Doubtless, many millions of men and women feel resentment and frustration daily as a result of sexual rejection and frustration. That's what we like to call 'the human condition'. And it is surely just a matter of statistics that, in the accumulated billions of such events globally, there will be a few participants who take violent action and, now, apparently, in the extreme, multiple murderous retribution. Very, very sad, and truly horrible for the quite innocent victims, who include this young man's family and friends. I might be a mere statistical aberration myself, but what I find really alarming is that one can become an Associate Professor of 'social and cultural studies' through the professional contemplation of such stuff.

IF…women’s rights were subjugated to male rights (As once was), then the poor deluded fool would simply have raped a women of choice, and all would be alive today! Some stark choices!

Carver's analysis is important as it revives key feminist commentaries about gender and power and the intrinsic expectations men have about their right to sex. I also agree with the point about the predominance of mass media that places sexual gratification as a right of passage to being a man - especially in the teen movie genre that not only depicts the kind of desperation articulated by the gunman but presents women as disposable and as commodities for that gratification. The trend toward 'clinical' psychologized explanations for acts like this are part and parcel of the failure to recognize the deeply ingrained resistance to women as equal beings both in a representational sense and an actual sense. By all accounts this was not the act of an 'abnormal' or deranged person but the act of a highly privileged young man who was seeking revenge on women because he failed to exert his power to fulfill his idea of a 'normal' transition to manhood. On this basis, this event should reignite discussions about men's views of women as secondary citizens - still after 40 years of struggle for equality by women, the failure of many men to embrace this primary goal often leads to self-righteous violence towards women.

Clearly nobody here including Rob Cover has read Elliot Rodger's autobiography, I have, all 140 pages of it,so does anyone have any questions?
There is no broader context in which his actions sit, this was a kid living in a parallel world, isolated from society by his own neuroses, who far from feeling entitled describes a life shaped by nothing but paranoia,insecurity and madness .
Elliot Rodger lived entirely in his own head, his words and actions don't reflect anything in the real world because nothing in the real world could pierce the bubble in which he existed, it's the ranting of a lunatic.
Rob Cover and all the other Feminists are just ambulance chasers, it's appalling but most everything in Liberal democracy is on the nose. In truth these are people who still think Valerie Solanas was onto something so the fact that they take seriously the ramblings of someone as obviously crazy as Elliot Rodgers isn't a surprise, their side is full to the brim with mental patients.
For the record, as of this writing four out of six of the victims identified were male.

<For the record, as of this writing four out of six of the victims identified were male.
<Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Monday, 26 May 2014 10:50:35 AM

Interesting how facts can be conveniently left out, if they do not support an ideology.

This sad and tragic case represents more the failure of the mental health system., the failure of people around this person to detect the signs of mental illness.

What I find passing strange Rob, is the fact that the man's father, sought help from the police days before this multiple tragedy? But for unfathomable reasons was ignored!
If anyone knows how someone is faring,or coping, then surely family members closer than anybody else, must at the very least have some insight?
And his quite patent preoccupation with women and sex with them, probably suggests a heterosexual male, albeit one seriously unwell!
Clearly his parents should not have been ignored, nor his ready access to firearms!
Just these two factors, attended to with urgent alacrity they truly deserved, may well have prevented the killing spree!
And perhaps finally, a register of prohibited person, may keep some of these patent nut jobs, from some sources of lethal weapons?
This register needs to not only circulate around all the gun shops but firearms markets as well, with a severe (accessory before the fact) penalty, for selling a firearm of any description, to any prohibited person!
I mean, they're never going to rewrite the Constitution and or the right to bear arms!?
So the least they can do, is legislate to cut off all the legal channels for those with a conviction, or a reportable health condition!
Rhrosty.

An update is that his parents were concerned and did contact police and he was in therapy.

Wolly,
It also supports the theory that he was actually a repressed homosexual and that all this talk of wanting the sexual love of a woman is just, as we say "squid ink".
So let's have some fun with this, if Rob Cover is taking Rodger seriously then let's play along and try the same thought experiment.
In his writings Elliot repeatedly describes his experiences with straight pornography and the idea of putting his penis in a woman's vagina as horrifying and disgusting. In fact he barely describes the girls who "tormented" him and spins this almost homoerotic tale of what most of us would recognise as romantic love between males.
In fact when he describes his, shall we say infatuation with an older boy, a French exchange student Elliot reports that upon visting him at home in France he is shattered to learn that his beloved Max has degraded himself by having sex with girls his own age. There are multiple scenarios in the manifesto which play out in this fashion, it's bizarre in the sense that he adopts the identity of the aristocrat, the "perfect gentleman" and it would appear that he wanted a woman at his side more as a way of gaining access to the "cool" boys. See Elliot is expressing a cliched, comical Victorian sensibility, the "perfect" gentleman is virile and commands the sexual love of women but he doesn't kiss and tell and as a romantic and an intellectual there's always this mystique about his relationships with other men of his station. Elliot hates braggarts and "studs", he's above that sort of thing so to be openly "Gay" is to be associated with promiscuity, sexual transgression and a lower social caste, he wants the quiet, exclusive love of his chums and at the same time the social status of a beautiful female consort.
It's all pretty straightforward stuff.

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/misanthropy

I've not read in detail but my impression is that misanthropy might be concept that Rob could have a think about.

R0bert

Jay Of Melbourne,

Interesting theory, sadly the media cherry picks what so called "facts" it reports, then pitches it in a way to appeal to the emotional hooks.

It is also reported that this male also fantasised about killing his parents

While this is a very sad event, the author the leaves out a very important point in regards to the changes toward the expectation of sex and the sexualisation of culture. It begins before Porkys and other popular culture; it begins with the radicals of the 1960/70s. The overturning of conservative values in the 1960/70s by the post-structuralist thinkers broke down traditional views of relationships and placed 'free love' at centre-stage. The feminists, Foucault, Judith Butler, and a myriad of other thinkers degraded the family unit, degraded sex before marriage, and degraded sexual repression. A strong desire for one's sexual fulfilment and expectation was normalised here by the post-structuralists and any repression of the sex drive was supposedly a conservative, misogynistic plot designed to keep women in their place.

The good Associate Professor is either ignorant of this massive cultural change or is being deceptive. I know it is fashionable in 'cultural studies' and social science research to carve every phenomena up into categories of sex/gender, race/ethnicity, and class, and then analyse them in regards to how one sex or race or class is oppressing the other (usually of men oppressing women, whites oppressing non-whites, and the bourgeois oppressing the workers), but this approach is very limited. It doesn't allow for analysing phenomena outside these categories.

