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He Must be Crazy: Political Violence and Mental Illness

     Shortly after news broke that Representative Gabby Giffords had been shot in Tucson, the cable news talking heads were on the telephone in search of explanations from psychologists and psychiatrists. Wolf Blitzer, for example, wanted to know what kind of person would commit such a crime, and the California based forensic psychologist he interviewed was glad to talk about schizophrenia and its symptoms and to venture a diagnosis on the basis of the suspect’s Myspace postings and You-tube videos. It didn’t take long for mental illness to emerge as a likely explanation of Jared Lee Loughner’s conduct. And observers were able to adduce plenty of evidence that the young man had some problems: incoherent ramblings about a new currency he would create, a list of favorite books that included Mein Kampf along with the Communist Manifesto , and a proclivity for bizarre outbursts in classes at Pima Community College in Tucson.      The attribution of a crime of this kind to mental illness
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Leaving Arizona

I last set foot on terra Arizona on April 29, 2010 at a rest area on Interstate 10 near the summit of Texas Canyon, between Benson and Willcox. Earlier that morning I had maneuvered our 26 foot Penske rental truck out our 175 foot driveway and onto a dirt road that led to pavement and a four-day journey to our new home in Ohio. Myrna and I had first seen that dirt road fifteen years earlier on a visit to Tucson. Enchanted by the Sonoran desert, we bought land, and later designed and built an adobe house in which we planned to live the rest of our lives. Now, twelve years after completing it, we were leaving Arizona. Ahead lay the East and our children and grandchildren. Behind us lay a life whose time had come and gone. No, we weren’t fleeing Arizona’s toxic political culture, although it is a relief to have left it behind. Arizona has a notable concentration of right-wing political lunatics. Especially in the last year the crazies in the State Legislature have outdone t
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Pundits at Sea, A Modest Proposal

In this festive season of health care reform, global warming debate, Obama-ridiculing, and Palin-watching, pundits constitute a growing threat to public decency, democracy, the economy, world peace, and my mental health. This problem has a solution: Assemble the newspaper columnists, cable news talking heads, radio talk show hosts, bloggers, and their ilk — all of them — and hold them incommunicado in a location from which they can’t escape. Maybe “assemble” isn’t the right word. “Rendition” is closer to my meaning. If it’s good enough for terrorists, after all, it should be good enough for Charles Krauthammer. Where to put them? A maximum security prison might suffice, but the Thomson Correctional Facility in Illinois will likely be filled with Guantanamo Bay inmates. Alcatraz is too close to civilization. Besides, prison seems a cruel and unusual measure, even for the likes of George Will. So, what to do? I propose chartering the Oasis of the Seas, the world’s newest and larges
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No Brains, No Public Office

Congressman Bill Posey’s (R, Fla) proposal to require Presidential candidates to submit proof of citizenship seems to be gaining steam now that eleven of his fellow House members have signed on as co-birthers. It’s a promising bill, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. As Rep. Posey points out, we require documentation for all kinds of things in this country. Apply for a passport, a driver’s license, or a credit card and you have to prove who you are. If you want to be appointed a Supreme Court justice you go through a rigorous intellectual, moral, financial, and political strip search. Even if you want to be a Block Captain in the Neighborhood Watch program the Sheriff does a background check. So what’s the problem with Posey’s bill? For starters, it doesn’t include candidates for the United States Senate or House of Representatives. You don’t have to be native born to serve in Congress, but you do have to be a citizen. Those folks ought to be required to provide proof of citi
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Right Wing Demon Monster Spawn

I’ve been thinking a lot about the right wing crazies lately — the folks who are convinced that global warming is a myth, that President Obama isn’t a citizen, or that the government should keep it’s hands off Medicare. How did they become the base of the GOP? Why are there so many of them? What rock did they crawl out from under? The explanation, it turns out, is genetic. They cavort in a gene pool with demonstrable origins in the far depths of American history. It all goes back to Anne Hutchinson and her demon spawn. You remember Anne Hutchinson, right? A heroic woman of 17th century New England? Key figure in the the antinomian controversy of 1636-37? Banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony? Later killed by Indians? OK, maybe you’re a bit rusty on the details, so let’s review. Hutchinson had the temerity to presume that as a female she could interpret the bible — yes, I know, it’s hard to believe — hold discussions in her house unsupervised by clergy with both men and w
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Conspicuous Religiosity

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For several years the wanton display of religious symbols has been making me crazy, and lately I’ve been obsessing about it. On a recent cross-country trip, hundreds of Indiana cars with “In God We Trust” emblazoned on their license plates left me in their 80 mph dust. Shortly before last Christmas a federal judge enjoined South Carolina from producing a license plate, which the state legislature had authorized, that carried an image of the Christian cross and the words “I Believe.” The memory of Sarah Palin and her prayin’ and being prayed over remains all too fresh in my mind. And I can still vividly recall the neo-rebel country singer Marty Stuart’s costume on a televised “Grand Ole Opry” show a few years ago. No modest crucifix around the neck for him, the kind you might see peeking out of the cleavage of many a female singer. He sported a jet-black Nudie suit with large, raised black crosses embroidered on the chest, back, and arms. It was the sartorial equivalent of the 190 foo
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Narcissism Rears its Pretty Head Again

For the last thirty years narcissism (e.g. Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism, 1978; Jean Twenge, The Narcissism Epidemic, 2009) has been an off and on staple of American cultural criticism. The publication of books on the topic is followed by a flurry of attention, at first promoted by publishers and then spreading virally through the media. In “Broadsheet” ( Salon, July 27, 2009) Judy Berman contributes to the trend with a discussion of “The culture of (female) narcissism.” Drawing on Twenge’s book and on an article by the Guardian’s Jane Bunting (“The narcissism of consumer society has left women unhappier than ever,” The Guardian, July 26, 2009), she explicates an apparent link between increasing narcissism and growing unhappiness among women. Narcissists have unrealistic, unattainable goals and expectations of themselves, and can therefore hardly fail to be unhappy. Berman asks a question she admittedly can’t answer: if women’s self-expectations are growing increasin
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