Censorship Vs. No-notoriety

Before I discuss my take on this, I would like to kick off by asking you all, What is no-notoriety and censorship to you? What is the difference and how?

Concerning, No-notoriety and censorship, I can’t help but notice some people despite their intentions of no-notoriety, take it too far to a point where they don’t want anything to be gotten out of the perpetrator, and this is censorship as I believe that you would be saying that, all perpetrators were evil from the start and deserve nothing, not even anything of their past, or any thing that relates to them, like names, pictures, information etc. Therefore nothing should be understood to what made them do what they did, and what happened before to give them that mindset particular outlook on life to commit horrific acts. On the other hand, despite those wanting to mention the perpetrators’ names and show them for understanding, learning, and preventing, some however, think they should be memorialised with their victims, which in a way is very insulting to those that they killed. Therefore, It should all come down to how you do it when you want to talk about a perpetrator, because no-notoriety and censorship have a huge difference to them when it comes to something like this.

When mentioning the perpetrator upon making a tribute to an event like the Columbine Massacre, is insulting in a way, specifically to families and friends, which loved ones were victims of murder. Keep in mind that day, they were sadistic and having a great time murdering them, and although Eric and Dylan were victims of a society and mental health, they were not victims of the columbine massacre. Also, with the way the media has done it with prioritising Eric and Dylan over their victims with their pictures was not the way to go either because this gives the wrong message to people without any context of why they are put up in the headlines in the first place, especially any part of media was talking about the massacre itself. Furthermore, not putting up the victims first, just send that wrong message that you do not care that people lost their lives due to being murdered by the people you presented first. It is better for when you want to talk about the columbine massacre for instance, is to leave Eric and Dylan out of it to make it better for those who have been very hurt and traumatised by that day and focus on the victims. When putting a memorial of sorts, just remember the victims, and If you want to do anything surrounding the killers, do it elsewhere.

However, there is a point to be made that when you take no-notoriety up to a point where you never mention a perpetrator at all, it can be very damaging in terms of saying that Eric and Dylan, or any other perpetrator were victims of absolutely nothing and deserve no acknowledgement that they were failed in one or more ways because they just killed people and enjoyed it. I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that. When mentioning a perpetrator it all comes down to HOW you do it. If you really wanted to mention a perpetrators name, it is absolutely important to say why you are doing it, for instance, putting there pictures, names, and saying something like, understanding, and learning how to better save those from hurting others and themselves before its too late, while reinforcing that this is not supposed to glamorise the perpetrators and what they did.

Why? Because just saying they are only evil, ignores that it all could have been prevented before hand and that they have been failed in either one way or more. Keep in mind though, that it does not mean their actions are justified. Nothing excuses what they did, but that does not mean we can’t help those who are in crisis, especially if they are becoming dangerous.

So how to do it? I think it is better to put perpetrators alone, because not everything is just black and white. Just because a perpetrator did what they did doesn’t mean they did it out of the blue for no reason, it is a way of saying that, we failed to notice and prevent, so we need to be better and try to learn from our mistakes, including what went down before the tragedy took place so we learn the causes and factors, etc. Most importantly it is not the best idea to put them besides their victims, as they were not victims of that day in any shape or form. Like I have said before, Eric and Dylan were victims of society and mental health, but they were NOT victims of the columbine massacre. After all, they were the biggest bullies and enjoyed killing others, regardless of whatever has happened before.

Also, one other thing I would like you all to think about. Just factor out the shooting, and only think about this for a second. At school, they were just as bad, if not worse than everyone else at the school. Unfortunately, in the end, Eric and Dylan became the worst when April 20th, 1999 came around because Eric and Dylan had tons of other issues going on with them that we must learn to prevent in the future. There were too many opportunities that were missed.

i think the spirit of the no-notoriety campaign should be more of an ethical standard adopted by the media than mandated censorship. it's possible to discuss the motivations behind a shooting without plastering the perpetrator's name and picture on every front page nationwide. 

i saw a ted-talk by one of the people who founded it, and he was advocating for only mentioning the shooter's name once per-article and being able to include a picture of them without making it the main feature of the story. this is something that i can get behind, but any further would equate to censorship in my mind.

