More about Violence

Currently, there’s conversation about guns, violence and killing. For some, there’s talk about their Second Amendment rights; fear of losing that ability to purchase weapons; and for others placing blame on the FBI, police force, school administration or on others. Why not utilize the clinical understanding of the underlying drive or orientation provided by Sigmund Freud and Erich Fromm? We know there are many mechanisms that get in the way of viewing underlying motivational dynamics. Often, Individuals would rather rationalize, project, than look in the mirror, face-to-face. Guns were developed in order to kill people and for survival. These weapons have been developed over centuries - from a single shot to a rapid-fire weapon. I am talking about loss of life, destruction, tearing of flesh, implementing pain and suffering, spilling the blood of others and agony to a community. At one extreme, we have the Manson’s, the Koresh’s, the Paddock’s, the Roof’s, the Hitler’s, and the Stalin’s. Their personality characteristics suggest they were attracted to power, control, and multiple killing. Force was used to humiliate, to destroy, coupled with an unleashed willingness to kill. Not only that, this orientation or pattern became a way of life. It was the powerful over the powerless and the killers and the killed. Their base was afraid and preferred to admire, to follow rather than face the truth. With faulty lenses, they perceived these ruthless types being great, as protectors, not as killers. Further, these sadomasochistic killers craved predictability, certainty, control, along with being orderly, possessive and pedantic. The individuals that were destroyed were not considered of value, nor human beings but rather as statistics, or things. These savage killers worshiped the gods of force, the attraction to death, sadism, and desire to transfer the organic into inorganic. To Be Continued