The good Associate Professor would do well to undertake further research on this, dating back to the post-structuralists and their rancour toward any kind of supposed unfair 'power structure', particularly those related to sexual repression. I know this would probably end up with you making many enemies in the academic world, as denouncing the post-structuralists in academia is like a Christian committing blasphemy, but the truth is more important, don't you think?

One section of my reply above should say "degraded waiting until marriage for sex" and not "degraded sex before marriage".

For Aristrocrat, many thanks for the commentary.

I see the point you’re making about 1970s radical discourse and post-structuralism, but it’s unfortunately not quite correct and not quite that simple for a few reasons.

Firstly, Foucault, Butler et al. do not directly or politically advocate a breaking down of societal values (they might, but that is not the thrust of their work), rather they point to, investigate, analyse and try to make sense of cultural shifts that are/were occurring. Theoretical and philosophic work doesn’t quite ‘drive’ history, wich unfolds through all sorts of cultural shifts in complex ways. Correct that a “strong desire for one's sexual fulfilment and expectation was normalised” but this doesn’t emerge from the work of theorists and philosophers but from a range of cultural forces (I mention only popular film/tv but there are of course many other factors).

Secondly, social theory and post-structuralism don’t quite carve up the world into race/sex/gender/class but looks precisely to the ways in which such categories are constructed, made to feel ‘natural’, and maintained. If there is a political aim in post-structuralism (which is too simple a way to put it), it is to undo such categories, not just to point to oppressions.

Finally, 1960s/1970s cultural changes around “sexual fulfilment itself” is not the problem and by no means the sole cause of Rodger’s violence and suicide; rather, it is the social factors that have connected sexual fulfilment with self-worth that make him feel inferior, resulting in his anger which is channeled through misogynistic violence (and enacted by the horrific availability of weapons in the US, of course).

One wonders how much violence might have been the result of other kinds of “feeling inferior” produced by social stratification in times past—lost self-worth from religious discourse, lost sense of entitlement among aristocrats challenged by popular views. Sexual fulfilment “as achievement” is just a more recent manifestation

jealousy, anger, frustration, sinful nature all fed by a secular culture that is always dumb enough to ask why.

Thanks for replying Rob and for extending the discussion into new territory.
Have you read Rodger's manifesto in full yet? Your theories are interesting but I'd like to read your opinions on his extended explanation for his actions. It seems to me that if the repressed homosexual theory was to be correct he would destroy those he could not possess, ie men and also act out against those who he believed thwarted his plans, the attractive White girls of the sorority.
The "plan" such as it is hinged on social status, by having a beautiful White girlfriend he could be the perfect aristocrat, he would be accepted by those whose company and approval he truly desired, the "cool" boys,his fellow gentlemen, the boys he believed belonged to him and he to them.

Jay of Melbourne:
Have you anything else except a well documented patent bent for homophobia, for your particular assumptions?
Like some secret personal insights, you're not prepared to share with the rest of us?
I remember reading somewhere the very worst homophobes, were religious "advocates", still in the closet?
Could that somehow describe you?
Would you care to explain to the bewildered, just how is it, you seem to know so much personal information, on the internal workings of this particular nutter?
Could it be that you your self share some of his particular peculiar personal sexual repressions, and or boy on boy sexual fantasies, you seem to want to claim he had?
Perhaps? Maybe? Surely not?
Rhrosty.

J of M you are at it again with your obsession with gay people, and use this violent incidence to exploit your homophobia.
Studies and as been mentioned on OLO, those with continuous reference to homosexuality, some are inclined to have latent tendencies themselves.

Rhrosty,I've a fascination with masculinity, not specifically homosexuality even though I regard it as an expression of masculinity, not it's antithesis as some do. That said in my view homosexuality does sit on the Feminist's "dark side", the tough, uber-macho side of masculinity, I don't see it as effeminate or un-manly.
Read Elliot Rodger's manifesto, he describes his life in microscopic detail, read and re read all of it as I did and you'll see where I'm coming from.
http://www.ibtimes.com/read-elliot-rodgers-140-page-memoir-manifesto-he-wrote-prior-his-shooting-university-1589868

As I clearly stated in my first post I don't think we as citizen philosophers can take anything away from this incident, he was as crazy as they come but since the author insists that he must be taken seriously I'm merely giving my opinion on what I've read.

Was it the gunman's upbringing, society's misogynistic expectations of sexual fulfilment that led to the shooting, or was it simply his history of mental illness combined with easy access to high powered guns?

Rob Cover's complete failure to mention that Rodger was a fruitcake, and using him as an example of misguided male youth indicates to me that this article is more about pushing Rob's ideological agenda than reality.

Since the liberalisation of entertainment media laws in the early seventies, our entertainment media has become extremely violent. Violent movies are specifically engineered to appeal to young males who harbour feelings of inadequacy. The movies usually involve a villain doing something dastardly to the hero or his family, whereupon then hero spends the rest of the movie hunting down and killing his tormentors.

The constant message, is that Real Men are violent men. Real Men kill the people who are hurting them without remorse or pity. Whereas most of us can watch such a movie, where the usual legal restrictions on killing and violence are reversed, as a form of entertainment, some people use these movies as scripts for their own behaviour.

If we can understand that the images and messages presented to people in the form of tobacco advertising can influence millions of perfectly normal people to take up a filthy habit which is both addictive and ruinous to health, on the basis that it is a manly or fashionable thing to do, then it should not be hard to figure out that movies which constantly extol murderous revenge as a virtue can do the same thing, at least to people with a shaky grip on reality.

FBI profilers who have examined the rooms of young mass murderers are always struck by the similarity of the rooms. In every offenders rooms are the violent movies, violent posters on walls, violent computer games, and the pop music with lyrics extolling the virtues of misogyny, violence, and the virtues of being criminal street gang member.

The culture of every nation once was used to teach the young about the values, attitudes, and behaviours expected of them to conform to community expectations. But this worthy ideal has been corrupted by an industry which has found that entertainment which teaches the young to be violent criminals and murderers has a positive effect on their industries quarterly balance sheets.

If you are not having sex from the day you are born to the day you die in this modern age there must be something wrong with you, the magazines, TV, and media shout it from the rooftops, get at it, in your old age grab a tube of KY, get out your dildo's and any thing else if the old fellow stays flacid, don' worry, just as long as you are at it, it is no wonder this particular young guy thought he was missing out of dipping his wick twenty four hours a day, when every one else was screaming in exstacy more, more, don't stop, if he had thought about it, having a tug may have released the frustrations that he was imagining about himself missing out on sexual exstacy, sometimes in my old age when I look at the young, I would sooner have a tug.