Here there’s a two-part interview with the director of “77 minutes”, a documentary about the San Ysidro shooting, at mcdonalds.
He chooses not to mention the killer’s name, and only focus on the victims… but the problem with that would be that there’s no attempt to understand why this thing happened in the first place. It’s like if the shooting was created by a natural force, or something.

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Interesting topic. Could you name a piece of media (documentary, news coverage, movie, etc.) that you consider that does the job of talking about these events “right”?

Alex213 wrote:

Here there’s a two-part interview with the director of “77 minutes”, a documentary about the San Ysidro shooting, at mcdonalds.
He chooses not to mention the killer’s name, and only focus on the victims… but the problem with that would be that there’s no attempt to understand why this thing happened in the first place. It’s like if the shooting was created by a natural force, or something.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (this should go without saying, but use adblock)

Interesting topic. Could you name a piece of media (documentary, news coverage, movie, etc.) that you consider that does the job of talking about these events “right”?

that director can choose to only focus on the victims if he wants. if your descriptor is accurate the purpose of that doco isn't to understand why the shooting happened, but to empathize with victims of tragic events or something like that. so long as he isn't able to impose this m.o onto other people, there will always be plenty of other journalists who want to actually try to analyze and learn from the causes of attacks. 

the main problem i have with the media's coverage of shootings isn't even connected to the glorification of perpetrators; it just infuriates me how often they get details wrong and sometimes just make shit up on the spot without bothering to come back and correct it.  

also, with regards to documentaries, i think it's impossible to apply the no notoriety spiel to the majority of them because of how central the shooter themselves needs to be for a doco to comprehensively evaluate their life. it would just make sense not to plaster their face everywhere in the immediate aftermath, as the mainstream news only ever covers superficial details about shooters anyway.

pluviam wrote:

that director can choose to only focus on the victims if he wants. if your descriptor is accurate the purpose of that doco isn't to understand why the shooting happened, but to empathize with victims of tragic events or something like that.

Yeah, you could say that… but then the director talks about how he wants to generate a “social change” with this documentary, so these things don’t happen again. But what kind of changes, if you don’t bother with trying to understand how the shooter got to that point; and say that he was just “evil”?
Anyway, I just posted the interview because it seems like a good example of no-notoriety being taken too far.

Alex213 wrote:

pluviam wrote:

that director can choose to only focus on the victims if he wants. if your descriptor is accurate the purpose of that doco isn't to understand why the shooting happened, but to empathize with victims of tragic events or something like that.

Yeah, you could say that… but then the director talks about how he wants to generate a “social change” with this documentary, so these things don’t happen again. But what kind of changes, if you don’t bother with trying to understand how the shooter got to that point; and say that he was just “evil”?
Anyway, I just posted the interview because it seems like a good example of no-notoriety being taken too far.

in that case, i'm inclined to agree with you.

pluviam wrote:

Alex213 wrote:

Here there’s a two-part interview with the director of “77 minutes”, a documentary about the San Ysidro shooting, at mcdonalds.
He chooses not to mention the killer’s name, and only focus on the victims… but the problem with that would be that there’s no attempt to understand why this thing happened in the first place. It’s like if the shooting was created by a natural force, or something.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (this should go without saying, but use adblock)

Interesting topic. Could you name a piece of media (documentary, news coverage, movie, etc.) that you consider that does the job of talking about these events “right”?

that director can choose to only focus on the victims if he wants. if your descriptor is accurate the purpose of that doco isn't to understand why the shooting happened, but to empathize with victims of tragic events or something like that. so long as he isn't able to impose this m.o onto other people, there will always be plenty of other journalists who want to actually try to analyze and learn from the causes of attacks. 

the main problem i have with the media's coverage of shootings isn't even connected to the glorification of perpetrators; it just infuriates me how often they get details wrong and sometimes just make shit up on the spot without bothering to come back and correct it.  

also, with regards to documentaries, i think it's impossible to apply the no notoriety spiel to the majority of them because of how central the shooter themselves needs to be for a doco to comprehensively evaluate their life. it would just make sense not to plaster their face everywhere in the immediate aftermath, as the mainstream news only ever covers superficial details about shooters anyway.

pluviam wrote:

i think the spirit of the no-notoriety campaign should be more of an ethical standard adopted by the media than mandated censorship. it's possible to discuss the motivations behind a shooting without plastering the perpetrator's name and picture on every front page nationwide. 

i saw a ted-talk by one of the people who founded it, and he was advocating for only mentioning the shooter's name once per-article and being able to include a picture of them without making it the main feature of the story. this is something that i can get behind, but any further would equate to censorship in my mind.

