What makes a cake a cake: Is it the flour, the eggs, the sugar, the frosting, or something else?

I know, it’s a dumb question. The answer is all of the above, obviously; a cake is the sum of its ingredients.

Now imagine I wrote something like this about that dessert:

Many still insist that the cake was driven by eggs, but the person who ate most of it just confirmed it was in the grip of flour all along. This cake was fundamentally about flour, not eggs.

Silly, right?

Yet this doctor with 300k followers on Twitter made a similar argument re: the Pelosi attack. “This story is fundamentally about mental health, not political radicalization,” he wrote.

Michael Shellenberger @ShellenbergerMD

Many still insist that the suspect in the Pelosi attack was driven by political ideology, but the mother of his children just confirmed he was in the grip of a psychosis caused by long-term drug use. This story is fundamentally about mental health, not political radicalization.

San Francisco Chronicle @sfchronicle

NEW: The ex-girlfriend of David DePape, the suspect in the Paul Pelosi attack, says that mental illness and drug use caused him to deteriorate so profoundly that he grew convinced that “he was Jesus for a year.” https://t.co/P7v8HVjFcy

1:20 PM ∙ Oct 31, 2022

---

2,416Likes573Retweets

It’s mental health, not political radicalization!? Ha. As if the two are mutually exclusive.

Don’t people get it yet? I’m no doctor, but it seems obvious to me that most political radicalization is a manifestation of mental illness. And that’s on all sides of the spectrum. Fringe Qooks, incels, Antifas, and SJWs are all struggling mentally. (OK, maybe not all of ‘em, but enough for me to reasonably slot the overwhelming majority of ‘em into the looney column of my “Excel Extremists” spreadsheet.)

What’s the end game with this desire to separate crackpot from ideological zealot? Is declaring him a psycho instead of a radical some kinda victory for one team? “He’s mental” is no excuse for bad behavior. Pleading insanity isn’t a get out of jail free card; there is still a victim and the perpetrator still gets punished.

(Come to think of it, are we still okay with the term “plead insanity”? Feels kinda archaic, like we’re soon gonna have to change it to “plead neurodivergent.”)

The trauma card
Kanye stans are pulling similar crap after his anti-semitic ramblings, claiming we need to react with empathy because he’s clearly ill and off his meds. But I’m with Bret Stephens on that:

West’s behavior should not somehow be chalked up to mental illness. It’s unfair to the mentally ill, and I don’t see many people offering that excuse for other kinds of bigots.

Also this week: Former San Antonio Spurs guard Joshua Primo told ESPN he suffered "previous trauma" and "will now take this time to focus on my mental health treatment more fully." Oh, so that’s why he [reads on] kept showing his 🍆 to a team psychologist and other women too. Are we really just supposed to forgive and forget because of “previous trauma”?

I’ve written previously about the ickiness of turning trauma into public revelations. Well, now it’s trauma as public relations. RIP: Being an adult who is accountable for one’s own actions. It’s all “mental health” this and “trauma” that while the culprit slips out the back door.

And speaking of NBA players, Kyrie Irving is out here posting jewbashing trash and Alex Jones clips while claiming, “I had a lot of time last year to read a lot.” Ah, yes. Nothing says “I’m all about literature” like a deep devotion to this guy:

Miraculously, Kyrie seems convinced he is the victim. Phew, must be nice to be surrounded by yes men who constantly say you’re right and laugh at all your jokes. See: Elon Musk.

Shoutout to all the billionaires who shut the f– up, fly under the radar, and just murder people on their megayachts without pretending to protect 'the town square' or whatever.

Twitter takeover tangent: I don’t care about this Twitter takeover because how much worse can Twitter get? It’s like if Guy Fieri took over Olive Garden. Either way, I’m still getting diarrhea. Mostly I’m wondering how Elon plans to follow up his killer “Let that sink in” pun. I’ve got it! He’s gonna ride into the Twitter office aboard a steam locomotive and say, "Now that we've fired half the team, it's full steam ahead!" Also, Musk has claimed he wants to make Twitter into a "digital town square." Sure, right. You know what the best thing about an actual town square is? It's public and not owned by narcissistic billionaires or corporations trying to "monetize" our brain stems via digital fracking. So, y’know, that might be something to consider as we debate “town squares.”

🅼🅰🆃🆃 💎 🆁🆄🅱🆈 @mattruby

Constant. Dumb. Jokes. Elon has more money than anyone else in the world yet is still jonesing to know what it feels like to be a crappy open mic'er. In a way, it's great news for comedians: Ya may be sleeping on a futon, but you're still living other people's dreams!

2:57 PM ∙ Oct 31, 2022

You don’t have to choose
But let’s get back to the “Is he crazy or is he an extremist?” question. Our desire to constantly isolate things that are actually intertwined is a fool’s errand. Is it mental illness or is it ideology or is it anti-semitism or was he “radicalized online”? Yes. All of the above, probably. You don’t have to choose.

This type of hairsplitting always reminds me of the “soul of a carrot” conversation Michael Pollan mentions in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, how scientists keep trying to find the one thing that makes carrots healthy for us so we can isolate it and put it in a pill. Alas, they can’t figure it out because we don’t understand how a carrot truly works on a deeper level. It’s an ecosystem unto itself and there is no way to isolate “the good stuff.” We simply can’t crack the soul of the thing.