Why is it that when an event like this occurs that people accept the gunman’s interpretation of his actions to be perfectly logical and reasonable? This then becomes fire for pushing their own ideological agenda.

Surely this was a very unstable young man. No one goes on a shooting rampage and then takes his own life because it is the logical and reasonable thing to do. They do it because they have lost all capacity to think rationally and clearly. They have lost touch with everything we claim to be normal behaviour and yet claims come from all manner of experts that it is all about sex, entitlement or misogyny. “Oh it must be about these things because he said so in a note and he is obviously the best one to understand his own behaviour”.

Academics and commentators who commence arguments and try to draw conclusions that mirror their own positions based on the suicide note of anyone show us not their understanding of human behaviour but their complete ignorance of it. Suicide is never a logical behaviour since the instinct to survive is embedded so deeply in us.

We do not need events like this to tell us that misogyny is wrong or that entitlement is not a value that we all share. Those things have their own valid arguments. It is irrelevant what he thought his motives were – it does nothing to help understand his particular illness. Using this type of tragedy to bolster some point of view about sex, misogyny or entitlement only shows up how poorly constructed some of the arguments for those things are.

Shadow minister got it right "...Was it the gunman's upbringing, society's misogynistic expectations of sexual fulfilment that led to the shooting, or was it simply his history of mental illness combined with easy access to high powered guns?"

It was absolutely his fatal mixture of mental illness and access to guns that led to this tragedy. Even his own parents tried to warn the police about his behaviour.

If every bloke or girl who was ever 'shunned' or 'spurned' by someone of the opposite sex ran out and killed someone, we wouldn't have many left in the world.

If only Governments would take mental illness seriously and really get behind that part of the health system financially, we would be better off.

Luckily, these sort of mass killings don't happen often in Australia, because we have reasonable gun laws.
I feel sorry for law-abiding non-gun toting citizens in America, and other trigger happy countries, when they have to deal regularly with these atrocities.

Australia once had almost non existent gun laws and one of the world's lowest homicide rates. In NSW, the legal age for firearm ownership was 16 and firearm licences were unheard of. Firearms could be purchased at suburban hairdressers, and ammunition at petrol stations and corner stores. Schoolboys in cadet uniform could be seen carrying Lee Enfield military rifles on buses and trains and nobody batted an eye. We lived in an age where kids did not go on killing sprees and kill kids. Even today, those areas of Australia which have the highest concentrations of firearm ownership are the rural areas, which have the lowest crime rates. Some country towns have never had an armed robbery in their entire history.

What we are witnessing today are new and growing phenomenon's. The fastest growing crime statistic in the USA is juvenile gang killings. Once rare serial killing incidents are increasing. Once rare Spree killers and mass murderer incidents are increasing. If the behaviour of your young people is going off the rails, it is pertinent to look at that part of your society which has changed, not to continually blame firearms, which were always present.

People are not born with moral values. The values which direct our behaviours are inculcated into us as children and youth's by our culture, and the role models that our culture provides. Culture's can be violent or non violent. The reason why Mexico has a homicide rate 15 times Australia's, is because Mexico's culture endorses violence as a masculine way of solving personnel problems, while Australia does not. But that is changing. Today's on screen role models have only one characteristic, the ability to beat the ever lovin' shiit out of anybody who crosses them.

Firearm laws are a litmus paper test of how violent your society is becoming. Violent societies usually have very strict firearm laws which do little to prevent homicides. Non violent societies usually have lax firearm laws because the primary moderator of violent behaviour is the generally agreed upon moral value that using violence to solve personnel problems is reprehensible.

THE LAST\THING/THE POOR KIDS/DEAD SPIRIT\..NEEDS
IS US..ADDING..OUR SPECULATIONS..[read hopes/fears\bias/expectation//etc]

clearly..this guy..was set up/to\fail/
encouraged/by fellow you-..as well as
u-tubers/you-tubers..damm stickey curser

look the guy[child]..ignorant/innocent]..
was clearly gay../[he really hates..woman..[read/mum]
and woman..can sence these things../you know\when someones faking it[its part of..the mothering gene..[an evolution\of/smothering-GENETISITISM]..but clearly..the poor kid has mother-.issues/plus closeted gayness/.plus imputance/IMPUt-0NUANCE./as well as inferiority complex..[plus-zzzitttss]

look..its the..3 rd gen/thing[family curses/often unfold over 7 generations/anyhow at the moment..he is wimpering\mindlessly..in the deserts/leave his spirit..sort his\own mess out

he was guided..to his/end
http://www.thedailysheeple.com/breaking-multiple-witnesses-say-two-men-were-in-the-elliot-rodger-bmw-during-shooting_052014

HE WAS..UNDER PRESCRIBED MEDS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmvuYTH5nU0
READ\project/ultra..[see hollywOOD mind-control

this documentary shows..how the army is exploited..as Psychiatry's testing ground for drugs..and other inhumane "treatment" which have resulted in exponential growth of military suicides.[mil/strong\links..with hollywood]..Currently,.more US soldiers d[and/actors]..die from suicide...than from combat.

"The battlefield is safer than psychiatry...You understand that? Statistically you are less likely..to be shot by an enemy than to be killed by a pharmaceutical drug...That's the truth about psychiatry." —Mike Adams "Health Ranger"..creator of www.naturalnews.com

Our military/masters..are being prescribed..the following drugs
(list not complete): Seroquel, Paxil, Prozac, Abilify, Wellbutrin, Modafinil, MethylphenidateXanax, Dexedrine, Effexor, Haldol, Adderal, Stelazine, Depakote, Thorazine, Zoloft,ambien.23:16..lsd/speed.