Generally I agree. I used to be much more against the No Notoriety movement because I always felt like they wanted 100%, complete censorship of perpetrator names, faces, and motivations, which incidentally is exactly the same approach state owned media in China operates when it comes to these kinds of crimes and has consistently failed to deter mass attacks. I would be largely okay with limited exposure of names and faces in the media, so long as the information is available to those of us who want to research and discuss it. The general populace isn't going to remember who these people are anyway.

Maybe some perpetrators would prefer remaining nameless and faceless.

Some perhaps would, but for others their motivations solely rely on becoming infamous for their crimes. Randy Stair or Alvaro Castillo are good examples of the latter.

Some were indeed motivated by infamy, and some (most) just wanted to kill and didn’t care if they become infamous or not. But it would be funny to see people being happy that no notoriety was given to the killer when that’s exactly what the killer wanted.

morgenroede wrote:

Some were indeed motivated by infamy, and some (most) just wanted to kill and didn’t care if they become infamous or not. But it would be funny to see people being happy that no notoriety was given to the killer when that’s exactly what the killer wanted.

i don't care if the shooter "gets what they want" with regards to infamy or lack thereof. for me, the contagion effect is more of a concern. in any case, a person committing a mass shooting in a public place explicitly not wanting any of their info to be out there is a very rare occurrence.

pluviam wrote:

i don’t care if the shooter “gets what they want” with regards to infamy or lack thereof. for me, the contagion effect is more of a concern. in any case, a person committing a mass shooting in a public place explicitly not wanting any of their info to be out there is a very rare occurrence.

But do they specifically want their names and (potentially embarrassing) personal details to be known, or mainly their actions? Yes, some do want to be treated like celebrities after feeling insignificant their whole lives, but if I had to guess, it’s usually the latter. And are the names even needed to create ‘copycats’?

morgenroede wrote:

pluviam wrote:

i don’t care if the shooter “gets what they want” with regards to infamy or lack thereof. for me, the contagion effect is more of a concern. in any case, a person committing a mass shooting in a public place explicitly not wanting any of their info to be out there is a very rare occurrence.

But do they specifically want their names and (potentially embarrassing) personal details to be known, or mainly their actions? Yes, some do want to be treated like celebrities after feeling insignificant their whole lives, but if I had to guess, it’s usually the latter. And are the names even needed to create ‘copycats’?

that's not what i'm saying. there isn't a single example i can recall where one of these people has taken steps (that we are aware of) to totally obscure their identity or expressed that they didn't want the media to cover them. one of the purposes of arbitrarily killing people in a public place is that you can send a message to the world (more out of punishment or dominance than a desire for infamy), rather than targeting specific people who have wronged you. the media basically never covers the "embarrassing" stuff about a shooter anyway, because they want to utilize the whole "twisted ruthless monster" spiel for their sensationalism. the current method used to cover shootings including fixating on the perpetrator and making it seem like a warzone contributes to the contagion effect for several reasons, but primarily because potential shooters are more easily able to identify themselves with the shooters rather than the victims. they can put a face to some random loser like them who is able to punch the world in the face on their way out without it even being terribly difficult.

in the words of Matthew Murray (on Robert Hawkins):
"Sounds like one of the nobodies became a Somebody...sure he's still hated by everyone, that is obvious, but at least now he's a somebody...and he's left a world that didn't give a shit about him to begin with."

thanks carnifex for the quote.

also just want to clarify as i said in one of my previous posts in this thread i don't think these details should be censored

pluviam wrote:

that’s not what i’m saying. there isn’t a single example i can recall where one of these people has taken steps (that we are aware of) to totally obscure their identity or expressed that they didn’t want the media to cover them. one of the purposes of arbitrarily killing people in a public place is that you can send a message to the world (more out of punishment or dominance than a desire for infamy), rather than targeting specific people who have wronged you. the media basically never covers the “embarrassing” stuff about a shooter anyway, because they want to utilize the whole “twisted ruthless monster” spiel for their sensationalism. the current method used to cover shootings including fixating on the perpetrator and making it seem like a warzone contributes to the contagion effect for several reasons, but primarily because potential shooters are more easily able to identify themselves with the shooters rather than the victims. they can put a face to some random loser like them who is able to punch the world in the face on their way out without it even being terribly difficult.

in the words of Matthew Murray (on Robert Hawkins):
“Sounds like one of the nobodies became a Somebody…sure he’s still hated by everyone, that is obvious, but at least now he’s a somebody…and he’s left a world that didn’t give a shit about him to begin with.”

thanks carnifex for the quote.

