Thursday, February 21, 2013

From PBS – After Newtown: Guns in America


Watch After Newtown: Guns in America on PBS. See more from After Newtown.

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2 comments:

Stickup Artist said...

I think the amount of violence in a given society is directly related to how insecure and fearful it's citizen's are.

February 22, 2013 at 1:29 AM
mythopolis said...

I couldn't get this to load this morning, but I have been aware of the series on PBS and I think it lays out the complexity of the whole issue well. In nature, in art or architecture a fundamental question is that of how a set of forces can generate a form. You can look at a thing and ask, 'how did it get to be this way?' What were the forces that generated this form?

I am hopeful that a new emphasis might appear within the realms of mental health that looks beyond or beneath early intervention into the sources of psychological aberrations as they take form in the culture. Most likely this would include an examination of the basic fiber of our culture. One can look at culture as though it was a petri dish, of sorts in which a new viral strain is emerging. Where did it come from? There is no grand or sweeping change to be made in any short term way. Culture is too complicated and even sub-conscious. But, over time perhaps there is hope that such dimensions of life as family structure, child-rearing, education, and so on can lead to a diminished incidence of the extreme kinds of alienation, emotional break-downs, anger and impulse control and so on and on. I don't know that there is a revolution to be had her. But, with a shift of emphasis, and over time, it is possible we could evolve to a healthier place.

So, do we need more funding for mental health concerns? Yes, I think so. In fact, a new kind of Department of Defense may need to emerge. One that identifies those elements of our culture which could be construed to be enemies of sanity. This would not be an identifying of this person or that, but those more subtle forces we have set in motion that create unstable forms and that threaten to undo us. (End of Rant)

February 22, 2013 at 4:12 AM

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