"You take your meds..and you can just start feeling it
going down..and you're just like...bam..you're just a zombie...yo' wholly-wood/hood brain washing project

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2014/05/deja-vu-son-of-director-kills-4-at-isla-vista-campus-in-2001-video-2963528.html

http://www.thedailysheeple.com/whos-dangerous_052014

http://www.fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/whos-dangerous/89503
now leave it to spirit/let the dead tend the dead.
AND FOR THOSE GUN/NUTTERS/4 Died from knife wounds/he of himself/wasnt powerfull enough to use a knife/why do i hear echos of sandy hook's lies?

its all phsy ops..to hide the issue of the wall
all of a sudden its 2001..[again]//lest we forget..9112002/was the day a new christ movie wasa to be released/but didnt because of 911[it wasa also the day the market bubble was going to burst/thank god you dont need expain these things/to people who dont care about anything but star POWER

CAN YOU IMAGINE/THE FUN..the son..of a film movie director..could have on dads casting couch?..the kid was closet gay..[i mean he really..hated mummy/and all her..'kind'..[trasheyslutty..

aint it great/MURDER/MOVIES/SCREW$$-MINDS.
imagining..all my-minds filth..[FIXATED/EXPRESSED/IMPRESSED/DEPRESSED]..upon others dirt.

[?]

[its a sign..of these times..joh\how/..va
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/memorial-day-nightmare/
holly-would..have\his/wood/..ho-hoe\how-now..[in/is-dreams].[our night-mares]..their reality]

Yeah right OUG. You tell us not to '...add our speculations' and yet you go on to say
"CAN YOU IMAGINE/THE FUN..the son..of a film movie director..could have on dads casting couch?..the kid was closet gay..[i mean he really..hated mummy/and all her..'kind'..[trasheyslutty.."

How did you come up with that?
Do you know his mother?
Or do you agree with old Freud that all our psych problems are caused by our mothers?

The guy had verified psych problems, according to his parents.
He was both mad and bad...

LEGO,

Your entire argument regarding violent media is based on a false premise...

<<The movies usually involve a villain doing something dastardly to the hero or his family, whereupon then hero spends the rest of the movie hunting down and killing his tormentors.>>

Of all the violent movies I’ve ever seen, I can only think of two movies like this: The Crow and The Punisher. It’s hardly a common theme in violent movies. And even then, the underlying message in these movies is not that real men are violent, but a message of justice (albeit a more primitive type of justice).

<<If we can understand that the images and messages presented to people in the form of tobacco advertising can influence millions of perfectly normal people to take up a filthy habit which is both addictive and ruinous to health....>>

This is a false analogy. Cigarette advertising had one message: Smoke, it’s cool. Violent movies, on the other hand (and contrary to your misleading portrayal of what they “usually” contain), have multiple messages; primarily, that it pays to be the good guy.

<<FBI profilers who have examined the rooms of young mass murderers are always struck by the similarity of the rooms. In every offenders rooms are the violent movies, violent posters on walls, violent computer games, and the pop music with lyrics extolling the virtues of misogyny, violence, and the virtues of being criminal street gang member.>>

[Odd list for someone who condones racism.]

This is another spurious relationship of yours. Is the violent media a cause of the violent acts? Or are those who are committing violent acts just likely to enjoy violent media?

The evidence actually suggests the latter.

While there are some studies that suggest a link between the viewing of violent media and violent behaviour, there are problems with these studies. Firstly, violence is defined by the researcher and may not be in line with generally accepted ideas of violence. Secondly, the violence is conducted in controlled settings and much of it is directed towards inanimate objects.

Continued…

…Continued

Thirdly, most of the studies fail to take account of the type of media (cartoons, movies, news).

On the other hand, we see that not even the presentation of capital punishment has a deterrence or a brutalising effect (Bailey, 1990) - and that’s real life! A German study (1994) found that violent media can actually lead to reductions in aggressive behaviour (perhaps you should indulge in it more often) and an increased fear of aggression, along with greater sympathy for victims. Age also makes a difference. While older people focus on the violent acts (and are therefore just plain horrified by violent media), young people are more likely to focus on the underlying message (Lewis & Van Gamm, 1994). Any violence mimicked by very small children has only ever been found to be short-term and soon forgotten (Williams, 2012).

There is no reliable evidence that violent media causes violent behaviour, and there is actually some evidence to suggest that violent media provides an outlet for people with a propensity to commit violent acts (Williams, 2012).

I find it amusing that you mention the liberalisation of violent media that began in the early seventies when the overall crime trend has actually declined in most Western countries since then. And while assault rates are up, the only evidence of causation between these increases in assault and violent media is the backfiring effect that our now more profound condemnation of violence (which is possibly, and ironically, in part due to the increased viewing of violent media) can have.

yeah the dogma that everyone who commits an abhorrent crime is mentally unstable is so convenient. The depraved heart of man just can't be faced by most.

I'm glad we're coming to the conclusion that Elliot Rodger was simply a kid who'd slowly gone insane over a period of years.
For those who haven,t read his manifesto his ultimate fantasy was to send all women to a huge concentration camp where he'd sit atop a panopticon tower and watch them starve to death, that's so far out in cuckoo land that nobody could possibly take anything he says seriously.
There are feminists online pushing the misogyny angle but there are also Neo Nazis pushing the racial hate crime angle (objectively speaking it's as much a race crime as a gender crime) and they're all wrong. The guy was crazy, his alchohol problem and the fact that he was on Xanax no doubt made things worse, SSRI's and substance abuse have been a factor in so many of these mass shootings.

Jay of Melbourne –

If we simply argue that people who do horrendous things are just “crazy” (mentally imbalanced, psychiatrically disturbed) and leave it at that, then we’re looking in the wrong direction and we’re failing to address the problem.

In “coming to the conclusion that Elliot Rodger was simply a kid who'd slowly gone insane” we’re failing precisely to ask about:

1. What are the social pressures that drove him to ‘behave insanely’ (those pressures may have been going on for a long time in his life, as his manifesto would indicate, although remember that it is not a diary but written at a particular point-in-time)

2. What are the nuanced, complex, complicated and awkward ways in which people are positioned, relative to others, that can have such an effect.

Of course Elliot Rodger had very serious mental health issues: that goes without saying in the case of anyone capable of shooting innocent random people. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that this was a conscious, reasoned act.

What is necessary, however, is to ask the question of what puts him into the “bubble”? What stresses, what kinds of situations, what ways of thinking about himself in relation to others position him to lash out?

The necessary work, then, is to ‘come at’ the issue from a range of perspectives in the hope of finding a way to prevent that this kind of horrendous act from happening again.