Most mass shooters I can think of didn’t seem to care about the media coverage at all (and there are many whose motives aren’t known so we can’t exactly say if they wanted notoriety, but people are assuming that yes of course they did). I suppose in most cases the message itself is more important than the messenger, so not being infamous as a person with a name and a face wouldn’t make any difference because as a nameless nobody you still have punished the world/society. Maybe if the media focused on the embarrassing personal stuff instead of depicting the shooters as scary twisted monsters, being a mass shooter would be more… embarrassing.

pluviam wrote:

also just want to clarify as i said in one of my previous posts in this thread i don’t think these details should be censored

Yes, I agree with you that the current media approach doesn’t help not creating the contagion effect. But many people want everything censored and I’m not sure what they are trying to achieve with that.

morgenroede wrote:

And are the names even needed to create ‘copycats’?

I would say no, that instead it's the act itself that inspires copycats rather than the infamy behind the shooter. Although I imagine that the motives, stated or implied, might contribute depending on who's doing the copying.

pluviam wrote:

there isn't a single example i can recall where one of these people has taken steps (that we are aware of) to totally obscure their identity or expressed that they didn't want the media to cover them.

Lanza might've been like that, considering how much he tried to erase his digital footprint.

QuestionMark wrote:

I would say no, that instead it’s the act itself that inspires copycats rather than the infamy behind the shooter. Although I imagine that the motives, stated or implied, might contribute depending on who’s doing the copying.

That’s what I’m saying. Motives yes, but identities? In most cases probably no.

QuestionMark wrote:

Lanza might’ve been like that, considering how much he tried to erase his digital footprint.

I actually was thinking about Lanza when I wrote about mass killers who want to remain nameless and faceless, of course the exact motive behind his actions is a complete mystery, but from what I know about him I can’t imagine him wanting to have his name and his pictures all over the internet.

morgenroede wrote:

pluviam wrote:

that’s not what i’m saying. there isn’t a single example i can recall where one of these people has taken steps (that we are aware of) to totally obscure their identity or expressed that they didn’t want the media to cover them. one of the purposes of arbitrarily killing people in a public place is that you can send a message to the world (more out of punishment or dominance than a desire for infamy), rather than targeting specific people who have wronged you. the media basically never covers the “embarrassing” stuff about a shooter anyway, because they want to utilize the whole “twisted ruthless monster” spiel for their sensationalism. the current method used to cover shootings including fixating on the perpetrator and making it seem like a warzone contributes to the contagion effect for several reasons, but primarily because potential shooters are more easily able to identify themselves with the shooters rather than the victims. they can put a face to some random loser like them who is able to punch the world in the face on their way out without it even being terribly difficult.

in the words of Matthew Murray (on Robert Hawkins):
“Sounds like one of the nobodies became a Somebody…sure he’s still hated by everyone, that is obvious, but at least now he’s a somebody…and he’s left a world that didn’t give a shit about him to begin with.”

thanks carnifex for the quote.

Most mass shooters I can think of didn’t seem to care about the media coverage at all (and there are many whose motives aren’t known so we can’t exactly say if they wanted notoriety, but people are assuming that yes of course they did). I suppose in most cases the message itself is more important than the messenger, so not being infamous as a person with a name and a face wouldn’t make any difference because as a nameless nobody you still have punished the world/society. Maybe if the media focused on the embarrassing personal stuff instead of depicting the shooters as scary twisted monsters, being a mass shooter would be more… embarrassing.

