While some mass shooters are psychotic or
schizophrenic, only about five
percent of violence in the United States can be attributed to
people with mental illness. The shooters are often men who are not so visibly
disturbed. These murderers lived next door to neighbors who never imagined them
capable of such crimes.
We prefer to believe that the behavior of the shooters
is foreign to human nature, not something intrinsic in our psyche. Or we say
that a gun-worshipping culture is to blame. Yet might there be another factor,
some common element at the heart of human nature, to account in part for these horrendous
events?
We all have a dark side. Psychology, literature, and
mythology have chronicled this aspect of our nature, yet still we flee from examining
it. Carl Jung wrote in his 1957 classic, The
Undiscovered Self, that a true understanding of the inner self recognizes
the existence of good and evil within us. In his view, the unconscious was
being ignored "out of downright resistance to the mere possibility of there
being a second psychic authority besides the ego. It seems a positive menace to
the ego that its monarchy can be doubted." Jung also wrote that a lack of
insight deprives us of the capacity to deal with evil. Underestimation of the
psychological factor, he added, "is likely to take a bitter revenge."
Looking for dynamics in our psyche that we might have
in common with mass shooters is a delicate subject. We keep our distance, as if
they belong to a different species. Yet these shootings have been occurring for
many years now and could become more frequent. We have to consider possible
answers that lie closer to home.
Let's start by examining a profile that fits many mass
shooters. These murderers are often quite intelligent, yet through acute self-centeredness
they are likely to be socially awkward or inept. They crave notice and fame to
compensate for how deeply they dismiss their own value and feel like nobodies.
They also lack empathy and have little or no affect, a condition that relates
to the indifference or disdain they have for their own existence.
Negative emotions accumulate inside them, producing
bitterness, anger, despair, and, finally, rage. Their rage, even when hidden
from others, produces a third-rate sense of power that covers up their
emotional entanglement in hopelessness and passivity. They crave power because
they feel so powerless, yet in their dark negativity they can express only negative,
destructive power. They seek death because they feel so powerfully overwhelmed
by life.
Because their weak self-regulation compels them to continually
recycle negative emotions, they hold on to grudges. These grudges and
grievances accumulate in them, giving them a feeling of substance, a place of
being to which they cling in the chaos of their inner conflict.
The killer-to-be has also passively allowed himself to
plunge so deeply into self-abandonment and self-hatred--meaning his aggressive
rejection of all that is good or decent in him--that, like a drowning person, he
gasps for the one last "breath" of the only power now available to him, which
is to do evil.
An additional factor shapes these menacing time-bombs. These
killers-to-be have acquired a fervent interest in guns. Influenced by others,
they passively elevate the gun or the rifle to level of a fetish. In another
time and place, they're the kind of people who might have joined a cult. For a
troubled individual who is drowning in negativity, to adore guns is to worship
death.
From this we can assume that the murderous instincts of
rampage shooters originate from profound inner weakness and emotional conflict
in their psyche. Their aggression, in part, is based on their reaction to their
overflowing negative emotions and their resulting lack of self-regulation. By
way of comparison, many everyday people have considerable deposits of anger,
cynicism, and bitterness. They hold on to this negativity for dear life. Convinced
that their bitterness is justified by the alleged cruelty or insensitivity of
others, they express various levels of malice toward others. Is the difference
between rampage shooters and the rest of us just a matter of degree?
To heed Jung's warning, we must grow our consciousness.
This inner progress would enable parents, teachers, clergy, and others to become
more insightful about the emotional state of others and more confident about
initiating some form of intervention. As well, potential killers will likely moderate
their deadly instincts when they are surrounded by more conscious people, exposed
to better psychological knowledge, and made through saner weapons regulation to
understand that the death instinct, easily spawned where weapons are
sanctified, is a social taboo.
Reform may require that more of us access, at least on
paper, the best information concerning the dynamics of emotional conflict. How many people understand, for
instance, that during preparations for their assaults, killers-to-be become
fixated on images of their helpless, desperate victims, as they identify
masochistically with the helpless desperation they feel so strongly in
themselves? Vital knowledge about human nature can permeate the culture,
raising the collective consciousness. When disseminated in the media, the
knowledge seeps into the minds of even the least intellectually inclined.
What are some essentials of this knowledge? We have to
learn that our negative impressions, impulses, and emotions are not caused exclusively by external
factors, even when life is difficult and seems unfair. Unconsciously, we prefer
to believe that our hurt, anger, and rage are produced by the oversights and
malice of others. This irrational belief stems from our unconscious attempt to
cover up our participation in our suffering. When people begin to understand
how they produce their own suffering, they stop projecting on to others (and
experiencing by way of transference from others) the negativity churned up by their
own unresolved emotions. Now they no longer despise others or see them as the
enemy.
As long as people go on believing that their suffering
is caused by others, they'll be compelled to become angry at others because
they're required, through their unconscious defenses, to blame others for
allegedly bullying, punishing, oppressing, or persecuting them. In ongoing stubborn
denial of their participation in their suffering and failure, some take their
anger to the next level and begin to generate rage toward their alleged
victimizers.
Once we understand this basic concept--that our suffering is produced through inner
conflict--we have nowhere to turn for relief but inward. Parents need to
learn this so they represent this truth in their dealings with both normal and
troubled children. Liberation from pain and suffering is the next great
expansion of our freedoms.
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