Like ISIS, people snapping and mass shootings have become synonymous with the new normal. People with mental illness, have been herded like sheep into the category of automatically being violent and stigmatized and at times quarantined out of fear they might ‘Go Postal.ʼ Initially, the terminology was associated with the 1986 workplace shooting, which occurred in an Edmond, Oklahoma, at a United States Postal Office and ended with fourteen fatalities and six being injured.
Flip the channel, turn the page, and the headlines transport you to an insusceptible state of mind: Virginia Tech, Columbine, Newton, Aurora, Orlando, San Bernadino and unfortunately, so many others. Ask anyone and their response is likely “Thatʼs just the world we live into today.”
But what if it is not? If you revisit my previous post, which questioned “How much of life is constructed and how much is left up to chance?”
The American Psychological Association featured in article studying the link between violence and the mentally ill population over a fifteen year period, which concluded a small percentage had a correlation to violent crimes. The head researcher Jillan Peterson expressed, “When we hear about crimes committed by people with mental illness, they tend to be big headline-making crimes so they get stuck in peopleʼs heads.”
Nine eleven (9/11) is forever embedded into the collective psyche of Americans and a day never forgotten. These types of events manufacture fear and mass hysteria, which in some cases are used to garner support for wars, profits and to pass legislation, with an emphasis on quickly.
Often times life can feel like a big commercial and weʼre all just product being pumped out on a massive assembly line and being, that the bulk of our society incorporates advertising into every facet of our lives, itʼs not a crazy thought. Is it a coincidence, that the uncle of what some call the father of psychology, Sigmeund Freud's, nephew Edward Bernay's, played a significant role in the public relations industry.
Noam Chomsky, realized the propaganda Bernayʼs, had implemented in the foundations of what some call a faux civilization long ago and wrote a book about it called ‘Manufacturing Consent.ʼ Bernayʼs originally coined the idea as engineering consent, which some say he borrowed from Lippman.
"(Chomsky notes also that there is no correlation between the internal freedoms in a society and violent external behavior -- and that all governments are ruthless to the extent that they are powerful.) The masses of people (80 percent) are marginalized, diverted and controlled by what he calls Necessary Illusions. Manufacturing consent is related to the understanding that indoctrination is the essence of propaganda. In a "democratic" society indoctrination occurs when the techniques of control of a propaganda model are imposed -- which means imposing Necessary Illusions. Chomsky's Propaganda Model says American media have "filters" -- ownership, advertising, news makers, news shapers -- which together emphasize institutional memory, limited debate and media content emphasizing the interests of those in control."
"David Hume asserted, hundreds of years ago that the power always rests with the people but that they don't act because they are oppressed or manipulated."
So WTF does this have to do with the mentally ill and violence? But, contrary to popular belief, the relationship between madness and truth is a complex one.
Lippman is quoted as saying, “The heavens are not the same to an astronomer as to a pair of lovers; a page of Kant will start a different train of thought in a Kantian and in a radical empiricist.”
SOURCES:
Bernays, Edward L., and Howard Walden. Cutler. The Engineering of Consent. Norman: U of Oklahoma, 1969. Print.
Chomsky, Noam. "Key Points in "Manufacturing Consent" a Video about Noam Chomsky and American Democracy." Key Points in "Manufacturing Consent". N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2017.
Lippman, Walter. "Public Opinion." Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2017.
Peterson, Jillian. "Mental Illness Not Usually Linked to Crime, Research Finds." American Psychological Association. American Psychological Association, 21 Apr. 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2017.