The Threat-sensitive Brain: a theory about animals applied to Gabriel Wortman

An analysis of
Seeking to explain Nova Scotia shootings: Inside the 'threat-sensitive brain'
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/mass-killing-portapique-mental-health-1.5602698
'A threat-sensitive brain that is always looking for evidence to confirm the world is against them' by Michael MacDonald· The Canadian Press· Jun 08, 2020 7:25 AM AT | Last Updated: June 8

The Threat-sensitive Brain 

Can such a theory be applied to human beings or is it better off being applied to animals who survive on instinct? (revision of response to same article previously posted elsewhere).

This type of mental health explanation, as described in the article, ignores the reality of informal social networks or community ideals of conforming to the authority of those who have been granted power to control the lives of those living within their borders. Communities based on tradition or other cultural values may well result in the individual being punished discreetly and informally for breaking the rules of the hierarchy, which could be based on sexuality, or gender, wealth, or another kind of perceived status of members of the community.

Seeking to understand the behaviour of the individual presumably isolated within it, in relationships with fragile bases in which loyalty and trust have little place, means that injustices will build up, and if not resolved may eventually result in the individual attempting to break away from this insurmountable problem.

The idea of the 'threat-sensitive brain' must surely result in loud beeps in the brains of those reading about it, as though the individual has some kind of physical brain disorder (or animal-like brain where instinct is what counts) that results in the individual being unable to reason, to adapt, to be in a relationship, and to live a life of substantial success within the community and at a distance, doing work that has earned him compliments and security, doing sensitive, personal work with clients/patients seeking dental repair. If Gabriel Wortman were this kind of person, he probably wouldn't have been able to achieve all that he did.

The term 'injustice collector' is the creation of those who have lived at the top too long and has little understanding of what really happens in society, in communities that are encouraged and rewarded for demonstrating the collective value of family, sharing, and conformity and excluding those who don't quite measure up.

Referring to being an 'injustice-collector' as a way of seeing the world, as Tracy Vaillancourt (children's mental health and violence expert) does, according to this article, is only one possibility of a motivation for this tragic event. This expert in child bullying would do better spending more time on the subject of 'peer victimization' among adults.

Read ‘Dangerous Instincts’: FBI profiler explains the dangers of that ‘nice’ neighbor <https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/dangerous-instincts-fbi-profiler-explains-the-dangers-of-that-nice-neighbor/2011/10/17/gIQAkvNCDM_story.html> for information on the world-view of Mary Ellen O’Toole, a former FBI profiler who coined the term.

Michael Arntfield, criminologist turned armchair psychologist, who speaks of the 'injustice-collector' as someone who often feels "cheated or disrespected by others, even though there may be no evidence to support those beliefs." And that is most likely the problem. If a community does show disrespect in small ways, in an unrelenting manner, there may well be no “evidence” of the type that someone like Arntfield, a former police officer now working in a 'customized academic appointment' at Western University, would value (see Wikipedia, Michael Arntfield). Most of his work seems focused on the individual rather than the community, as most psychologists involved in extrapolating this theory of 'injustice-collecting' and the 'threat-sensitive brain' are.

I suggest a focus on the community, and I don't mean accepting their stories on Wortman as 'evidence' of his guilt or fitness-of-mind or not, but treating them, too, as though they might not be as credible as the investigators of this horrendous tragedy would like them to be. Liking should not translate to 'credibility'. Rather, investigators should attempt to be objective and to keep in mind that when such a tragedy happens, evidence of the sort that shows the killer in a good light may well be kept hidden. No one wants to support the bad guy at a time like this. Mr Wortman was known to be a caring and community-minded denturist in his working community and among those who knew him in that role. But community is often set apart from a person's work-life. It doesn't mean that Wortman should be labelled 'injustice-collector' because those in the business of psychology see him as such. 

A perspective taken from the discipline of Sociology might be better at undoing some of the falsehoods of this perspective, and the very one-sided blame on one man, similar, in fact, to the moral culpability of the tragedy of the Montreal massacre of 1989, during which killings were committed by Marc Lepine, for reasons that were distorted and attempted to be hidden from Canadians.

