[Neurons] 2014 "Neurons" Meta Reflections #23
L. Michael Hall
meta at acsol.net
Mon Jun 16 09:35:44 EDT 2014
From: L. Michael Hall
Meta Reflections 2014 #23
June 9, 2014
WHY ALL THE KILLING?
The American media has just highlighted another murder this past week by a
teenage at his school. In fact, most of the time it is a young boy or young
man and most often it is someone not psychologically stable, and most often
it involves guns. It seems that this kind of thing is occurring nearly
every week. And in fact, they have been. Since the Sandy Hook massacre,
there have been 74 murders, and sometimes mass murders, at public places.
So in 18 months, that's one a week. Yet that's not the full story. Here's
more of the story.
Every single day (not just every week) there are 46 murders
committed in the United States.
86% of these are by guns and only 24-28% are due to aggravated
assaults.
Deaths by stabbing: 10,000 per year means there are - 37 per day
Deaths by accidents on highways, 34,080 (2012) - 93 per
day.
Deaths by falling (most within a person's home): 26,008 - 71 per
day
Deaths by poisoning: 33,041 - 90 per
day.
All unintentional injury deaths: 120,859 -
331 per day.
Deaths by suicide: 3,255 per year -
9 per day.
In total, there are 2,423,712 deaths in the US per year.
(Information in <http://www.wikipedia.com/>
www.wikipedia.com and from wiki.answers.com).
Last week there was another young boy who murdered people. He first used a
knife and stabbed three of his roommates to death, then he took a gun to
shot some innocent girls, and finally he used his car to run over and maim
others. The media focused on and blamed the gun. For them, that was the
most obvious thing to blame. "The gun did it!" Yet, if only it was that
simple. If there were more deaths by knifing than by guns (as there is in
the UK), we could yell, "The knife did it!" Or we could also yell, "The car
did it and ban cars!"
Yet all of these are just instruments. And what shall we say of murders by
suicides, falls, poisoning, etc.? In fact, worldwide more people are
killed by knives than guns. The over-simplistic answer is to outlaw guns
and knives. Of course, after that we would have to ban baseball bats and
all other sharp and blunt objects.
Yet in all of this, banning only deals with symptoms, not the cause. The
problem is the out-of-control state of the one killing, or the deliberate
revenge state, or the desperate state, or the envious and jealous state, or
any other state which a person gets into that leads to the killing. The
problem is the state- and the kind of thinking which supposes that we can
solve things by killing people who we blame for making our lives miserable.
The problem is even deeper than that. Behind those hateful states and that
distorted way of thinking is the lack of resources in being able to cope
with life and the lack of a strong sense of morality which eliminates even
considering killing someone. And contributing factors to all of that goes
to our education system that teaches kids everything but the most important
things-
How to create and access a solid and valued sense of self.
How to create and access the ego-strength for coping with life's
disappointments.
How to create and access a moral conscience that cares about
others.
How to create and access a sense of responsibility for self and
to others.
How to create and access a healthy sense of state management (emotional
intelligence).
All of this goes into create a larger problem-the kind of culture where
killing is so readily considered a solution. Today in America we don't
teach "values" in schools because the values will offend someone and someone
else will scream "Religious infiltration." We don't hold people responsible
for their unkind actions for fear of hurting their so-called "self-esteem."
We produce movies full of violence and horror and do so without any
restrictions claiming that "it is just entertainment" and "it could not
possibly influence the thinking, feeling, and actions of people." We
produce movies and magazines glorifying wealth, status, and fame and we have
a culture where movie stars and sports heros are paid outrageous salaries
and then wonder why there's eating disorders among girls and sexual abuse
and violence among boys. "It couldn't be the movies and magazines, everyone
knows that's just entertainment!"
In all of this we also do not teach and enable kids and young people how to
watch the so-called "Reality shows," horror movies, news, internet, social
media so that it does not inflict semantic damage within in.
How to watch such and think critically about the truthfulness of
the content.
How to distinguish "movie reality" and fantasy from real life.
How to cope with their human needs in a healthy and appropriate way.
So every time another mass murder occurs and we ask, "Why this senseless
killing?" "What is driving these people to do such things?" The answer is
there but it is invisible. It is in the culture in which we live and in
which we hardly notice.
What if the key driving factors in all of this lies in the killer's mind?
What if that person is not thinking in a rational and healthy way? What if
the person has not learned the basics of critical thinking, of effective
coping to meet the needs of life, and of being a caring, responsible human
being to others?
What if it is not true that they have some "need" for anger, sex, revenge,
power, or any other normal human response?
What if their thinking, believing, understanding, and the kind of thinking
full of cognitive distortions is itself the problem and instead of being
healthy, is itself neurotic?
What if they have created a distorted, neurotic "need" within them- a
neurotic need that now expresses itself as it does?
What if they actually have a self-actualization need within them to be
creative and to live one's life with creative engagement and it is stunned,
undeveloped, blocked?
If that's the real problem, then banning the instruments used for the
killing will never solve the problem. The real solution lies in actualizing
the humanity of persons. That's where the leverage point for change will
true occur.
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Executive Director
Neuro-Semantics International
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, CO. 81520 USA
1 970-523-7877
Dr. Hall's email:
<mailto:meta at acsol.net\hich\af31506\dbch\af31505\loch\f31506> meta at acsol.net
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