this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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I don't think it's a mental health problem per se - I think American society is sick.
And I don't mean sick as in "something happened to you all" - I mean sick as in "you all willingly participate in it together"
There are plenty of other countries with guns who don't have the same kinds of mass killings the USA does.
The problem as I see it is that so many Americans are just so fucking emotional about everything.
Everything's a drama, or a story that needs to be be told, of a journey, or an underdog, or revenge, or a protector. Are musical montage. "I just have to tell you where I have come from" - "you just need ro know my roots"
Every disagreement is a fascist or a communist.
Nothing just "is".
Everything has to have bullshit emotional content and context.
The trouble is none of you will ever see yourselves as part of the problem.
You're in a narcissistic trap.
Liberals are 100% certain that "it's the guns" and get absolutely high saying it.
But it's not the guns. Canada has guns.
Loads of other countries have guns.
You're all fucking hysterical.
TL;DR: it is the guns, but it isn't just the guns. It isn't any one thing and it isn't not any one thing.
it IS the guns. It's hard / difficult to massacre with knives.
it IS mental health too.
Canada, Australia, UK, etc have horrifically underfunded and backed up mental health care systems - but yes, still far better than anything in the USA.
Which brings me to:
And yeah, I've gone off from your main point of "the USA is too emotionally extreme". This is... not wrong, but I want to argue overly simplistic. I (and others) have described the USA not as one country, but 50 or so (I'm not sold on the Dakota twins) countries that are loosely bound by their xenophobia of everyone else more than anything else. The country wasn't founded on a love of the USA, but the hatred of the UK.
I mean, the UK isn't really that much different. Remember Northern Ireland and Great Britain? Scotland and England? If they had guns like the USA had guns.. woo.
So, America being a drama, etc? You're not wrong. It's an ideology that was instilled at birth, and raised by capitalism - money from engagement, and emotionally trapped people are engaged. It's a society/system created, used and trapped by itself.
And guns are what turns that bubbling cauldron into massacres.
And massacres make the emotional drama cauldron bubble more.
Get rid of guns, you get rid of a lot of stress and drama. You don't solve all problems, but you solve one that is repeating and feeding the drama machine.
Sell the guns to South America/ Israel / wherever they want to ruin next, and use the money to fund affordable housing or something. Solved two birds with one stone!
PS: I'd love to see the USA fundamentally change in one big way: a stronger, standardised federal government. For example, let states do state elections however they want. But if you're voting in a federal election, it should be the same forms, same design, same level of access everywhere in the country. If you can drive freely between states, driving rules and tests should be standardised (they basically are, rural vs city aside). Education? Anything which affects and creates a level playing field across the country, ie. federally, should be standardized. If a state wants to charge sales tax, and another doesn't - that's fine! That's local.
In the same vein, remove weird voted-in positions, like judges and sheriffs. Emotional, populist,partisan involvement in roles that are supposed to be neutral and balanced is insane.
And the guns aren't helping.
Look, I don't think it's merely about mental health spend either.
I genuinely think that Americans are not very laid back.
It's mir magic - some nations are more laid back than others.
You say the word "hysterical" doesn't help.
But it's what you need to hear.
Everything has to be coated with so much sugar you all get fat and the meaning is lost.
Yeah. That's what's it is. You're just all always looking for drama and shit to get upset about.
It's not more complicated than that. It doesn't need everyone to sit down and get to therapy or make a TV show show about your pain.
It's just that you're all always looking for drama.
You are simply describing the effects of political and social polarization. I blame it primarily on a decades-long process of consolidation of wealth, influence and opportunity in the hands of an elite few, but no doubt there are other factors at play as well.
On the flipside I am very much opposed to any theory of the case that has it as being somehow uniquely American. It's not an American thing; it's a human thing that can happen in any country and has in fact happened in many countries throughout history. It does not require that we posit some kind of national hysteria that's unique to Americans when we can, with far fewer assumptions, simply point to polarization.
Polarisation isn't that bad in Europe. We take things in our stride better.
We're not constantly freaking out over tiny things.
America seems neurotic.
Yes, polarization is the relevant factor, as I said. What part about this do you not understand?
It's not as if Europe has a great record in this sense either. One look at the last century tells us everything we need to know about how susceptible European populations are to polarization.
Polarisation is absolutely that bad or worse in Europe. Poland and the UK are two good examples.
Oh, and holy shit, Germany, etc. with lockdowns and such with covid. They went nuts.
Oh, and how about riots in France every year? Come on. For a relatively small country, they flip out and set fire to things WAY more often than the USA does.