HEYJ/QUOTE..<<..There is no reliable evidence that violent media causes violent behaviour,>>.

gezz/mate..im not sure about you/but porno makes us horny
thats why some people watch em//so only do gooders watch violence movies/come on son/dreamers wankerrs fighters and thugs love getting new ideas from movies

lest we forget much 'erRor/was first done on screen

i recall a plaNe hitting a tower/i\recall roberies copy cat
you just need record your own righteous anger/on an actor[yet go ask how many dumbo's there are that think movies are real

youR WORDS ARE MUCH LIKE THE RESULTS THEY GOT AT QUANTONIMO BAY
THE NUMBVERS MAH HAVE A BIAS[AND THE INFO APPEARS UNSOURCED/IE ITS ORPHan/still born

<<> and there is actually some evidence to suggest that violent media provides an outlet for people with a propensity to commit violent acts>>

yes where the heart goes the fist goes
its amasing how fear makes some horny[its sickness..our emotion attrtact demons/kids have nightmares/woman get raped//idiots get ideas[to think it is as good as doing it/spiritualy/if you wanted/to..you sinned..in your heart[you cant be half preggers.]

thuswatch thuggery[police love cops shows/judge shows train judges and tv id your master..sport nuts dont watrch sport/because real sportsman/oplay sport/not watch it[those weakling/no bodies/who want a gun/just so they too can say/make my day/the truth yopu cant handle the truth//i love the smelL OF GUTS AND BLOOD /I DRINK BLOOD/eat flesh/its insane..any fool will see two fat overweight dudes bAshing each others heads in..and know their..in church?

OR THE DEMONS KILLING IN GODS HOLY LANDS

insanity/one more pill wont hurt
ONLY/one More sip..one PUNCH CAN KIll..WAR MONGRELS WATCH WAR MOVIES/LOVERS WATCH LOVE..STORIES..KIDS LOVE KIDDY TALES.

POLITICOS lOVE POLICIAL MAGAZINES..its not complicated
we buy stuff that feeds our passion...rather selfish/but such IS WHAT WE ARE.

we hire trainers to train us in our passion
help us find ourselves/the absurdity/THAT WE WATCH VIOLENCE TO FEEL PEACE/ISNT HARD FAST FACT.

A LUST to murder/must begin in our heart
but what the minds sees
it knows
once it knows what it likes it want more

ITS NOT OVER COMPLICATED/..if/YOUR WATCHING KIDIE PERVERSION/YOUR A KIDDY PERVERT[SIMPLES]//WE BECOME THAT WE CONSUME.

<<>...the liberalisationof violent media that began..in the early seventies.when the overall crime trend has actually declined i..>>

THE STUFF THAT SEPPEWRATED THE GENERATIONS/AWAY FROM PARENTAL GUIDENCE

<<..And while assault rates are up,>>>
SOCCER RIOTS ONLY OCCUR AFTER SOCCER MATCHES
OR OTHER MEDIA PROVOCATION/motivations/we watch marathons/hoping we one day/may run/one[i hate that b//so much i may like watcvhing movies on offing people?
i wtch coking shows for ideas/i watch home reno shows/FOR IDEAS/FIGHTERS WATCH PREVIOUS FIGHTS TO FIND WAYS TO LOOSE

ONLY LOOSERS NEVER WIN
ONLY WINNERS NEVER WHIME
<<..the only evidence of causation between these increases in assault and violent media is the backfiring effect that our now more profound condemnation of violence..(which is possibly, and ironically, in part due to the increased viewing of violent media) can have.>>

ONLY BEAST WATCH BEAST PORN*
LINKAGE IS EVERYTHING/KNOW WHAT A PERSON LOVES TO DO/we know you
we see you love porn sites..that dsont mean much/till we see its all boys...if we watching it/we rather be 'doing'..it/stop pretending vilence dont make more vile[not even real vile/just pretend vile[its sick].

show me thy libery//i know the man
sjow me your music...by this your are knowable
show me your beloved drink//your favourded food..im eating lobster cause i really wanted bay bugs...[yeah right]

It always seems to amaze me how writers only think of the problem at hand, I for one do not condone what this young man did, nor do I condone the USA killing many innocent men women and children in war, we must remember America is gun happy whether in war or peacetime. Where is the difference one legal, one illegal? remember I was taught to kill brutally with a 303 rifle and to yell & scream as I plunged the bayonet into a chaff bag resembling a body, but of course this was legal madness and is still being practised today.

Rob Cover,
Short answer, we don't know to what extent his environment influenced his state of mind because we only have the writings penned when he had clearly gone over the edge of the abyss, I don't see how we can trust his account of his upbringing.
All in all it's a sordid story.
His family have since indicated that there was no diagnosis of Asbergers and one suspects that their lawyers are doing a lot of butt covering besides, maybe he wasn't getting treatment? There are posts online which are probably by Rodger but which can't be verified that apparently contain some fairly horrific allegations of abuse by his stepmother and it's alleged that his father and stepmother also posted their home made pornography online, which also he might have seen.
Broadly speaking the thread linking misogynistic spree and some serial killers is maternal abuse or abuse by female carers, it's actually ubiquitous in their accounts of their lives.
Your questions are valid but I don't think we can get any answers from Elliot Rodgers, you'd be better off studying some spree killers or killers of women who didn't suicide and were studied while in custody, Peter Dupas for example or the case of Richard Speck:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vAn0p2iVyM

Rob Cover : “What is necessary, however, is to ask the question of what puts him into the “bubble”? What stresses, what kinds of situations, what ways of thinking about himself in relation to others position him to lash out?”

What if none of those reasons relate to misogyny, sexual fulfilment, peer pressure or sense of entitlement? You are basing your results on the evidence of his diary or YouTube or other public utterances. You are taking his interpretation of his behaviour and giving it a credence which at the very least is extremely unscientific. The fact is you do not have anywhere near enough reliable information to make such a conclusive diagnosis of what was happening in his mind. You want the cause of his behaviour to be bad attitudes to women and sex and entitlement because those things are important to you. Those things are important to a great many people in our society but they argue their point by using reason and logic and not trying to influence any debate by attempting to append guilt where none is appropriate. You are in effect saying, without any intimate knowledge of this young man, that society is to blame for his actions. You hope that the part of society which harbours negative attitudes to women or sex or entitlement will be shamed into changing those attitudes because the result is that unstable people are driven to this kind of behaviour.

If there are pockets of society which harbour negative attitudes which you seem to attribute to this young man then they should change those attitudes because it is reasonable and logical to do so. This is the only way lasting and true change comes about. Trying to get them to change by heaping upon them a guilt trip which is totally unwarranted is a desperate measure and smacks of some personal agenda.

Rob your inexperience and understanding of sexuality is greatly limited by you age and understanding of the sexual motivations of women and understanding their needs.

That you identify with the truncated ideas of the feminists is laughable. Mate after you've loved different women between ages 16 to 70 don't dare spout, it only shows your ignorance.

