Dear friends,
My friend and colleague Miki Kashtan has written a compelling article exploring the interconnectedness of personal, community and social dimensions of the Sandy Hook crisis, “Adam Lanza and All of Us.” I highly recommend the whole article, but for the purposes of this commentary, I want to highlight this excerpt:
“I see violence, and the specific problem of mass shootings, as a form of horrific and tragic feedback to society that we are not providing the conditions that allow people to thrive. I am troubled by what I see as medicalizing and individualizing a social problem, because I want the issue to be addressed on a societal level, and I worry that the individual lens will distract us away from the issues I want us to focus on…. I want to keep asking: what is happening on a larger scale that is affecting more and more children? What are we doing, collectively, that is resulting in so many children having so little capacity to manage their inner and outer lives? How can we take societal responsibility for the conditions we have created that affect many more than those who engage in overt violence?”
Another intriguing article on the social dimensions of mental illness is “Sanity in a Culture of Mass Murder” which chronicles a mutual self-help network of activists with mental health issues, who seem quite articulate describing the harsh edge between personal and social dysfunction:
Continue reading “Tom Atlee: Sandy Hook Reflections on Social Madness & Healing”
