Thoughts On The Media Coverage Of The Montreal Tragedy
Let us for a moment strip away the "dark, troubled" facade of Montreal shooter Kimveer Gill: imagine him without a Mohawk, a black trenchcoat or a blog on VampireFreaks.com. The sensationalistic media always needs a cultural scapegoat, they always need to pad their articles with uninformed, speculative pop sociology to explain terrible acts of violence. In the process, they end up damning and damaging people who have nothing whatsoever to do with the act of violence in question. In the absence of a goth subculture to blame, the media would've had to hang it all on the fact that Gill is Indo-Canadian. The reporters would snoop around the Montreal South Asian community and perhaps try to blame this on a conservative religious upbringing or some other nonsense.
I believe there are undoubtedly complex cultural factors that influence how tragedies like this play out. After all, none of us live in a vacuum, we are all shaped by everything around us. Gill was part of the goth subculture. The Columbine killers went bowling before they shot up their school. Karla Homolka came from a perfect white middle class background. I can drag up the names of dozens of well-known murderers and append simplistic sociological summaries to their personal profiles.
Two years ago a friend of mine was viciously assaulted in a mugging at Burning Man. In the criminal's weak defense, he cried out "the booze made me do it!," and alibis were trotted out condemning the "chaotic atmosphere" of Black Rock City. As if this explains it away. Out of 30,000+ participants, many of whom spent considerable amounts of time intoxicated, only a handful perpetrated violent acts.
There are certain persons in society, regardless of background or subculture, who are more prone to episodes of violence than others. When we were children we saw these same few folks day after day beating others on the playground, torturing cats and setting fires. In adulthood, they get drunk and beat their spouses and get into barfights, time and time again. These people are a societal aberration. We all think of committing acts of violence in our lives, but most of us are not psychologically predisposed to act upon it except in cases of extreme duress (immediate, automatic self-defense in the face of violence; war or revolution; or dire poverty. But even under these horrid conditions there are people who do not resort to violent means.) The violent fantasy worlds conjured up by television, motion pictures, novels and video games are enjoyed by the masses, by millions of people around the world who never lift a hand to strike another. These fantasy worlds may act as safe surrogates for real violence by releasing the tension of violent thought, channeling it through relatively harmless forms of entertainment.
Psychopathy is a condition that often develops in young childhood, before one is able to truly choose subcultural affiliations. There is considerable evidence pointing to genetic factors that play a role in the develoment of a psychopath.
The psychopath may slip into any cultural milieu at any given time. And when his/her act of violence inevitably spills out, its expression is often draped in the cloak of the particular subculture. Goth. Indo-Canadian. Punk. Raver. Hippy. Headbanger. Black. Hip-hop. Redneck. Yuppie. Gamer. Christian. So ultimately cultural influences do not play a significant role, as the psychopath will simply use the most convenient tools available to exploit and destroy people around him. Certain aspects of the ideologies or lifestyles of specific subcultures are used by the psychopath to justify or carry out his act of violence, but it is hardly the subculture itself that is to blame.
Kimveer Gill does not represent goth culture, nor does he represent Indo-Canadians, youth with Mohawks, visitors to VampireFreaks.com, manufacturers of black trenchcoats or Montrealers. Any scientist will tell you that correlation does not equal causality.
The only person to blame for this tragedy is Gill.
I believe there are undoubtedly complex cultural factors that influence how tragedies like this play out. After all, none of us live in a vacuum, we are all shaped by everything around us. Gill was part of the goth subculture. The Columbine killers went bowling before they shot up their school. Karla Homolka came from a perfect white middle class background. I can drag up the names of dozens of well-known murderers and append simplistic sociological summaries to their personal profiles.
Two years ago a friend of mine was viciously assaulted in a mugging at Burning Man. In the criminal's weak defense, he cried out "the booze made me do it!," and alibis were trotted out condemning the "chaotic atmosphere" of Black Rock City. As if this explains it away. Out of 30,000+ participants, many of whom spent considerable amounts of time intoxicated, only a handful perpetrated violent acts.
There are certain persons in society, regardless of background or subculture, who are more prone to episodes of violence than others. When we were children we saw these same few folks day after day beating others on the playground, torturing cats and setting fires. In adulthood, they get drunk and beat their spouses and get into barfights, time and time again. These people are a societal aberration. We all think of committing acts of violence in our lives, but most of us are not psychologically predisposed to act upon it except in cases of extreme duress (immediate, automatic self-defense in the face of violence; war or revolution; or dire poverty. But even under these horrid conditions there are people who do not resort to violent means.) The violent fantasy worlds conjured up by television, motion pictures, novels and video games are enjoyed by the masses, by millions of people around the world who never lift a hand to strike another. These fantasy worlds may act as safe surrogates for real violence by releasing the tension of violent thought, channeling it through relatively harmless forms of entertainment.
Psychopathy is a condition that often develops in young childhood, before one is able to truly choose subcultural affiliations. There is considerable evidence pointing to genetic factors that play a role in the develoment of a psychopath.
The psychopath may slip into any cultural milieu at any given time. And when his/her act of violence inevitably spills out, its expression is often draped in the cloak of the particular subculture. Goth. Indo-Canadian. Punk. Raver. Hippy. Headbanger. Black. Hip-hop. Redneck. Yuppie. Gamer. Christian. So ultimately cultural influences do not play a significant role, as the psychopath will simply use the most convenient tools available to exploit and destroy people around him. Certain aspects of the ideologies or lifestyles of specific subcultures are used by the psychopath to justify or carry out his act of violence, but it is hardly the subculture itself that is to blame.
Kimveer Gill does not represent goth culture, nor does he represent Indo-Canadians, youth with Mohawks, visitors to VampireFreaks.com, manufacturers of black trenchcoats or Montrealers. Any scientist will tell you that correlation does not equal causality.
The only person to blame for this tragedy is Gill.