I've done that and I'm telling you I've been rejected more times than I'd care to admit and much more often and more serevely than our murderous friend. I've also had more bad sex than good, entirely my own fault, and cannot agree only good sex resides in loving relationships. My rejections only ever caused me to question my attitudes and practices. I didn't become murderous.

I changed myself and my approaches and attitudes.

If our teachers including you applied the premise of personal responsibility instead of seeking to blame circumstances, upbringing, social inadequacy, mysogany and all the other crap excuses these murderous attitudes wouldn't exist in people like our killer.

Instead of blaming men for being men focus on the kids education. That's where he learned he wasn't responsible for his own actions.

In someone suposed to be intelligent your ramblings show incredible stupidity.

Imajulianutter,
In his writing Elliot Rodger doesn't mention any pro-active attempts on his part to get to know girls and to get close to them, his ideas about girls his own age sprang from his own imagination.

'The right to sexual fulfilment ' the whole rights entiltlement mentality. Students right to be violent because they might have to pay a little towards their own education, the right to prevent free speech, the right to murder the unborn, the right to free medical services, the right not to work, the right to demand more pay.. all rights no reponsibility (very much the socialist mindset)

Not my point Jay. I wish it was so easy.

Perhaps a piece of American Free Verse might help. I know the socialist Poe would think it daft.
Students Rites

Silent night unholy night
All is still but bullets shrill
Silent night unholy sight
Lonely sit and think hate tonight
Tomorrow lying tiredy
In a puddle lifeless
Blown away body parts
Poor wealth pretend
Multiple stabs in men
Single shots in women
Hurray I won
Gods forsake live like us
Shoot all suckers guns
Blow all to hell my son
You've won
Dead as the dead inside
Share cold my son.
Hollywood the soul
Latest great one said
The heart he said
Brain dead
Dead remorse
Born killer disease
Karl's moneyless
The states to blame
Irresponsibility educate
Where alls fair win
Sadness embraced reward
Mothers weep, siblings seek
Fathers in silence groan
On and on and on it goes
No one knows
Analysis fake
Not him it's men
Feminists point
In Gulags of communal hate.

In defence of Rob, he is an Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Studies, so it is his business to view, and try to explain things, from that perspective. So long as he can cite credible studies to support any conclusions that he may reach, then there’s nothing wrong with that.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that he denies the possibility that this particular tragedy may, at the end of the day, be best explained from a psychological perspective. Sociological factors have probably, at least, helped to shape how this kid’s mental issues manifested, so they are useful in that sense.

Each perspective has its strengths and its weaknesses. There is never any one explanation for deviant behaviour and different schools of thought will approach it from different angles. A psychoanalyst would probably theorise on the basis of the ego, the super-ego and the id, but that doesn’t mean that they disregard the legitimacy of sociological explanations too.

I'm not anti gun nor am I pro gun & think it ok if someone needs a firearm for protection such as living in an isolated area or bush walking etc.
My idea of obtaining a firearm should be governed by
a: only after a term of National Service
&
b: At the first display of mental instability the firearm has to be handed in until such time that mental stability can be proven again.
&
c: for sport shooting such as target shooting a .22 caliber is all that's needed. I'd prefer target shooting to be limited to air powered guns.

You can't legislate against stupidity, every person has to simply be more involved & alert about the goings on around them. A two year term of National Service will instil a sufficiently healthy mentality in most to have a more sane society in a very short time.

We think of psychopaths as killers, alien, outside society. But, says the scientist who has spent his life studying them, you could have one for a colleague, a friend – or a spouse...

There are a few things we take for granted in social interactions with people. We presume that we see the world in roughly the same way, that we all know certain basic facts, that words mean the same things to you as they do to me. And we assume that we have pretty similar ideas of right and wrong.

But for a small – but not that small – subset of the population, things are very different. These people lack remorse and empathy and feel emotion only shallowly. In extreme cases, they might not care whether you live or die. These people are called psychopaths. Some of them are violent criminals, murderers. But by no means all.

Professor Robert Hare is a criminal psychologist, and the creator of the PCL-R, a psychological assessment used to determine whether someone is a psychopath. For decades, he has studied people with psychopathy, and worked with them, in prisons and elsewhere. “It stuns me, as much as it did when I started 40 years ago, that it is possible to have people who are so emotionally disconnected that they can function as if other people are objects to be manipulated and destroyed without any concern,” he says.

Our understanding of the brain is still in its infancy, and it’s not so many decades since psychological disorders were seen as character failings. Slowly we are learning to think of mental illnesses as illnesses, like kidney disease or liver failure, and developmental disorders, such as autism, in a similar way. Psychopathy challenges this view. “A high-scoring psychopath views the world in a very different way,” says Hare. “It’s like colour-blind people trying to understand the colour red, but in this case ‘red’ is other people’s emotions.”

Indy...The wiring of each individual is a separate case.

Kat

Kat,
Elliot Rodger wasn't a psychopath,by his own account he's more a hysterical, hyper sensitive personality type and very much saw himself as the object, the person who was acted upon by people he saw as heartless,psychopathic predators.
Psychopaths are impulsive, fearless, superficially charming and cunning, Rodger was (as far as we know) timid, shy, introverted, clumsy and socially inept. The psychopath also typically has no trouble attracting and seducing sexual partners because he's a flatterer and tells people what they want to hear.

Jay.....given our brain is still in its infancy, there's not much I can add:).....I think fact is a great base line...what do you think?

Kat

AJPhilips: The author does not need defending since he has not really said anything.

What is the point of continually stating the obvious? Misogynist attitudes exist in society and some people take their attitudes to the extreme and become violent. You do not need to be an academic to observe these two things. What purpose does it serve the good of society to keep making such statements? After such events we are routinely reminded that one in three women are subjected to violence from their male partners. We have been told this over and over again – what purpose does it serve?

Presumably most of us want such violence to come to an end but simply stating that it exists contributes nothing toward that end. This article does little more than that. Some men hold poor attitudes toward women, sex and a sense of ownership or entitlement. This can lead to violence. Where is their evidence that anyone is really interested in finding out where these attitudes come from? An attitude is not just a bunch of ideas which can simply be turned around by someone showing how these ideas are erroneous. Attitudes are as much about feelings as anything else. Why do men have these feelings towards women which lead them to become violent? What is the genesis of these feelings? What has occurred in their upbringing to make them feel the way they do? What has occurred in their relationships with the women in their life – in particular their mother – that has made them want to hurt their innocent partners or random passersby?