like i said before, i'm not trying to say that most shooters desire notoriety at the foundation of their motive, but that providing them and putting a face to all the media attention makes it easier to think "damn, that could be me if i wanted", or look back on details of their lives and relate to them further. it's the same reason why many shooters research the perpetrators of previous attacks or produce quotes like the one before. also, at the same time as not all shooters want notoriety, there are still plenty who do, and they are able to see how easy it is to get it, which doesn't reflect on the motivations of the previous shooter, but still facilitates the contagion effect. i wouldn't say overly focusing on the shooter is necessary to create copycats, but that the mythology created around the perpetrators likely makes them seem like a more attractive option and certainly contributes to the mindsets of a substantial number of attacks. honestly, it's a pity we don't have more data on this. 

on lanza wanting to be faceless, i personally don't think so as his "purges" happened at regular intervals and i suspect it was out of paranoia or embarrassment more than anything but at the same time, there's definitely room for speculation on it, just as there is for other cases. it just doesn't appear to be something that's very common; especially a confirmed instance where we know for a fact that someone was trying to do that. 

and on the censorship thing, which is something I'm totally against, u can just look at my previous post here to see my opinion on it.

morgenroede wrote:

pluviam wrote:

i don’t care if the shooter “gets what they want” with regards to infamy or lack thereof. for me, the contagion effect is more of a concern. in any case, a person committing a mass shooting in a public place explicitly not wanting any of their info to be out there is a very rare occurrence.

But do they specifically want their names and (potentially embarrassing) personal details to be known, or mainly their actions? Yes, some do want to be treated like celebrities after feeling insignificant their whole lives, but if I had to guess, it’s usually the latter. 

just to revisit this point:
i think that the vast majority of shooters would likely prefer the current way the media treats them (borderline glorifying and only covering superficial details) to being fangirled over and treated like a celebrity by tumblr girls. it's a very different type of recognition. the point is: the more people hear about what a terrible person they are and how much damage they've caused, the more they suffer, as opposed to somewhere like Germany where they don't let any details about attackers get out and kinda just sweep it under the rug, which i think is an even worse approach for different reasons.

pluviam wrote:

like i said before, i’m not trying to say that most shooters desire notoriety at the foundation of their motive, but that providing them and putting a face to all the media attention makes it easier to think “damn, that could be me if i wanted”, or look back on details of their lives and relate to them further. it’s the same reason why many shooters research the perpetrators of previous attacks or produce quotes like the one before. also, at the same time as not all shooters want notoriety, there are still plenty who do, and they are able to see how easy it is to get it, which doesn’t reflect on the motivations of the previous shooter, but still facilitates the contagion effect. i wouldn’t say overly focusing on the shooter is necessary to create copycats, but that the mythology created around the perpetrators likely makes them seem like a more attractive option and certainly contributes to the mindsets of a substantial number of attacks. honestly, it’s a pity we don’t have more data on this. 

I’m not sure about this. While the mythology may provide potential mass shooters with additional inspiration, I think it’s still highly unlikely that they wouldn’t proceed without it. They still want to exact revenge or punishment on the world, and they still are going to cause suffering even if they, as people, don’t become infamous. Unless notoriety in particular is their motive, it doesn’t matter. But yeah, it’s just a guess and I’d like to see more actual research on this.

pluviam wrote:

on lanza wanting to be faceless, i personally don’t think so as his “purges” happened at regular intervals and i suspect it was out of paranoia or embarrassment more than anything but at the same time, there’s definitely room for speculation on it, just as there is for other cases. it just doesn’t appear to be something that’s very common; especially a confirmed instance where we know for a fact that someone was trying to do that.

It’s impossible for the perpetrators to completely obscure their identity either way, considering how the media treats mass shootings. Eric and Dylan or Randy Stair would probably hate to be unnamed perpetrators, but Lanza might have preferred it, either out of embarrassment or because the shooting and its impact on society is more important than the identity of the person who did it. If you take into account some of his writings on society/culture/civilization (and his talk about Travis the chimp), the latter seems plausible.

pluviam wrote:

i think that the vast majority of shooters would likely prefer the current way the media treats them (borderline glorifying and only covering superficial details) to being fangirled over and treated like a celebrity by tumblr girls. it’s a very different type of recognition. the point is: the more people hear about what a terrible person they are and how much damage they’ve caused, the more they suffer, as opposed to somewhere like Germany where they don’t let any details about attackers get out and kinda just sweep it under the rug, which i think is an even worse approach for different reasons.