Too much time is wasted trying to identify the singular cause of school shooters, Ye’s rants, political extremism, and so much else. When some dude shoots up a black church, I’m gonna go ahead and say it’s because he’s mentally ill AND racist AND an incel AND radicalized by technology. It’s and, not or. The cake is made of everything inside it.

We seek simplistic answers because it’s easier to view things as binary, to split stuff up into neat little good/evil, crazy/sane, and healthy/unhealthy boxes. Alas, that’s not how nature, brains, and life work. Things have multiple causes and hazy explanations. It’s inconvenient, but the truth often is.

Oh, and btw the MD who posted about how the Pelosi story was about mental health and not ideology? Turns out he’s not a doctor at all. He has “MD” after his last name because, get this, those are his initials:

C’mon, dude. Nothing sums up the “proceed with caution”ness of online experts more than that.

Sincerely,
Matt Ruby, PhD*

* I don’t have an advanced degree. I’m a Pizza Hut Driver.

Subscribe

You’re the wind beneath my newsletter wings. Subscribe or tell a friend about it if ya can.

Quickies

🎯 I bet Queen Elizabeth checked out because it really irked her that every woman on Instagram is now called "queen"

🎯 I wanna start a movie with VO narration like this: “We were on again off again, like Amtrak wifi.”

🎯 Why is targeted advertising taking over the world? A:

🅼🅰🆃🆃 💎 🆁🆄🅱🆈 @mattruby

YOU DON'T KNOW ME AT ALL

12:41 AM ∙ Oct 27, 2022

🎯 Nothing is ever solved because the big money is in getting people to subscribe to a monthly plan in perpetuity. Actually solving problems is a subpar fiscal move. So we live in a world where everyone constantly aims to make things only slightly better.

🎯 Why isn't white people using chopsticks considered cultural appropriation?

🅼🅰🆃🆃 💎 🆁🆄🅱🆈 @mattruby

Y'know how power posing makes you feel confident? Well maybe young people are all depressed because they're constantly "posing" like this...

11:42 PM ∙ Oct 27, 2022

🎯 Everyone I had plans with for Halloween canceled on me so I guess I went as Kanye.

🎯 The music on the new T Swift album sounds a lot like the music on a Drake album and it all sounds like one monogenre of EDMpophiphop made for a Nissan commercial.

Comedy

😈 I post brief comedy clips on the regular at Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. This week’s got some doozies on science, seniors, weddings, and mustaches.

😈 Recently at Funny How, my newsletter about standup: How to write an hour of material broken down, Rick Rubin, getting spots in other cities, etc. Check it out if you’re a comedian/comedy nerd.

😈 I’m in the Big Easy next week.

hellyesfest

A post shared by Hell Yes Fest: The New Orleans Comedy Festival (@hellyesfest)

5-spotted

🗯 Professor/psychologist Jonathan Shedler on “projective identification."

One of most important things I've learned: Severe personality problems find *camouflage.* No one thinks "I'm a sadist" or "I'm a malignant narcissist." They find a belief system/social group that validates their most hateful, destructive impulses & construes them as virtues. The most toxic and hateful people in the world are 100% convinced they fight for what is true and right…The end result is that the person can deny their own sadism, cruelty, and hate—while simultaneously acting it out without restraint. And feel themselves to be 100% on the side of truth and right as they do it.

🗯 "Y'all ain't ready for me today" = This dude is like the Bernie Mac of preaching and I am here to say AMEN. Love the pom pom lady too.

Quentin James @QJames

Stop what you’re doing and watch this complete takedown of @HerschelWalker by pastor @jamalhbryant. #WeDontNeedAWalker

9:31 PM ∙ Oct 30, 2022

---

108,469Likes33,765Retweets

Btw, there’s a great book to be written about how standup and preaching overlap. Chris Rock had a whole iPod featuring nothing but comedy specials and sermons, Sam Kinison was a former Pentecostal preacher, etc.

🗯 The best thing I read about Kyrie: The irony of Kyrie Irving, a leader who wants influence but won't be challenged by Vincent Goodwill. Nails how Kryie’s BS is a symptom of a deeper rot.

The irony of someone like Irving, who lives to challenge everyone — defenses, his coaches, teammates, science, sanity — but can’t stand to be challenged. He wants the privilege of the very thing he claims to rail against. He wants the privilege to have his words and beliefs taken as fact without having to show his work.

Honestly, there is no work.

There is no critical thought. A shallow understanding of any topic for any gullible being who will be swallowed into the rabbit holes of YouTube videos and conspiracy theories.

🗯 Matthew Perry reveals how to tell which drugs he was using in every Friends episode.

“You can track the trajectory for my addiction if you gauge my weight from season to season,” the actor writes.

“When I’m carrying weight, it’s alcohol; when I’m skinny, it’s pills. When I have a goatee, it’s lots of pills.”

Perry says his weight fluctuated “between 128 pounds and 225 pounds” while filming the show due to his addiction.

🗯 10 must-know Japanese concepts that will improve your life. I knew kaizen, kintsugi, and wabi-sabi (which I love), but others here were new to me.

#6: Yuugen. Appreciate mysterious beauty. Often we FEEL the beauty in an object without it being stunning to look at. Discover subtle beauty beyond aesthetics. Experience something words cannot describe…

#8 Shikita ga nai. Accept and let go. Some things simply aren't within our control. Accept what you cannot change, and move on.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate you.

-Matt