Wanting to constantly draw attention to the results rather than to causes may be a smoke screen to avoid facing those causes for fear of implication in the results. If you are genuinely interested in solving the problem then you will be prepared to look everywhere for the possible causes even if it means you have to face some very unpleasant facts about yourself.

Men should own their own attitudes and behaviour but maybe some women need to own some of the causes.

AJ, my entire argument is based upon science and extensive research. Your opinion is based upon your perception that "progressive" people always oppose the idea of entertainment industry censorship, so you oppose entertainment media censorship as a culturally conditioned reflex. The media has you thoroughly house trained like a Manchurian Candidate", and you don't even know it.

If you claim that the media has no impact on human behaviour, stop and listen real hard. You will her the advertising executives at Mojo and Saatchi & Saatchi laughing their heads off. The entertainment media can hardly claim that the images produced and the messages transmitted by them has no influence on their audiences behaviour, when it is largely sponsored by an the advertising industry which claims the exact opposite.

The effectiveness of movies to influence audiences behaviour is the primary reason why movies today are saturated with "product placement" adds. The advertisers know that young people are so desperate to model themselves on their on screen hero's, and that they will purchase any product that they connect with their heroes.

"Rambo" knifes containing survivalist gear only became a popular item after the release of the "Rambo" movies. Clint Eastwood's .44 Magnum was invented by Elmer Keith and it was once considered too big to be practical. But this firearm became immensely popular after the release of the "Dirty Harry" movies. And if people purchase items to model themselves on the role model hero's, even you probably have the wit to figure out that they will also model their behaviour on their role model heroes as well.

In the USA, ALL of the prestigious medical and mental health associations have testified in the US Congress that media violence has a causal link to violent human behaviour. They use words like "There is absolutely no doubt" and "the scientific debate is over" (American Psychological Association). The AMA testified that the link between the media and real life violence "has been proven by science, over and over again.

Phanto, I see your points.

LEGO,

<<...my entire argument is based upon science and extensive research.>>

Awesome. Please link me to some of it then. I’m always fascinated to read this stuff. Preferably something that doesn’t contain the problems that I specified before, though. The Bobo doll experiment is a study that immediately comes to mind, and although it had it’s usefulness, it suffers from the same problems I noted and is, therefore, not very useful in this instance.

<<Your opinion is based upon your perception that "progressive" people always oppose the idea of entertainment industry censorship, so you oppose entertainment media censorship as a culturally conditioned reflex.>>

How do you know this? I’ve cited many studies that support my point. You would, at least, need to discredit those first before you could make such an assumption.

<<The media has you thoroughly house trained like a Manchurian Candidate", and you don't even know it.>>

How can that be when my sources didn’t come from the media?

<<If you claim that the media has no impact on human behaviour...>>

On the contrary, I pointed to several ways in which the media influences human behaviour. I even pointed out to you once how the media had influenced your skewed perception of crime rates (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15856#275124).

<<The entertainment media can hardly claim that the images produced and the messages transmitted by them has no influence on their audiences behaviour, when it is largely sponsored by an the advertising industry which claims the exact opposite.>>

Sure, but the question is what are people taking away from violent movies and why? I've already provided adequate reason to believe that it's not that violence is acceptable, and you have done nothing to counter that.

<<The effectiveness of movies to influence audiences behaviour is the primary reason why movies today are saturated with "product placement" adds.>>

No, that’s more to do with the effectiveness of advertising, marketers spotting new opportunities and film production companies welcoming the additional funding. The benefit that films bring to advertising is the ability to tie the trendiness of characters, etc. to their product.

To AJ.

Thank you for admitting that the media does have an effect on human behaviour. That is real progress. You have no idea how many times my opponents refuse to make that simple connection. Just like you and your opinions on racial equality, they toss red herrings, prevaricate, play dumb, and muddy the waters. I feel that we have already made some real progress.

Your position now appears to be, that the media can influence human behaviour, but it can't influence people to become violent. That is a contradiction. If that is not your position, have the guts to state what your position is in plain terms.

That the media can affect humans to become violent, was best illustrated by the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" phenomenon. When this cartoon was first released, teachers all over the world were horrified to see small children karate kicking each other all over school playgrounds. When ordered to stop, most children had no idea that they were doing anything wrong. This TV cartoon show had culturally conditioned children into believing that by imitating their violent "Turtles" heroes, they were engaging in normal social interaction. In another example, the reason why the slapstick comedy "The Three Stooges" was pulled from Australian TV, was because of the incidence of children receiving serious eye injuries imitating the eye poking stunts of the "Stooges."

The link between the media and violent behaviour has been studied as much as the link between smoking and cancer. But whereas trendies like yourself can get into all sorts of self righteous poses about smoking, you studiously avert your eyes over the effect of violent media. There are now literally thousands of scientific reports positively proving the causal link. Two reports are significant. One is the 1972 report, TELEVISION AND GROWING UP, which was sponsored by the US Surgeon General. This culminated in the historic "Joint Statement" report issued by all of the medical and mental health organisations in the US Congressional hearings in 1982, which unanimously advocated that there was a causal link between the entertainment media and real life violence.

Had this bloke been shot & killed by a bystander before he could start his rampage then the the bystander would now be the psychopath, he would be locked up for years & Rogers would be a dead hero. That's if that would have occurred in Australia. Christine Milne would be flat out writing about gun laws & how bad they are just like she does now about the rioters on Manus Island. I wonder if she is a closet psychopath ?

Reading the above posts and the ABC's Ruby Hamad rant about misogynist men, I am dismayed that everyone seems to have missed the point. I will bet a seed to a silo that the ultimate reason for Elliot Rogers demise is the conflict between his Testosterone and some mainly female hormones. I see this just from his video taken in his car. His aggressiveness = Testosterone Probably no argument, but his "baby like features" are an indicator of some female hormones.
Problem is this balance or feedback mechanism is slightly out of whack as often happens in nature, and the result is ED (erectile Dysfunction) When the force of desire builds up irrevocably with no tangible relief, you get explosive frustration. Anything can happen. That's it folks.

laz 91,
Nope, he describes himself as a compulsive masturbator and as having a very strong heterosexual sex drive, his writing and mannerisms don't strike me as effeminate as much as romantic and homoerotic, he's affecting the airs of an aristocratic dandy.
As I pointed out earlier if we take his writings at face value it's the boys he really wanted to impress, he wanted to be an aristocrat with a gorgeous blonde on his arm lording it over the ugly, the stupid and the degraded and to have kind, intelligent and romantic young men as his inner circle.
However, as I've also said repeatedly he was clearly completely insane during the writing of his memoir and shooting his videos and they seem to me to be a characterisation of his inner world, it's as if the guy sitting in the car talking is an avatar just like his beloved World Of Warcraft character.