I didn’t mean treated like celebrities in the tumblr fangirl manner, for most shooters it would fall under the “embarrassing” category (although maybe some of the more recent ones wouldn’t mind the flower crowns). I meant more like the sensationalized depictions of the 70s serial killers, or the way Columbine was handled by the media at first. In Germany it probably has something to do with ideologically motivated mass killings being more common there, but I might be wrong.

morgenroede wrote:

I’m not sure about this. While the mythology may provide potential mass shooters with additional inspiration, I think it’s still highly unlikely that they wouldn’t proceed without it. They still want to exact revenge or punishment on the world, and they still are going to cause suffering even if they, as people, don’t become infamous. Unless notoriety in particular is their motive, it doesn’t matter. But yeah, it’s just a guess and I’d like to see more actual research on this.

i mean, you just have to look at avlaro castillo, sebastian bosse, or plenty of other copycat shooters to see that aspect had a profound influence on them. i doubt those two, in particular, along with a lot of the younger school shooters would've done anything if it hadn't been for the large columbine following. 

on lanza, i think his motive was more out of personal hatred for society rather than sending people some "important" intricate message. i don't think there's really enough there to make the case that he wanted to remain faceless unless we want to speculate on it, but at the end of the day, it's kind of pointless because we have no way of knowing for sure. 

these days, shooters don't really get the columbine treatment (although I'm sure there would be some who would want it). it's more just a quick "look at this person who decided to kill a bunch of people oh no how could they do this we are so hurt let's do some political posturing and forget about it in a week", which is just impersonal enough while still recognizing the shooter that it would be appealing to a lot of people.

even if we can agree that fame isn't the goal of most shooters, it is for enough of them that the number of copycats would certainly rise dependant on media coverage of other cases.

pluviam wrote:

i mean, you just have to look at avlaro castillo, sebastian bosse, or plenty of other copycat shooters to see that aspect had a profound influence on them. i doubt those two, in particular, along with a lot of the younger school shooters would’ve done anything if it hadn’t been for the large columbine following.

I doubt they wouldn’t have done anything at all even if Columbine never happened. Most likely, Castillo would have killed his father anyway, and Bosse would’ve committed suicide and attempted murder, but maybe instead of trying to kill random people he would’ve focused on his bullies (or maybe not). They both were/are severely depressed and couldn’t find their place in society, if they really needed inspiration for their revenge they likely would have found it elsewhere. Like several very young and impressionable school shooters who have found it in Stephen King’s novel.

pluviam wrote:

on lanza, i think his motive was more out of personal hatred for society rather than sending people some “important” intricate message.

Not sure if he made a clear distinction between his ideological beliefs and his personal hatred for society, but I think both motivated him. But like I said in my previous post, his exact motive is a complete mystery, so at this point I’m just speculating. I wish we knew more.

pluviam wrote:

these days, shooters don’t really get the columbine treatment (although I’m sure there would be some who would want it). it’s more just a quick “look at this person who decided to kill a bunch of people oh no how could they do this we are so hurt let’s do some political posturing and forget about it in a week”, which is just impersonal enough while still recognizing the shooter that it would be appealing to a lot of people.

Yeah. If the media focused on the shooters’ personal issues like mental illness or failure in relationships or being rejected by peers it might have been more embarrassing, but on the other hand it might’ve been easier for potential mass shooters to relate to the existing ones. Looks like a lose-lose situation, but anything is still better than complete censorship that the majority of people seem to want.

pluviam wrote:

even if we can agree that fame isn’t the goal of most shooters, it is for enough of them that the number of copycats would certainly rise dependant on media coverage of other cases.

Copycats yes, but when it comes to the overall number of mass shooters or any other mass killers, it’s probably only relevant to teenage school shooters. (Although, I repeat, they may find their inspiration elsewhere and still do something destructive even if they aren’t going to be infamous.)

morgenroede wrote:

I doubt they wouldn’t have done anything at all even if Columbine never happened. Most likely, Castillo would have killed his father anyway, and Bosse would’ve committed suicide and attempted murder, but maybe instead of trying to kill random people he would’ve focused on his bullies (or maybe not). They both were/are severely depressed and couldn’t find their place in society, if they really needed inspiration for their revenge they likely would have found it elsewhere. Like several very young and impressionable school shooters who have found it in Stephen King’s novel.

