

In light of the Fort Hood shootings, I thought I would share with you a sampling of national headlines from my morning copy of the Asahi Shimbun:

At least half the headlines were related to violent crime. 

I don't think a pattern can be drawn from one day's worth of headlines.  I suppose it's possible that the English-language editors of Asahi are thinking, "Push the violence!  It's the only thing the dumb, stupid, not-so-bright Americans understand!" 

Still, this sort of thing always reminds me to always cast a skeptical eye towards headlines devoted to acts of individual violence.  The deaths are important; the motivations of the killers, less so.  Unfortunately, the world does not suffer a shortage of variegated homocidal impulses.

UPDATE:  Megan McArdle expresses the point I was trying to make in a more direct, non-jet-lagged manner:

There is absolutely no political lesson to be learned from this.  Gun control would not have stopped a commissioned officer from obtaining guns.  Barack Obama had no power to stop this.   Infectious PTSD is a lousy theory.  And nations certainly do not--and should not--shape their foreign policy around the possibility that a random psychopath will start shooting up a crowd.  Evil people do evil things.  That's all. 

Daniel W. Drezner | Permalink | | Comments? Login or register
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To be honest I find most

by Grant on Fri, 11/06/2009 - 10:04pm

To be honest I find most English language versions of Japanese newspapers horrible. The sites are bad, the news is slow to update, and on at least one of them (japantimes.com) many of the articles are written by foreign residents currently in Japan. Of course, please remember that the news always highlights violence and bad news in every way possible. Not so different from this site come to think of it.

Except...

by MikeDC on Sat, 11/07/2009 - 2:50pm

If we are going to be honest about things, we'll note that a particularly extreme brand of a particular religion appears to draw in and direct the behavior of random psychopaths toward shooting up crowds of innocent people.

There are other extremist religious groups and other random psychopaths, but none of the former have quite the leadership, institutional framework and set of philosophical justifications to encourage the random psychopaths to engage in acts of mass violence.

Interesting that you don't

by Grant on Sat, 11/07/2009 - 3:49pm

Interesting that you don't mention groups in a certain controversial non-Arab nation in the Middle East, or certain groups in Northern Europe fighting over territorial claims of whom the majority only VERY recently agreed to stop fighting. In other words, only in this current framework does Islam have the majority of terrorist groups. Historically speaking, just about every major religion has had terrorism (even Buddhism).

As an aside on Drezner's updated comment: I really expect better than that of you sir. There seems to be no such thing as evil on this world so much as social norms.

Point taken, but it's not a very interesting point

by MikeDC on Sat, 11/07/2009 - 7:05pm

It's true that historically many religions have had terrorists, the current and relevant issue isn't with them.

It's also important to consider the range and scope of things. The question isn't whether it's always Muslims, but whether there are systems in place that encourage psychopaths to manifest their tendencies in violent ways.

Think of it as a set of smaller and smaller groups.

All people > psychopaths with violent tendencies > psychopaths with violent tendencies who actually go out and kill a bunch of people.

To cross the line from just having violent thoughts to actually engaging in violent acts, even "evil" or psychopathic people generally develop a rationale for their behavior.

And the problem is that the current extremist version of Islam is one that seems to encourage crossing that line.

If you want a gratuitous insult hurled at other religions, one might consider it similar to the situation where the Catholic priesthood appeared to create an environment that attracted and eased the path of pedophiles to actually abusing people.

That doesn't make the Catholic church evil, but the reality of the situation puts responsibility on it to prevent abuse and direct those sickos into situations where they both won't and can't act on their impulses.

If Nidal Malik Hasan had been

by blue13326 on Sun, 11/08/2009 - 1:14pm

If Nidal Malik Hasan had been a devout Christian with pronounced anti-abortion views, and had he attacked a Planned Parenthood office, would his religion have been considered relevant as we tried to understand the motivation and meaning of the attack?

(from Instapundit)

And what about those who share similar political views in the media? Would they be held responsible for the shooter's actions?

I sure hope religion would

by drlake777 on Mon, 11/09/2009 - 7:38am

I sure hope religion would have been considered relevant, in that scenario. It certainly is with regard to Scott Roeder, the killer of George Tillman. His (Roeder's) history of mental illness is probably more relevant, though.

The reality is that devout Christians (and some media organizations) do encourage and participate in terrorism, we just don't tend to call it that due to our social biases.

Political

by ZWit on Sun, 11/08/2009 - 11:41pm

This really is political, but not for the reasons mentioned by McArdle. If a contributing factor to the shootings was religious harassment in the military, it creates a PR problem for American efforts in the Middle East. And if not, there is still a risk that our own people could misinterpret Hasan's actions and retaliate-- the so-called backlash hypothesis.

Also, while gun control per se would not have stopped him, the type of weapon he used-- an automatic pistol capable of firing a three-shot burst-- raises questions about what sort of weapons ought to be made available to our citizens. An ordinary pistol could not massacre a room of people, but it seems perfectly fine for most cases of self-defense.

This leftist tripe makes me want to puke

by blue13326 on Mon, 11/09/2009 - 12:39am

Even if there was this imaginary harassment, it is no excuse for slaughtering people. Period. Full stop. If you believe otherwise, you are mentally ill.

'Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother's funeral was held there in May that year.

The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.

Hasan's eyes "lit up" when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki's teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas...'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6521758/Fort-Hood-shooting-Texas-army-killer-linked-to-September-11-terrorists.html

Fort Hood gunman had told US military colleagues that infidels should have their throats cut.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6526030/Fort-Hood-gunman-had-told-US-military-colleagues-that-infidels-should-have-their-throats-cut.html

Danquah assumed the military’s chain of command knew about Hasan’s doubts, which had been known for more than a year to classmates in a graduate military medical program. His fellow students complained to the faculty about Hasan’s "anti-American propaganda," but said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim student kept officers from filing a formal written complaint.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/national/69500262.html

Considering that he was a

by Grant on Mon, 11/09/2009 - 12:44am

Considering that he was a trained soldier apparently armed with an automatic weapon I find it highly unlikely that a civilian with a single shot handgun could have actually stopped him. People might think that guns are just guns, but that hypothetical civilian would have been grossly underarmed in such a conflict. Instead I would suggest you wonder how he was able to bring the weapon there, and whether or not whatever security forces that were there acted with appropriate speed.

I think the commenter meant

by drlake777 on Mon, 11/09/2009 - 7:42am

I think the commenter meant to imply that Hasan would have done less damage if using single-shot pistols rather than something capable of burst fire. Certainly true, but then he also wouldn't have done as much damage if he'd been institutionalized for mental illness, or if he'd been separated from service before getting to this point.

no, it's a pattern

by sjh71 on Mon, 11/09/2009 - 11:44am

There's something very weird about this effort to preemptively absolve radical Islamic for this event. More information is coming out about the shooter's links to, and belief in, radical Islam. I understand the reluctance to get in a tizzy and prematurely blame someone's religion. But we have to be honest about this. It was an excess of exactly this sort of political correctness that allowed this subperforming anti-American to stay in the military. There's a pattern here. And it has domestic, not foreign policy, implications.