References:

Seeking to explain Nova Scotia shootings: Inside the 'threat-sensitive brain'  
by Michael MacDonald·
The Canadian Press·
Posted: Jun 08, 2020 7:25 AM AT | Last Updated: June 8
 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/mass-killing-portapique-mental-health-1.5602698

 ‘Dangerous Instincts’: FBI profiler explains the dangers of that ‘nice’ neighbor
By Monica Hesse 
Style
October 24, 2011
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/dangerous-instincts-fbi-profiler-explains-the-dangers-of-that-nice-neighbor/2011/10/17/gIQAkvNCDM_story.html

Myths about money and health: who should pay for health-care, and who should be getting it

Revised June 2012

The article I have based this blog comment on is this, from the Globe and Mail - 'Make rich seniors pay for drugs, report says'. A secondary issue is the "cost-effectiveness" of the care given by doctors, which I don't believe is quite the same meaning as "improve the quality of patient care."

So, first of all, I would like to say this: There are certain myths in society that need to be dispelled. The idea that the wealthy are worth more, in their very humanity, than the poor, is one of them.

There are other myths in society that are just as commonly believed, or rather, simply not questioned, but first things first. Some people having more wealth than others is not a good reason why they should be treated better, though of course, in some circumstances, having money enables a person to buy better treatment and health-care.

The slippery slope of the myth of the greater 'worthiness' of the wealthy leads not just to more choices given to them, but also more advantages in their health-care, to the extent that all other things being equal, the wealthy will still receive better treatment than the poor, even when it is available to all, apparently, regardless of class or wealth. Why?

The myth is that the wealthy are internally 'better' in character, in work ethic, determination, decision-making, and all other traits that make for a better citizen in Canadian society. Thus, more is given to them, and more is taken away from the poor. This is how our just society works.

Added June, 2012

According to this article, altering the way ODB (Ontario Drug Benefits program) is carried out could affect “universality of access.” Of course it would. That would be the whole purpose of having those who are better off pay for their own drugs. The only “alarms” likely to be raised would be those in the heads of the wealthy who might be thinking What next? The fears of the rich are so great they can’t help pushing down those in need farther down just to protect benefits they surely know they don’t deserve, much of the time, or need.

In addition to the idea to “overhaul the way doctors are compensated by paying them, not only for treatment, but care that is cost-effective.” If we leave this up to health care staff to determine, there’s no limit to how they might interpret this need. Cost-effectiveness might mean that care and treatment given to people in society who are not contributing in the way they would like, or not reproducing, or not providing various other tasks and functions seen as valuable, or do not own their own homes, might find themselves on the dnt list – do not treat.

It could be requested that staff and doctors treat all patients the same – *objectively* - meaning give each one the same quality of care as another, except that stands the risk of being interpreted as treating the patient as an object (unless of course, they are known to you), with no fair assessment of their needs or what treatment might be best for them.

Finally, the matter of sustainability, or as the article says, “Without such profound changes, suggests a report released Thursday by TD Economics, public health care as Canadians know it is unsustainable.” Yet we can afford F35s, full day kindergarten, sending financial help to countries like Haiti? I don’t see the government telling Michael Ferguson, or the Ministry of Education, or Michel Jean that’s there no money for their causes.

Some people in society have more care given to their needs. And that’s not likely to change, when the cuts come. Many of these would be able to pay for health-care not only for themselves but the healthcare of others. They will never come to see themselves as having enough money to share the wealth because they want to be able to leave a nice inheritance to their children.


Make rich seniors pay for drugs, report says
By Lisa Priest and Karen Howlett
Globe and Mail, and in Social Policy in Ontario
May 27, 2010
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/make-rich-seniors-pay-for-drugs-report-says/article1582236/  not working

http://spon.ca/make-rich-seniors-pay-for-drugs-health-care-report-says/2010/05/27/


http://suemcpherson.blogspot.ca/2010/05/myths-about-money-and-health-who-should.html
Links updated June 2012

Michael Ignatieff: leadership potential in Canadian politics

Revised May 29, 2010
Updated June, 2012

It's astounding that Michael Ignatieff is being treated the way he is, when you look at all he has to offer.