sure, they might've killed some type of personal violence and most likely suicide, but we're talking specifically about amok style shootings, which many of these people (including them) specifically site other shooters as inspiration. and it's possible to speculate that they could've found inspiration elsewhere, but really it's more likely that they would've just killed themselves or their life circumstances would've changed before they came across it if other shooters were out of the equation. 

morgenroede wrote:

Not sure if he made a clear distinction between his ideological beliefs and his personal hatred for society, but I think both motivated him. But like I said in my previous post, his exact motive is a complete mystery, so at this point I’m just speculating. I wish we knew more.

yeah, it is just speculation. my theory is that his motive was "hatred for humanity in the aggregate" (as he suggested was the common motivation for mass shootings) and that he used the ideology stuff to justify his actions and mentality in his own mind. i just think that if he wanted to send some ideological message he would've left something behind for the general public to distinguish his attack from a worse than usual school shooting. 

morgenroede wrote:

Yeah. If the media focused on the shooters’ personal issues like mental illness or failure in relationships or being rejected by peers it might have been more embarrassing, but on the other hand it might’ve been easier for potential mass shooters to relate to the existing ones. Looks like a lose-lose situation, but anything is still better than complete censorship.

completely agree. 

morgenroede wrote:

Copycats yes, but when it comes to the overall number of mass shooters or any other mass killers, it’s probably only relevant to teenage school shooters. (Although, I repeat, they may find their inspiration elsewhere and still do something destructive even if they aren’t going to be infamous.)

this applies to both copycats and those seeking infamy, which makes up for a decent portion of total mass shootings. on the inspiration thing, my earlier comment on suicide/life circumstance covers this too.

pluviam wrote:

sure, they might’ve killed some type of personal violence and most likely suicide, but we’re talking specifically about amok style shootings, which many of these people (including them) specifically site other shooters as inspiration. and it’s possible to speculate that they could’ve found inspiration elsewhere, but really it’s more likely that they would’ve just killed themselves or their life circumstances would’ve changed before they came across it if other shooters were out of the equation.

I don’t think they would have just killed themselves. When your suicidal ideation is combined with hatred for the world, indiscriminate mass murder (not necessarily a shooting, although firearms are convenient for this purpose) seems like a natural, for lack of a better word, option to consider since you most likely want to punish humanity and you have nothing to lose. It’s very different from the “normal” kind of suicidality where people just want to die or even think that they’re a burden and others would be better off without them. But maybe some copycat school shooters would not get to the point of hating all people indiscriminately and would just kill those who bullied or rejected them, and maybe fewer people would end up dead, I’m totally not sure about it though because of things like I mentioned with several teenage shooters being inspired by the Rage novel, and of course the well-known fact that the most infamous school shooters of all time were inspired by the Oklahoma bombing and Doom and some Tarantino movies, not by previous school shooters.

pluviam wrote:

yeah, it is just speculation. my theory is that his motive was “hatred for humanity in the aggregate” (as he suggested was the common motivation for mass shootings) and that he used the ideology stuff to justify his actions and mentality in his own mind.

Most people support an ideology because it either benefits or could potentially benefit them, or it feeds into and justifies their hatred or self-hatred, not because they find it reasonable and logical regardless of their personal feelings. The line between ideological and personal is often blurred or there’s no such line at all. I believe this was true for Lanza as well, although the key word here is “believe”.

pluviam wrote:

i just think that if he wanted to send some ideological message he would’ve left something behind for the general public to distinguish his attack from a worse than usual school shooting.

Or he intentionally left the general public wondering what they (not as individuals but society as a whole) have done wrong to cause something like this?

morgenroede wrote:

I don’t think they would have just killed themselves.

there are plenty of mass shooters who have prior suicide attempts eg. steven kazmierczak, jeff weise, as well as shooters who planned to commit suicide before deciding to kill other people eg. robert hawkins. it's more common than you would think. 

morgenroede wrote:

Most people support an ideology because it either benefits or could potentially benefit them, or it feeds into and justifies their hatred or self-hatred, not because they find it reasonable and logical regardless of their personal feelings. The line between ideological and personal is often blurred or there’s no such line at all. I believe this was true for Lanza as well, although the key word here is “believe”.

that's true. it's just that i interpreted your post as before as suggesting he did it to send an ideological message, which i doubt since most people don't even know about the anarchist stuff and he could've left a note or manifesto if that was the case. 

morgenroede wrote:

