Jason Loughner - nature via nurture

Several years ago, evolutionary psychologist and biologist Matt Ridley wrote a book called "Nature via Nurture." It took by pleasant surprise those of us who considered him a Pop Ev Psycher, but that's another story.

The title, and the idea that genes shape direction in our lives, including our mental states, but come nowhere near to hidebound destiny, applies well to Jason Loughner, the alleged attempted assassin of Gabrielle Giffords.

It does appear Loughner is mentally ill, in some degree.

Loughner was apparently enraptured with lucid, or "conscious" dreaming.

And, his mental state got worse in the past year, yet another friend notes.

It even appears he had some dabbling in occult-type issues.

That's the nature part.

So, he could have had all sorts of belief systems as his mental illness developed.

The belief system he apparently DOES have?

That's the nurture, and it appears right-wing influenced.

Showing how irrational movements can influence even those further beyond the rationality pale, Loughner may have had some connection with, and being influenced by, American Renaissance, a white supremacist group. At the same time, the Mother Jones story linked above about lucid dreaming references a Loughner acquaintance as saying his mother is Jewish.

Also per the Fox story linked immediately above, the rest of Loughner's family didn't totally impress the neighbors, either. The story doesn't say much about the family beyond "loners" with a cluttered yard, but, if they had political beliefs outside the mainstream, that will come out, too. I find it interesting that the family has commented very little on their sun, even before retaining any counsel that they may have.

Still no further word on a possible accomplice; if there is one, I would be VERY quiet, were I the head of American Renaissance.

And, The Daily Beast also notes that, even if Loughner is clinically mentally ill, the influences on that troubled mind seem to come pretty much from the far right. And, it's not just the Sarah Palins, it's the wingnuts posting comments on stories like this that reflect the problem.

A "mainstream conservative" like Ross Douthat doesn't fully get this issue right with his apparent attempt to play the equivalence card.

Paul Krugman DOES get that right, including quoting Pima County, Ariz. Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who said:

(I)t’s “the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business.” The vast majority of those who listen to that toxic rhetoric stop short of actual violence, but some, inevitably, cross that line.

And, since Douthat pulls out Oswald as counterintuitive to shoot JFK in wingnut Dallas circa 1963, let's go to Krugman again, to refute the "equivalence":

And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will.

Very few on the left espouse violence even in a rhetorical sense today, compared to the right.