In our society, continuity is seen as normal, and better than discontinuity or separation. The lengthy, continuous career is looked upon as a model for a good work history, while travelling and working in diverse occupations, and in more than one country, can be viewed as a sign of flightiness. In reality, this kind of life can make a person 'more of a Canadian,' (a term attributed to Ignatieff in recent news articles, and not kindly eg ‘Michael Ignatieff thinks,’ 2010), more understanding of different ways of living and working, more able to stand back and look at the entire picture, but it can be detrimental when one comes to trying for a new career in a country that doesn't understand this. Ignatieff was probably right when he said the Conservatives were "provincial" in their thinking - the Conservatives and many Canadians (Michael Ignatieff accuses Conservatives, 2010).

After all Ignatieff has done in his life - teaching, journalism, writing books, serving as professor at universities, he is sometimes criticized for not doing anything substantial, for not showing Canadians what he is all about. But isn't what it's all about is having the "trust and confidence" of the people, and "vision for Canada," as this article claims? Could the problem, in part, be the people working for the Liberals. See this, from the article, apparently a comment by "one senior insider" : “Ignatieff hasn’t unveiled any substance yet and until he does, he can’t move anywhere" (The pressure is on Ignatieff, 2010).

So now we're back to having to have something of substance to convince the people of Canada that Ignatieff would make a good leader, not just knowing that he is able to think, write, do the work, act with determination, and do all the things a leader must be able to do. He actually has to show proof, and not proof gained while working in other countries for non party-political jobs.

To say it's up to Ignatieff to stop the freefall, if that's what it is, is unfair (The pressure is on Ignatieff, 2010).  According to this article, "Mr. Ignatieff has already fired one group of top advisors yet his poll numbers are still dropping." He must wonder what is going on too.

He may be the best thing to happen for the Liberals, and our country, but if people can't change their perspective on his travels out of Canada and return to it, and all the qualities he has proven (though not to us), he may not ever get the chance to be PM.

Ignatieff is not only being blamed for the Liberal freefall, he's the one being forced to take responsibility for stopping it. I think that's not so. It's got to come from the people themselves. If, when one is absent, one takes the time to look at what is going on in Canada, one might see things about it that are truly disquieting. and so, I'm not sure this would make one a "better Canadian" (as Rex Murphy claims Ignatieff said), when being a good Canadian often seems to mean keeping quiet about the norms of our society and the injustices committed here.

In his May 29th column, Rex Murphy becomes rhetorical, saying, "We learn our country by living in it, by absorbing the flow of its events, by acquiring an emotional as well as an intellectual grasp of its rhythms and moods. We inhabit this country, and it returns the favour: It inhabits us" (Michael Ignatieff’s out-of-country, 2010).

In reality, the ideas expressed in this sentence are nonsense. Being that close to a country or a person can make us take its qualities for granted, so much so that people are often advised to take a break from it - a vacation or a separation, to reflect and enable rational thoughts to emerge, where once feelings guided all decisions. No one can know the entire country, or all its people. We all live in our own little worlds, sometimes of our own making, sometimes not. We latch onto pieces of it that we recognize as being 'ours', as Canadian. But most importantly, it is the leaving that enables a person to get a better picture of what is going on - and the returning that holds the promise of something better for the country.

Ignatieff's absence is no obstacle to his ability to do well at the job of PM. In fact, I know that staying away will have given him so much more. Besides having been able to look upon Canada from a distance, he has now undergone critique by his fellow Canadians, who seem unable to grasp the significance of his time abroad. I have said before that leaving and then returning does leave one out-of-touch with prices, and changes in laws, but a read-up of these is usually enough. Does one ever forget how to ride a bike?

Rex asks, "There is an essence to this country. What we have in common, the core, is that which enables the embrace of diversity in the first place. Mr. Ignatieff may understand some of this, but does he feel it? Does he perceive the strength and depth of the common endeavour which has been and is this country since its founding? "

Perhaps not, Rex. I don't feel it. Perhaps it takes something from one's countrymen, after having spent time away, before one can feel it again. Perhaps one does have to take some time going through the motions before people start to see how unjust their behaviour and criticism is.

