It was the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman and the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. since the September 11 attacks in 2001:
On June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American security guard, killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a terrorist attack — also considered a hate crime — inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States.
On July 7, 2016, Micah Johnson fatally shot five police officers and injured nine others in Dallas. Investigators found bomb-making materials in his home. Johnson had no religious affiliations – it is believed that he targeted white police officers as a payback for deaths of black people by police.
What are the hidden unconscious forces that exist within all of us?
Every human being has the capacity to commit good and evil, and we’ve seen that throughout history from every possible nation to every possible society, everyone has engaged in some form of torture, whether it was the Spanish Inquisition, whether it was the Christian Crusade, whether it was the whites who took slaves to Africa, whether it was the black Africans who sold their own people to the Europeans, to the white Europeans. It doesn’t matter what race you are, people have committed torture and crime and evil, we know that societies have done it, we know that nations have done it, we know that religions have done it. The difference today is that the religion that is still doing it is obviously Islam or the Muslims. Christians did do it during the Spanish Inquisition and during the Christian Crusade. There are still obviously some sects of Christianity who promote killing, whether it’s some person who says, “I’m going to go and kill the people that are having abortions”, or, “I’m going to bomb an abortion clinic”, or whether it’s someone like the Sacramento Baptist pastor who actually praised the killing of the people in Orlando because he tried to defend it by saying ‘well, the bible says that homosexuality is a sin, so these people died sinning, so I’m not going to mourn them.’
So to summarize: Every human being has the capacity to commit good and evil, and we’ve seen that throughout history, number (1). Number (2): Freud argued that the reason we have good and evil is because of primitive sexual and aggressive forces that exist within each of us, and he rightly argued that unless you control them, then society could go into chaos and destruction. Now when we say well, how do you control them? That relates to how the brain has evolved. We have sort of 3 parts to the brain and the final part of the brain that has evolved is that part of us which is supposed to be able to control our emotional impulses.
So we have these very strong desires, these very strong impulses, and the 2 greatest ones are aggression and sex, or you might call it passion, you might call it desire, you might call it love. Those 2 combined can take great control over us. So that’s sort of to answer the first question. Every one of us has the ability and the capacity to commit good and evil, it doesn’t matter what religion you belong to, it doesn’t matter what you color is, it doesn’t matter how you were raised, we all have that capacity, and even Christians can’t argue with that because Christians will talk about the devil and yet, just to look at it through their perspective, the people that were closest to Jesus still betrayed him, whether it was Peter or Judas. Because people would say, “oh no, I would never do that”, then how come Peter did it? Peter was with Jesus, and you’re saying that you’d be better than him and yet, Jesus was basically saying look, you all have the ability to do this.
These tragic events force us to examine the darkest potentials of human nature. For deeper insight into the psychology behind mass violence, I analyzed the chilling case of George Sodini in Mass Killer George Sodini’s Full Blog Entry. This examination reveals how unchecked rage and distorted thinking can fester when left unaddressed by both individuals and society.
Read the next article: What triggers the hidden unconscious forces that exist within all of us?
Patrick Wanis, PhD, is a renowned relationship and behavioral expert with over 25 years of experience. Creator of SRTT Therapy (Subconscious Rapid Transformation Technique), he specializes in resolving root causes of trauma and other conditions without reliving pain or retraumatization. He has developed various psychological assessments on emotional intelligence, relationships, self-sabotage, and authenticity, and serves diverse clients from celebrities to teens. A trusted media source, Global media including CNN, BBC, FOX News turn to Wanis for insights into relationships, sexuality, human motivation, trauma, communication, body language, and persuasion.