By Gretchen Gibbs

David Brooks in his New York Times column of January 10 condemned the media coverage of the Tucson shootings, arguing, in his usual moderate style, that Jared Loughner’s rampage was a consequence of mental illness, probably schizophrenia. Brooks pointed out that Loughner’s anti-government ramblings on the net owed something to the far left as well as to the far right and that there is no evidence that he was a Tea Party member or a fan of Sarah Palin. The criticisms of Palin and far right radio after Tucson, Brooks said, “were vicious charges made by people who claimed to be criticizing viciousness.”

It does seem that Loughner had his own brand of anti-government hatred, and it is almost certainly true that he is schizophrenic, judging by his descriptions of imaginary persecution and his senseless lists of numbers. What Brooks seems to be missing, however, is the relationship between culture and mental illness. Loughner need not have been a member of the Tea Party to have been influenced by its violent rhetoric.

Culture impacts mental illness in several ways: the disorders themselves, their relative frequency, and the manifestations of the disorder. Thus I have never seen a case of pibloktoq (pronounced pie-BLOK-too; found in the Arctic, where an attack may cause the sufferer to run naked through the snow) or koro (found in Southeast Asia, where a victim believes his penis is retracting into his body and will kill him). Some disorders are much more or less common in certain cultures. The Amish, for instance, are said to have extremely low rates of depression. Schizophrenia is a disorder distributed quite evenly over cultures, implying that the biological basis for the disorder is probably more important than environmental causes. Even here, however, the manifestations of schizophrenia, specifically the content of delusions and hallucinations, differ culturally. Researchers have found that types of delusions vary according to gender, social class, and the specific society to which the individual belongs.

It is not surprising that Loughner has violent anti-government delusions about this country where a President has an almost 25 percent chance of dealing with an assassination attempt, and an almost 10 percent chance of actually being slain. (There have been ten attempts, five since Franklin Roosevelt, and four killings.) Violence is nothing new to American politics, the Tea Party did not invent it. But violent rhetoric exacerbates what is worst about our political imagery, and it contributes to a perilous climate for elected officials.

I am writing this on Martin Luther King Day, a commemoration that reminds us of both the dangers of violence in politics and the beauty of non-violent protest. Enough said.

Gretchen can be reached at guestwriter@zestoforange.com

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