Or he intentionally left the general public wondering what they (not as individuals but society as a whole) have done wrong to cause something like this?

i personally don't think so. people only care about gun control or similar issues in the wake of big shootings, which is something lanza knew very well. also, he seemed adverse to the concept of society's existence at all, so i don't think he would've wanted to reform it so much as give em' a big middle finger seeing as one person abolishing it is impossible. it's also true that people who actually thought about societal problems in response to the massacre definitely wouldn't have come to the same radical conclusions as him (which he may or may not have realized), but i still agree his motive and ideology probably correspond to a large degree. for example, it's pretty clear that he resented civilisation for robbing him of his ideal life, which led him to resent humans in general.

pluviam wrote:

there are plenty of mass shooters who have prior suicide attempts eg. steven kazmierczak, jeff weise, as well as shooters who planned to commit suicide before deciding to kill other people eg. robert hawkins. it’s more common than you would think.

James Holmes tried to kill himself at 11 if I remember correctly, yeah mass shooters aren’t exactly a mentally stable and rational bunch. Still it’s not clear whether it’s simply being inspired by other mass shooters that drove the copycats to do what they did, or the hatred for humanity was already there and the inspiration was optional.

pluviam wrote:

that’s true. it’s just that i interpreted your post as before as suggesting he did it to send an ideological message, which i doubt since most people don’t even know about the anarchist stuff and he could’ve left a note or manifesto if that was the case.

I wouldn’t completely exclude it (who knows, maybe he did try to send some kind of cryptic message), but I agree that most likely it was just a fuck you to the world and nothing more intricate. People do tend to focus only on gun control and dismiss the shooters as “they were just evil right from birth and wanted to do evil things, people like them are fundamentally different from us, there’s nothing more to explain”.

pluviam wrote:

he seemed adverse to the concept of society’s existence at all, so i don’t think he would’ve wanted to reform it so much as give em’ a big middle finger seeing as one person abolishing it is impossible. it’s also true that people who actually thought about societal problems in response to the massacre definitely wouldn’t have come to the same radical conclusions as him (which he may or may not have realized), but i still agree his motive and ideology probably correspond to a large degree. for example, it’s pretty clear that he resented civilisation for robbing him of his ideal life, which led him to resent humans in general.

I think from a purely logical standpoint he wasn’t wrong (I mean, seriously, there’s no model of society that would be good for everyone; although I don’t agree with the idea that living like wild animals is the solution to the problem of society, or that there’s any solution at all). But yes, it’s obvious that at least to some extent his ideology was rooted in his personal resentment towards humanity.

morgenroede wrote:

Or he intentionally left the general public wondering what they (not as individuals but society as a whole) have done wrong to cause something like this?

I think it's also possible that he left things intentionally vague because he believed that the wider public didn't "deserve" an explanation to his actions. Another possibility exists that he didn't want to tar his personal ideology by association, though I feel like the former is more likely. It reminds me of when Eric ranted in his journal that nobody would be able to understand his motives.

QuestionMark wrote:

I think it’s also possible that he left things intentionally vague because he believed that the wider public didn’t “deserve” an explanation to his actions. Another possibility exists that he didn’t want to tar his personal ideology by association, though I feel like the former is more likely. It reminds me of when Eric ranted in his journal that nobody would be able to understand his motives.

The latter might be also possible depending on whether Adam only viewed mass shootings as an unfortunate consequence of civilization being unnatural and oppressive, or also as a means to contribute to the destruction of said civilization. His ideological writings (unlike Eric’s) didn’t seem to include overt calls for violence, but who knows what he might have been thinking.

From Adams writings, it seemed as though he found this culture and society that he was in oppressive so he perhaps saw the shooting as a way to 'break free' of the oppressive society that he hated. Again, his motives are vague so this could be entirely inaccurate.

Where does one draw the line between historical event and glorification; if they truly believed this garbage, every piece of footage from the Sudam Hussain era, or 9/11, or Nazi Germany, or the African slaughter involving the tootsi's would be swept under the rug also because you could argue that's glorification. Or should history be preserved as a learning point, something to learn from to make sure it never happens again?

There's a huge conflict here, they swore up and down they would not make movies about Columbine, but if you google Columbine movie, the first thing that pops up is the documentary by Mike Myers... which IS a movie.