Frustration brought to a boil can afflict any of us when under this national (global?) umbra

The alleged shooter of the Right Wing dude in Utah, US has been occupying the US news, of course.

I really appreciate this episode of It Could Happen Here for making it clear how little we can extrapolate and feel sure about when everyone is very online.

Right? Left?

Nick Fuentes Groyper? Anarchist? Assigned Gun-Lover At Birth hunter?

Misogynist Gamer?? Online meme-slinging edge lord?? Ironic queer kid trapped in a blandly conservative community???

Online, gamer, meme-slinging, unaffiliated, nihilistic, isolated, frustrated, newly-“adult” person in a heterogeneous conservative community, who grew up with gun ownership and use as normal life, swirling in fears and frustrations spread wide and writ large?????

A Very Online kid in their early 20s who is living through the End of Empire and also Climate Collapse?

Memes are shared by so many groups. Nihilism and a feeling of learned helplessness (witnessed also in the “adults in the room”) that makes extreme acts to Stop It All! seem reasonable is a feeling shared by, oh, I dunno, most people in this era.

Anyway, I started trying to remember to not believe rapid conclusions from an On The Media episode, and the above-linked ICHH episode really grayed out a lot of Confirming My Priors black/white thinking I had started to get into.

As I write this, I remember that I like to return to the original source of the phrase “run amok” in times like these.

Here are some excerpts from a 1999 paper on the how common the behavior is across all cultures: Running Amok: A Modern Perspective on a Culture-Bound Syndrome, by Manuel L Saint Martin. (I don’t necessarily condone the orientation of the paper, which is to remind primary care providers of some DSM classification of pathology as rooted in an individual who needs corrective care, as opposed to the Mad Studies perspective of a confluence of internal suffering responding to culturally inflicted suffering.)

The general public and the medical profession are familiar with the term running amok, the common usage of which refers to an irrational-acting individual who causes havoc. The term also describes the homicidal and subsequent suicidal behavior of mentally unstable individuals that results in multiple fatalities and injuries to others. [….]

[C]haracterizing amok as a culture-bound syndrome ignores the fact that similar behavior has been observed in virtually all Western and Eastern cultures, having no geographical isolation. Furthermore, the belief that amok rarely occurs today is contrary to evidence that similar episodes of violent behavior are more common in modern societies than they were in the primitive cultures where amok was first observed. [….]

Amok, or running amok, is derived from the Malay word mengamok, which means to make a furious and desperate charge. [….] The more common form, beramok, was associated with a personal loss and preceded by a period of depressed mood and brooding; while the infrequent form, amok, was associated with rage, a perceived insult, or vendetta preceding the attack. [….]

Captain Cook is credited with making the first outside observations and recordings of amok in the Malay tribesmen in 1770 during his around-the-world voyage. He described the affected individuals as behaving violently without apparent cause and indiscriminately killing or maiming villagers and animals in a frenzied attack. Amok attacks involved an average of 10 victims and ended when the individual was subdued or “put down” by his fellow tribesmen, and frequently killed in the process. According to Malay mythology, running amok was an involuntary behavior caused by the “hantu belian,” or evil tiger spirit entering a person’s body and compelling him or her to behave violently without conscious awareness. Because of their spiritual beliefs, those in the Malay culture tolerated running amok despite its devastating effects on the tribe. [….]

Contemporary descriptions of multiple homicides by individuals are comparable to the case reports of amok. In the majority of contemporary cases, the slayings are sudden and unprovoked and committed by individuals with a history of mental illness [or recent devestating loss]. [….]

Jin-Inn Teoh, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Aberdeen in London, reported in 1972 that amok behavior existed in all countries, differing only in the methods and weapons used in the attacks. According to Teoh, culture was a modulating factor that determined how amok was manifested, but not whether or not it occurred. The individual’s culture and the weapons available naturally influenced the method of the attack. [….]

The problem with an environment of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (an umbra generated and perpetuated by people in leadership positions) is that it increases stochastic terrorism from any moment of vulnerability, and then that unexpected crystalization of fear into violence gives further justification for the Umbra to maintain its dominance.

Anyway, I hope that It Could Happen Here episode helps y’all to find some grounding in nuance and complexity as well.