As I was saying yesterday, I've been disappointed that all of the speculation on the Tucson Shootings, from nearly all sides, has been centered upon finding a political motive.
Dr. Mark Goulston at Huffington Post has just published a short article exploring and explaining the mental health issues Mr. Loughner was likely dealing with.
To reiterate from yesterday: I abhor the state of discourse in US politics over the last thirty years, and feel the last decade has been the most divisive. The right has been especially guilty of imposing violent imagery to support its ideology, and it has to stop.
However, every single piece of information we have about Jared Loughner paints not somebody riled into anger by that rhetoric, but a person with a deep disconnection from reality.
People on the right and left have been cherry-picking through his writings and trying to read them like tea leaves. The answer seems to be that he was mentally ill.
(Link to all known materials from Jared Loughner)
From Dr. Goulston:
Prisoner of his own imagination: When someone is a loner and not regularly in conversation with others, they run the risk of their imagination obscuring their contact with reality. In fact, most people have experienced their imaginations taking over when under stress and lying awake at 3 a.m., unable to fall to asleep or shut their mind off.
The accounts of his former acquaintances say he became reclusive. His MySpace page is devoid of other users interacting with him. His YouTube videos had no comments and had been viewed just a handful of times.
Dr. Goulston continues:
Reality-based persecutory fantasies: Much of Loughner's paranoia about government control, etc. is likely delusional, but there is one area where his persecutory beliefs are grounded in reality. When someone acts bizarre and rants and raves in public, they do trigger fearfulness and avoidance in those around them. And if that someone has no awareness or insight that they are triggering such reactions, they will come to perceive that those people who are acting awkwardly are out to get them, when in reality they are out to avoid them.
He became disruptive on campus and finally asked to leave, disallowed to return without a mental health evaluation. Following this, he posted a YouTube video decrying the unconstitutional nature of universities. He was being persecuted.
It is in this video that he begins to rant about making his own currency and adding symbols to the alphabet and number set. He is clearly being persecuted by the government for his free speech, he feels. Universities shouldn't be allowed to stifle him under US law. Extrapolation leads him to declare all universities unconstitutional.
Goulston continues to cite the loss of executive function -- the gradual decay of his rational brain, leaving him to rely more and more on more primitive "fight or flight" responses, and the common "Revenge of the Nobody" -- becoming "somebody" by doing something extraordinary.
On the Myspace page, he seems to be talking to himself. There is never a response to any of his posts. On given days, he posts over and over again, as if he wants to see it there glaring back at him, talking to him.
On 12/22, He types in the word "Sex" one letter at a time into three different messages, then types, "I know you fuckin' masturbate - illiterate."
After this, he types, "SNOIGNES!" (assumed sic): Per Urban Dictionary, "Snoigens" is "A word that's in use for a replacement involving any label in the infinite grammar structure of the infinite language." Again, the obsession with language -- more likely from 1984 than from any obscure right-wing group -- shines through.
On 12/24, he starts out with "I realized hat you'll forget this message: FUck!" Again, it's as if he's talking to himself.
On 12/24, he issues a countdown bulletin linking to a .jpg. That .jpg is for a high-capacity magazine for the Glock.
The 30th seemed to be a particularly bad day. The eeriest is where he writes, "I know how to graduate without a cult ceremony. Please! Don't think of murdering!
This sounds to me as if he's linking graduation (recall his obsession with being thrown out of school) to the "cult ceremony" of murder, and trying to talk himself out of it.
There were battles taking place -- sexual, social, and personal. There is no ideology working. He seems to celebrate then admonish the murder that keeps popping into his head.
Again, I'm hoping that more than Dr. Goulston and I are interested in framing this incident as the mental health issue it seems to be. I truly don't think Mr. Loughner, based on what we've seen of him, had the capacity to follow anyone else's demons but his own.