Malcom Gladwell article on school shootings

[Qaz98]

Nor surprisingly, I didn't see this article circulated, since it didn't push the gun control narrative. It is a bit surprising the New Yorker actually published it. Malcolm Gladwell is an icon for the media regarding social science... so maybe they'd listen to him. And stop putting up pics and using names of the shooters. Just fuzz out their face like in Black Mirror.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...ds-of-violence

[olstyn]

I think this is at least the third or fourth time I've seen that article linked from a thread on p-f in the wake of a mass shooting. It of course still makes a lot of good points, but it is 3 years old.

[Chance]

That school shooters take inspiration from other school shooters is a given. But if Gladwell's essential premise is that school shooters are a heterogeneous group related by little other than a "social threshold," that falls apart with even a cursory inspection.

In the absence of acute mental illness, people don't become spontaneously violent. If the group appears to exhibit heterogeneity, it's because he's not looking close enough.

Gladwell is a journalist, not a scientist.

[TDA]

I was struck by the similarities to the phenomenon he described in The Tipping Point where teen/preteen suicide became a runaway trend in the Phillipines. It also seems similar to psychology research about sucidal plane crashes increasing in the weeks following a highly publicized incident. I think the theory isn’t that disparate actors spontaneously become violent, it’s that the ones who have been thinking about it already now have something akin to social proof and decide that now is the time.

[Ed L]

That school shooters take inspiration from other school shooters is a given. But if Gladwell's essential premise is that school shooters are a heterogeneous group related by little other than a "social threshold," that falls apart with even a cursory inspection.

In the absence of acute mental illness, people don't become spontaneously violent. If the group appears to exhibit heterogeneity, it's because he's not looking close enough.

Gladwell is a journalist, not a scientist.

I don't think Gladwell is commenting on mental illness or even looking at it. What he is simply doing is observing the copycat nature of this in that mentally ill or psychopathic or potentially homicidal teenagers who otherwise would not have thought of this are encouraged by the acts of others. And the more it is done, the more seeds it plants in the minds of people who otherwise might not do it.

[GardoneVT]

In the absence of acute mental illness, people don't become spontaneously violent. If the group appears to exhibit heterogeneity, it's because he's not looking close enough.
.

I don’t think this problem can be solved with a statistically validated regression curve.
Yes , people can be spontaneously violent with no prior evidence of intent; many of the most violent mass murderers on record had no history of violent behavior. Looking at people (adults and kids) from abusive and poisonous family environments is a good place to start as a risk factor for psychotic behavior . But there have been and always will be violent folks who go off with zero advance warning.

It’s not a happy answer in a society where we think we can calculate and predict anything evil and address it ,but it’s the truth.

[gkieser92]

It is not an acute Axis I diagnosis that these killers have in common. They have narcissistic and sociopathic personality disorders. These disorders are extremely hard to treat, especially if mandated. Compared to a criminally insane individual, they know exactly what they are doing and that it is wrong. They are just incapable of caring. The only thing that holds them back is deterrence, self-interest, and ambition. That is why the infamy from mass attacks is so attractive, and why it so contagious.

That school shooters take inspiration from other school shooters is a given. But if Gladwell's essential premise is that school shooters are a heterogeneous group related by little other than a "social threshold," that falls apart with even a cursory inspection.

In the absence of acute mental illness, people don't become spontaneously violent. If the group appears to exhibit heterogeneity, it's because he's not looking close enough.

Gladwell is a journalist, not a scientist.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk