Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Naval Yard Shooting
The Naval Yard shooting was perpetuated by a former solider, Mr. Alexis, discharged honorably by the Military. This man was seen as a trusted member of the base after applying to be a contractor there to work on the site. His history before consisted of more recently, after leaving the airport in Virginia, an allegation that he was being followed by three men hunting him with a "microwave machine". He was also known for getting angry easily, once using a gun to vent frustration, and on several occasions he went to the Veteran's affairs department for mental health treatment. Because of these incidents, it does surprise me someone like him would be allowed to work on a military base with access to the things on base. To be honest, I can't really see a correlation between this event and readings we have done over the last few weeks. This was about mental health, and a violent action that occurred from someone's deteriorating mental status. If this could be at all relatable is that maybe humanity in this instance is too trusting of what it's already comfortable with. A man formerly in the navy with a good record from his military career working at a base seems harmless, but what doesn't change on the outside can easily on the inside. Enlightenment thinkers from our reading may have responded to this that society is too trusting, but events like this didn't happen in the 18th century, and therefore no current event on terrorism or mental health can be put together with anything from the 18th century because it simply isnt the same, and was less documented. A quote from Ronald Reagan speaks the best of this, "trust, but verify"
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I also thought this was difficult topic to relate to the readings. I agree with you that this whole problem revolves around mental illness, and also I like your point about terrorism at the end.Good Job
ReplyDeleteI think that the main issue here is that there aren't enough filters the government has in place for vets or people applying for a military job. Had the so called minor "red flags" been noticed earlier and the numerous offenses and disturbances been taken into account then this issue wouldn't have happened.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I do agree with you that there is an issue with how easy it is for someone who does have mental illness to obtain a gun.
I have to say that I agree with you on the point that society may have been too trusting. Perhaps not in the same way as you described however. I see it in a sense that society may have trusted in itself all too well and its own self assurance rather than the idea of us trusting others. In a sense I am simply proposing a question to your quote from president Reagan "should we verify others or should we verify our mechanisms of trust?"
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I agree with you on the point that society may have been too trusting. Perhaps not in the same way as you described however. I see it in a sense that society may have trusted in itself all too well and its own self assurance rather than the idea of us trusting others. In a sense I am simply proposing a question to your quote from president Reagan "should we verify others or should we verify our mechanisms of trust?"
ReplyDeleteTyler, actually, trust is one of the crucial issued that comes out of many of the thinkers we have read. You must have thought about it more than you realized, because this is the type of question that they raised about social order: it only becomes clear how much of it is based on informal norms, emotional bonds, etc., when something goes wrong. The 18th c. did not have mass shootings, in part because it took minutes to reload a gun, but it did have a great deal of violence, probably more than we have in fact. So these issues would not have been unfamiliar totally. Certainly Hobbes was obsessed with the problem of the breakdown in trust and its relationship to violence.
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