Hi AJ. Are you AWOL or just Missing in Action?

On the topic of misogyny, this author's ridiculous claim that somebody carrying a "ditch the witch" poster is indicative of right wing misogyny, is more worthy of hilarity than serious consideration. The primary transmitter of misogyny is the entertainment media.

Along with the glorification of youth gang behaviour, drug abuse, irresponsible behaviour, criminal behaviour, and the linking of violence to a strong male sexual attractiveness to women, the entertainment industry in the form of "rap" music is a strong advocate of violence towards women.

Women are labelled "hoes" and "bitches" and depicted in rap video's in a variety of degrading ways which present women are simply providers of sex and servitude. They are depicted as barely clothed body parts and nymphomaniacs. Poorly socialised, fatherless young boys, who's only window to the world is a TV set, are presented with an images of females which are utterly ridiculous, at a time when they are reaching adulthood and resenting the authority of their mothers.

It is not just titles such as "Smack My Bitch Up" by rap groups with charming names like "Know Us By Our Trail of Dead", Niggerz with Attitude", "Megadeth" and "Drug Runnerz" which advocate violence towards women. "White" rap star M&M not only wrote a song about the pleasures of raping his mother, he included misogyny as part of his stage act. He had a life size inflatable doll made who's facial features had a resemblance to his wife, Kim Mathers. This he used to punch and kick around the stage. When he wrote a song ("Kim") about murdering her, she attempted suicide.

Naturally, one would expect the older and more mature members of this industry to condemn this behaviour. Instead they applaud it. Nine Inch Nails received a Grammy in 1998 for a song about raping a woman and murdering her. Another received a Grammy for a song about murdering a woman, and then cutting her breasts off. Unsurprisingly, black women are many times more likely to be homicide victims than white females.

the left turn child porn into art because they believe their hearts are not as perverted as others. They are in denial. Imagine the treatment Rolf Harris would of received if he was a priest.

Hang on a sec Lego.
That brand of Hip Hop has little to nothing to do with Black people, it's entirely the creation of Jewish entrepreneurs like Jerry Heller and performers like NWA were "Uncle Toms", it's for that reason and the economic monopolies they wield in the music industry that there's this persistent under-current of anti semitism in Black Hip Hop.
Megadeth? Dave Mustaine is a Christian, the most controversial thing he's ever done is refuse to tour with Rob Halford of Judas Priest because he's a homosexual. Like most heavy metal groups Megadeth's lyrics are mostly centred on Anti War and Anti Authoritarian themes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AJYusGcF5M
Trent Reznor? No way, Nine Inch Nails won their 1998 Grammy for a song called "the Perfect Drug" which has nothing to do with misogyny, his songs are disturbing because they're about addiction, madness and worship of women as goddesses.
You may be thinking about their single "Closer" which is about a broken man being made whole by the sexual love of a woman, which I guess is timely eh? It's actually as if this track is written about Elliot Rodger, Imagine if he had had sex with a woman, would he have been any less insane afterwards?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eROTYeIyJg

G'day Jay, It seems you are a general denier, not only to my diagnosis. I've had a look at the whole of the posts. Glad to see Sueonline, an old adversary, putting up a first class post. many posts I find somewhat academic, eg Quoting eminent and other "authorities " on the subject. My comments are based on what I see and hear from Rodger and of course my own experience and knowledge.
I maintain that much of the scientific knowledge is overlooked when it comes to male sex problems. Many problems can be explained and treated by biochemical, hormones, Electro neurology, microbiology, even Acupuncture. But while women can do all sorts of things to their bodies, men are forbidden and thus have trouble solving their problems. Rolf Harris diagnosed his sex problem as "touchy, feely desire". Many other prominent men have also used this expression when caught in the "honey trap"
The reason is that men are treated like cattle by women. Women control sex and society. They always have and men just can't get equality.

Hi laz91

"My comments are based on what I see and hear from Rodger and of course my own experience and knowledge." While in the understanding of our wirings complexity, there is still no fool-proof method of which the every-day person like my self, can correctly identify of which plenty of warning signs were availably, and why was it ignored?

One point I'd like to add, is the effect of women's up-rising/female movement was an ingredient ....?



Jay

Elliot Rodger appears to also have had aspects of both types. One way of understanding him is to compare him to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Like Harris, Rodger was narcissistic. He wrote repeatedly about being “destined for greatness” and stated, “I am the ideal, magnificent gentleman.” Along with his narcissism, he was remarkably entitled. He believed that women owed him love and sex and when he was denied satisfaction, he called it an “injustice” and a “crime.” In his 137-page autobiography, he wrote about their “crime of not giving me the attention and adoration I so rightfully deserve!”.........Jay...Q..was Elliots upper high society/rich life, gave him a sense of no ladder to climb? or was he incapable of meeting his sexual confidents with the opposite sex.....or was there other dysfunctional problems from the same realms ? ....We hear quite often in Hollywood circles, very much of the same thing...Drugs/gay-feeling(or not to be able)/suicide/public image/size does matter/or just crying out deep in-side...for mummy and daddy, while nannies cared for his emotional values, then only realizing latter on what he was missing in the bigger parental picture?......Was it his height?.....

What religion was he?

Parents today all around the world are working more and some just might feel, their missing out on something.

Ka

We hear it so often from all people in all walks of life, my son or daughter, father or mother, grandfather or grandmother showed no signs of doing this or that, of course they will do it if need be, it is that persons mind and no one can read it except that person who committed the act, in this case murder, Gay personnel hide their sexuality whether married or not, all the friends think they are heterosexual but the brain is hiding the secret, how many people have HIV-Aids but they are the only ones who know, their friends would not believe if told which then would make them gay or a druggie, did the pilot of 370 take all the passengers with him, he would not tell anyone if his brain was telling him to do this, c'mon folks we are all hiding this and that from everyone around us, don't tell me that any of you writers are not holding secrets that the rest of us know nothing about, perhaps some of you are knocking off a woman or man next door, but you are not going to disclose this information to anyone, we all hide by leading people up the garden path to think we are all sane and of course wouldn't do that, get real, even to killing people, it is your mind only. No one knows your thoughts except you.