Regarding bombing the Boston Marathon; Why is "why" relevant?

Well, with any luck, the “why” will be something we have in our power to affect in order to prevent such tragedies in the future.

Most likely, however, this is the work of someone who didn’t get enough of the right attention from Mama and Daddy, and wanted to see themselves on the news, and had watched a few episodes of The Following and saw the insanely overemplasised coverage of the perps of Sandy Hook and the movie theater shootings and thought “Oh! I can be one of THOSE guys!”

Unfortunately, it’s really hard to prevent narcissism and random acts of crazy.

The why is purely cosmetic, whoever the perps are it’s pretty fucking obvious they’re sick fucking cowards who were probably born pissed…who cares?

I agree with @Seek_Kolinahr. The “Why?” isn’t about seeing what we can do to address the grievances of the perpetrators, but about understanding the process so we know how better to intervene and where to look for the perpetrators-to-be.

I don’t think anyone wants the “why” because they think it’ll make it any better. I think people naturally want to know why something bad happens, especially an act of violence. Perhaps for closure or just human curiosity, who knows? The “why” may also help us avoid the same thing happening again, depending on what it is.

I have come to think that with all atrocities like this the why is less important than the who. Behind the why hides the person who perpetrated this.

What @Seek_Kolinahr said.

I don’t personally give a damn about the why of it. I just want to know whodunnit, and hope that they “accidentally” get killed before money is wasted on a trial.

Because knowing the motives will help predict and prevent future actions by people acting on the same motivations? Perhaps?!

^^ I think that is the hope. Not sure it ever works out that way.

Also, people are less comfortable with “we’ll never know”. Too exotic and scary. Your average Joe wants things explained to them – even if its a pablum answer.

Part of the reason why religion is so popular.

I don’t get the question. Why are we trying to gather information about this event? How can you separate the why from the who/what in this situation?

@josie, it’s simple. “Know your enemy.”

As our adventures since 9/11 demonstrate, it’s pretty hard to find, capture, and kill terrorists without good intelligence on the ideology that drives them. The same goes for apparently random sociopaths and nutjobs like school shooters. Understanding what makes these people tick can help stop them, or at least help bring them to justice.

I think the “why” is supposed to tell you the root cause. Supposedly if you know the root cause, you can fix or prevent it.

If I crash my car into a post isn’t it useful to know why I crashed? Was it the steering or the fact that the lug nuts were loose and the wheel fell of? Maybe next time I won’t go to My’d Ass for tires.

Here’s my uneducated guess at the root cause. The perp was a smart, short-dicked, sociopath with no friends and nothing to lose. Parents need to step up to the plate.
Round up the usual suspects, Captain Renault.

Politicians for some reason have to sound different from police and prosecutors at times like this. Police and prosecutors, as in Law & Order television dramas, promise to “investigate crimes and bring the offenders to justice”. But politicians think that they can go beyond that to investigate – and even cure? – the “whys” behind horrific crimes.

This is one of the reasons that I’ve never quite understood – or supported – “hate crimes” legislation. Crimes should be crimes because of their effects on victims, not because “motive” behind some crimes makes it worse, somehow. It’s also why I’m so opposed to “gun legislation” (even though I don’t even own a weapon – yet) when there is no victim.

Why is the why of the why relevant? :)

@CWOTUS, motives are important. Motive is what differentiates murder from manslaughter.

I find your attitude, and josie’s, to be willful ignorance. You and josie also seem to be implying that an attempt to understand the motive behind an evil act means you sympathize it. Do you not understand the distinction?

That’s okay, @Qingu. I find your bland assertions to be no more than provocative trolling. I can’t even begin to comprehend how you would assume the implication that you suggest, but it sounds like a nasty thing to attribute to @josie and me, so sling away without explanation.

Yes, evidence of premeditation is what distinguishes various degrees of homicide. But it’s only on cop shows on television where “means, motive and opportunity” are stressed equally. “Motive” is a bastard stepchild, and doesn’t have to be proven. It helps sometimes as an investigative tool when it’s obvious or turns up during the investigation.

It bothers me that, right off the bat, they’re calling it an act of “terrorism.” We know that acts of terrorism can be perpetrated by anyone or any color, any nation, and can take many forms. However, you know your first reaction is to think of 9/11 / Al-Qaeda / the Middle east (and for some, all Muslims in general.) For less thoughtful people it can fire up the racist assholes, and Middle Eastern American citizens can become innocent targets again even if it turns out to be some White Aryan Asshole from El Paso.

@CWOTUS
Remember the Christmas eve fire and shooting in NY a few months ago? Why did the nut jpb kill his sister, set his house on fire and shoot at the firefighters in Webster NY? Because he was a crazy, unemployed, drug addict and his mother willed her money to the Webster Fire Department and his sister instead of to him. He was pissed.
What did the legislature do to fix it? Go after the source of the guns, of course.

@CWOTUS: “It helps sometimes as an investigative tool when it’s obvious or turns up during the investigation.”

The only possible thing that the people investigating this right now could be doing is asking a shit ton of “why”. This is likely the only chance they have to come up with the “who”. Why did they choose that specific location will possibly tell them about the time the explosives were placed, how big they were, how they were possibly transported there, which security cameras to request, who to interview, whether the flags in front of the explosives were of any significance, etc. And any info gathered from this will likely lead to more leads. And probably just as important – weed out any individuals or groups that may claim responsibility. It is my understanding that trolls sometimes claim responsibility for the publicity, when they actually had nothing to do with it.

But I think @Qingu is right. Is it possible that you are conflating an understanding (information) of the motivation with sympathy for that motivation?

Josie, if it wasn’t Obama who made the statement, would you still ask this question?

No, you are not missing anything.
Is asking why searching for a rational explanation to an irrational act?
If you knew why, could you justify it?
I doubt it.
I doubt that any of us could.

The “why” seems important, to me. It can help us in a couple of ways, one of which has already been mentioned (standard prevention). A slightly more controversial opinion is that it may also open our eyes to things we might be doing that unintentionally create enemies for us. It’s not a weakness to look toward ourselves from time to time, and see if we could be handling things better. I am in no way saying that “yo, we brought that shit on ourselves” or that we deserve it, or anything like that. Just that we may be able to avoid making unnecessary enemies in the future, by tweaking our policies if it is warranted.

On a side note, I wonder if how we approach the idea of “why” is another of those hardwired differences between liberals and conservatives. * It seems like most of the liberals I know always want to know the “why” of just about anything, whether it’s about why people ‘should’ do this or that, or why something works the way it does, or why people behave the way they do. Most of the conservatives I know are generally satisfied with ‘what’ or ‘who’, and don’t care about so much about the whys. Just as a * general example, take liberal parents vs conservative parents:

A child asks a parent why they have to do something. One parent answers, “Because I said so.” Another parent spends five minutes droning on and on, explaining why it’s important to do it. I bet most of us could make a guess as to who is liberal and who is conservative.

* Disclaimer: I know that every person belonging to any group is the same. These are just generalizations.

@augustlan I think my son has stopped asking me “why” because it gets hard to chisel the glaze off his eyes after every answer

Also, I misspelled “overemphasised” earlier, and it’s driving me bananas.

I don’t understand how anyone could not ask why. The why is necessary in the evolution and progression of any cognitive being.

The why is critical to looking at who and why they took this course of action. Was it a random crazy? That’s defended differently than a group with a grudge or organized terrorists. Some detective used to always say you need to know the motive to identify the criminal. It was a canned line but it fits. You need to know the why to find how to prevent it again.

Sheesh, I meant: I know that every person belonging to any group is NOT the same. Sorry about that!