Added June 2012

In ‘Beyond Workaday Worlds’ (2005) I draw on the work of Mary Catherine Bateson, who wrote:

“continuity is the exception in twentieth-century America, and that adjusting to discontinuity is not an idiosyncratic problem of my own but the emerging problem of our era...In may ways, constancy is an illusion” (Composing a life, 1989).

As I state in that essay under the subtitle Unity, Continuity, and Contradictions, “her aim was to make sense of interrupted and discontinuous lives of the “composite life,” illustrating the importance of responding to change and learning to adapt (p 7). To illustrate what I had discovered about work and about such concepts as continuity, as they apply to real life, I incorporated aspects from life stories of five individuals I had written following interviews and research.

More often than not, in the past, it was men who had the careers that established continuity for them, thus a form of respectability and earned trust, I imagine. In the fairly recent past, it was more often women whose careers lacked that kind of continuity, and not just over childbearing. In some ways, it seems as though this is what’s bothering some people about Michael Ignatieff, that he didn’t have a long continuous career, or keep his focus on politically-oriented positions, instead branching out to academia and tv broadcasting, for instance, thus must have the ‘stability’ factor lacking in his character, I believe they must think.

If so many really are against Ignatieff, then it may be that they hold old-fashioned ideas about work, as well as about what it means to be a Canadian. For his own thoughts on this, see the 2011 article ‘My name is Michael Ignatieff, and I am Canadian.’ As for Rex Murphy’s question, “Does he perceive the strength and depth of the common endeavour which has been and is this country since its founding?,” this is not the way our country is going. The common endeavor has been lost, as people with diverse backgrounds and goals vie for their own place in society and to have their own culture recognized. What chance is there of having that unity back now that Ignatieff has left? See Adrienne Redd’s informed perspective that acts as counterpoint to all those who have expressed doubts about Ignatieff’s ability (Ignatieff, the Best Prime Minister, 2011).

There is no 'essence' to this country, and demanding that a PM encompass traditional values of work and continuity, rather than travelling and working abroad at more than one occupation places a stifling limitation on what a prime minister can or should project to the people.

Michael Ignatieff is currently teaching at the University of Toronto.


Beyond Workaday Worlds: Aging, Identity, and the Life Cycle
By Sue McPherson
SAMcPherson.homestead.com
2005
http://samcpherson.homestead.com/files/EssaysandWriting/BeyondWorkadayWorldsSMcPherson.doc

Composing a Life
By Mary Catherine Bateson
New York: Plume.
1989

Ignatieff, the Best Prime Minister Canada Will Never Have
By Adrienne Redd
TheTyee.ca
May 7, 2011
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/05/07/Ignatieff/

Michael Ignatieff accuses Conservatives of “divide in order to rule” politics

By Linda Diebel
Toronto Star
May 18, 2010
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/810818--michael-ignatieff-accuses-conservatives-of-divide-in-order-to-rule-politics

Michael Ignatieff thinks he's more Canadian than you are
By Matt Gurney
May 18, 2010
National Post
http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/05/18/matt-gurney-untitled-ignatieff.aspx

Michael Ignatieff’s out-of-country experience
By Rex Murphy
May 29, 2010
National Post
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/05/29/michael-ignatieffs-out-of-country-experience

My name is Michael Ignatieff, and I am Canadian
By Michael Ignatieff
Globe and Mail
June 29, 2011
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/my-name-is-michael-ignatieff-and-i-am-canadian/article2079267/?service=mobile

The pressure is on Ignatieff to stop Liberal freefall
By John Ivison
National Post, Full comment
May 20, 2010
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/05/20/the-pressure-is-on-ignatieff-to-stop-liberal-freefall/
http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/05/20/john-ivison-the-pressure-is-on-ignatieff-to-stop-liberal-freefall.aspx
http://www.nanosresearch.com/news/in_the_news/National%20Post%20May%2020%202010.pdf

Links updated June, 2012