Philo discusses Arizona shooting

In the wake of the Arizona shootings earlier this month, members of the Penn community continue to question the motivations behind the act of violence.

Roughly fifty students filtered into Philomathean Halls Friday to listen to a presentation on the psychology of so-called “criminal madmen” in relation to the recent Arizona shooting. College junior and Philo member Sam Bieler used his criminology background to give the talk, which investigated the many labels that have been affixed to alleged shooter Jared Loughner.

Following the massacre, “terms were thrown around in the media by people who had no conception of what these terms meant,” said Bieler, a former Daily Pennsylvanian columnist.

“Somebody called him a ‘paranoid schizophrenic,’ somebody called him a ‘psychopath,’ somebody called him ‘unbalanced,’” he added, noting that “each of those terms is a world apart from one another.”

Bieler illustrated the dangers of misusing labels such as “psychopath” — a “particularly damaging term that is being applied loosely” — and encouraged the audience to “apply a great deal of scrutiny to the terms you’re using,” so as not to judge too quickly based on reports by the media.

The talk was followed by an informal question-and-answer session. For College junior Matt Chiarello, who was en route to Philadelphia when the massacre occurred ten minutes from his home in Tucson, Bieler’s presentation brought up “a lot of issues … that have really been overlooked.” Chiarello added that “the media really tends to focus on the political motivations and individual motivations” rather than “clinical motivations.”

Literary exercises such as Bieler’s, “lit-ex’s” for short, have been a mainstay of Philo meetings since 1813, according to Philo Moderator and College senior Alec Webley, a Daily Pennsylvanian columnist.

Wharton freshman Lennie Zhu, who learned about the event through Facebook, was “curious to see a student talk as opposed to a lecturer.”

“We feel more comfortable challenging what he had to say instead of taking it as face value,” she added.

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