Destructive Identification and Toxic Beliefs

This article addresses the hateful and sadistic murders in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio. The nature and tendencies of Homo sapiens have been exhibited throughout our history. Man is orally and behaviorally aggressive. These murderers identified, had trouble relating, and acted on their hateful irrational political beliefs. Thus, there is a positive correlation between alienation, identification, a hateful, political, prejudicial belief system and aggressive behavior.

Man has believed in many ideologies, circumstances, and has various and contradictory attitudes about the world in which he resides. Man has believed in many gods; man has believed in both animal and human sacrifices; man has believed in many different religions man has believed in a heaven and a hell; man has believed that Jews killed Christ; man has believed that the earth was the center of the universe; and man has believed that the world was flat. More recently, man politically has believed that communism was bad and democracy was good and vice versa ; man has believed economically that socialism was bad and capitalism was superior and vice versa ;  man has believed that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites; man has believed that vaccines were good or  bad and vice versa; man has believed in climate change and vice versa; man has believed that a single-payer health care system was good and/or bad;  man has believed in the supremacy  of the whites  ; man  has believed that an assault rifle is a 2^nd Amendment right and vice versa;  and man has believed that mental health is one of the causes of  hate crime , murders and vice versa etc. This brief list of religious, political, racist, unscientific beliefs are just that-brief.

In our country, no one gets arrested for their irrational, emotionally, or hateful beliefs as in their tweets or other social media expressions. One gets arrested for amoral physical behavior. There is no mental health diagnosis for irrational hate political beliefs. As a result, there is no third-party or insurance reimbursement for such talk. However, insurance companies use the term “medically necessary” for coverage. Generally, that means that symptoms can be treated by a pill. Further, if one talks to a therapist about aggressive tendencies, by law that is confidential. But, if one had a significant plan regarding hurting self or hurting others, by law, that is not confidential and would require the therapist to report the facts to government etc. Likely, an alienated white nationalist type would not seek out a therapist if planning a murderous attack. Thus, by Diagnostic Criteria, mental health does not cause gun violence.

Beliefs can be hateful, discriminatory, irrational and emotionally based and not subjected to rational thought. With that being said, it’s no wonder why we are unable to change beliefs, opinions or attitudes. Our unique psychological makeup with our needs, drives, and character development are accompanied by our sophisticated use of unconscious defense mechanisms. As a consequence, we are stuck with limited rational thought and understanding. Yes, thoughts, beliefs can and do result and proceed before moral as well as amoral behavior. I know as I have made a number of irrational Corvette and Harley Davidson purchases.

Take an alienated, high testosterone individual attracted to supremacist ideology with its racist political belief system. If he identifies [internalizes not only their ideology, attitude and way of thinking, but also with their ethics, political values, morality or destructive amorality code of behavior] with that supremacist mob, he becomes one with the group. They have unlimited access to assault weapons. With that being said, we have a recipe for prejudice, violence, murder, and destruction. One cannot predict when such will occur, only the probability of the occurrence. This is not a mental health problem. It is a problem of young alienated individuals with a sadistic character structure that identifies with a gang which has an irrational, hateful, political belief system with easy access to kill weapons. Eliminating assault weapons will not change neither the sadistic character structure, identifying with “power” nor incorporating an irrational hateful belief system, but it will significantly reduce mass gun murder.