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What kind of insanity drives these knife attackers to kill kindergartners? Does this sort of thing occur in other cultures?
We have had plenty of school shootings over the years, but what's going on in China is different. American school shootings never seemed to occur in such rapid succession as these copycat knife attacks. And unlike many school shootings that are perpetrated by teengers, most of the Chinese knife attacks are by grown men who have gone off the deep end. Some are blaming this on economic inequality in China.
Obviously these people are mentally ill. But it's interesting the way different cultures have specific variations in mental illness and criminal behavior. For example, why is it that serial killers are usually males of European descent?
My favorite culture-specific mental illness is koro, which exists in China and areas of SE Asia. Koro is a disorder where the patient perceives that his penis and testicles are shrinking and disappearing into the body, which the patient thinks will inevitably result in death. There have been several large epidemics of this disorder in China and other Asian countries. It's as if there is some sort of cultural contagion.
We have had plenty of school shootings over the years, but what's going on in China is different. American school shootings never seemed to occur in such rapid succession as these copycat knife attacks. And unlike many school shootings that are perpetrated by teengers, most of the Chinese knife attacks are by grown men who have gone off the deep end. Some are blaming this on economic inequality in China.
Obviously these people are mentally ill. But it's interesting the way different cultures have specific variations in mental illness and criminal behavior. For example, why is it that serial killers are usually males of European descent?
My favorite culture-specific mental illness is koro, which exists in China and areas of SE Asia. Koro is a disorder where the patient perceives that his penis and testicles are shrinking and disappearing into the body, which the patient thinks will inevitably result in death. There have been several large epidemics of this disorder in China and other Asian countries. It's as if there is some sort of cultural contagion.
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