It Could Have Been a Different Situation
Brain damage behind the gun of the Tree of Life Massacre.
After the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA was shot up by a man with an AR-15 and a nationalist cause he articulated as “all Jews must die!” the POTUS appeared to use it as a cautionary tale of rolling into shul naked. But before strapping clergy it may be wise to pragmatically investigate the root cause that brought a terrorist out in the first place?
I don’t think it’s the gun, I don’t think it’s the hate. Those are problems. Are they “the” problem? Are they even treatable? Is it mental illness? Illness would indicate a disease. Mental health is different than illness. Just like a sprained ankle is different than cancer.
if the synagogue had had an armed guard inside, “maybe it could have been a very much different situation.”
— POTUS
Concerning mental health, the study of human behavior provides clues. In its simplest form, a human’s basic function is to live. Mind and body work together in order to survive. Our lizard brains tell us to fight, run or freeze when we perceive a threat. It’s automatic. When it’s violent it’s an automatic weapon.
Better said how you perceive threat determines your behavior. We literally tell ourselves whatever we need to to survive. Unpacking the phrase “all Jews must die”, it would appear that a Synagogue full of Jews was very threatening to the life of the shooter. Assuming this is not an objectively threatening situation, why was it a perceived threat?
My hypothesis is trauma. Trauma trauma trauma. Trauma damages the nervous system and influences one’s behaviors. Trauma is also transmitted. That brain damage leaves a genetic memory for human offspring to inherit, and cultivate under the emotional development of their brain damaged parents. Historical trauma as it were, ripples through a community and has lasting generational affects on the psyche of a group. But, trauma can be treated to live a healthy life.
Trauma not transformed becomes trauma transferred.
— Ashley Judd, TEDWomen 2016 and/or whoever she got it from. She said it really powerfully though.
Trauma and mental health concerns are treatable in many forms that help to calm the senses against perceived threats. Treating the history of damage that put a gun, a core belief and the courage to end the lives of every congregant in the Tree of Life Synagogue sounds like an idealistic but healthy approach to me.
How can we raise a generation of kids who don’t inherit that brain damage? How do we connect with and treat that damage now? Is treating that damage possible? Is it ok to punch a Nazi?
If that congregation had guns to defend themselves the situation would have been “very much” different. True. Also, If there wasn’t a hateful person with lethal weapons whose brain damaged logic wasn’t reinforced by a community of brain damaged thinking over the always on social echo chambers reinforced by the most visible English speaking person on the planet, it could have been a very much different situation.
