Full disclosure:

1. I am not a psychologist, psychology is merely a hobby.
2. I am from the US, but I will try to stick to my understanding of human emotions as a whole.

One thing I have observed about violence that seems random is that they are often performed by people who have been proverbially “beaten down” by life. When this is the cause, they may feel the need to lash out, but their “beating” was so severe that they become apathetic. They just need some outlet for their pain, rather than a specific individual or group.

Some people will take it out on themselves and it becomes self-harm or suicide. Others will take it out on those who are vulnerable in their immediate vicinity.

Basically, when a person is in a lot of pain, it becomes harder to think about others, because they are already struggling with their own issues. At least from where I stand, random acts of violence is what happens when that idea is taken to an extreme.

As for articles and videos: I’m not sure if you will be able to view the video on this page easily, but there is a transcription on the page: it was shared by a man who claimed he almost became a school shooter. He described what he was going through and feeling leading up to the moment where he almost did it. I think it provides a window into how suffering makes a person volatile:

https://www.ted.com/talks/aaron_stark_i_was_almost_a_school_shooter?subtitle=en

In a similar vein, depression tends to cause a person to focus heavily on their own thoughts and emotions and less on their social connections, not because the person is selfish, but as a means of self-preservation, as described in these articles:

https://neurolaunch.com/is-depression-selfish/

https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/copingwithdepression/2020/12/when-depression-makes-you-appear-selfish

This is just one possible explanation, but it’s the one I am most familiar with personally. I hope this helps.

Welcome to Lemmy!

Unfortunately, I think most of the users here have no insight into every day Chinese life - myself included… in fact if not from your post, I would have had no idea this is a thing.

Anyhow, this is disgusting behavior, and I can’t really rationalize it.

Though for a lot of people, the source of grievance is pretty abstract. They could be victims of the system, and taking it revenge in that is difficult.

Sadly extreme behavior seems to be an effect everywhere as this global late stage capitalism is causing people to lose agency and become more and more disturbed

I’m in the USA, so all of my answers would be colored by my culture. My knowledge of the culture in China is limited.

There’s an old Chinese saying that roughly translates to ‘revenge should be directed at the source of the grievance.’ If someone has been wronged and feels desperate, shouldn’t they confront those who harmed them directly?

If I had to make a guess I’d say it may be a recognition of the collectivist view of society in China. As in “I am wronged by society, so any member of society is a valid target for my anger/revenge.”

For someone that becomes an attacker, it is likely the result of many events, not one. How many times have they tried to move to a Tier 1 city and been rejected? How many times have they been passed over for better education or job opportunities? When they raise their objections how many times are they met by others with “没精打采｡” (“nothing can be done about it”)?

As someone living in Chinese culture, you’re probably better equipped to answer this than most of us. I appreciate you sharing your question and your answers as you have here. I’m interested in understanding this from your perspective.

I think the main reason is feeling disconnected from society.

Some people think that everyone is complicit in their torments.

Desperation - China’s infinite boom years are over and working conditions in lucrative jobs are fucking miserable. A lot of the youths are just refusing to participate in the economy at this point.

It’s a common problem, no matter the country. And a simple answer would be that the innocent are within reach.

A more complex answer would be that it’s complicated. If the aggressors believe the ones to blame for their mishaps cannot be harmed in return or they feel ignored by the general populace, through creating more victims, people will have no choice but to pay attention.

Maybe someone will think “What caused the aggressor to act like this?”, search through their history to figure it out and realize that they were driven to desperation by someone else. This might redirect the ire of the victims and their families to those responsible and so, a little revenge will be achieved.

The solution is relatively simple: Pay attention to the disgruntlement of the people and instead of suppressing it by force, strive to solve it.

我觉得有两个不同的情况。

第一是几乎随机暴力事情。幼儿园刀杀很普遍的。他们觉得社会错，不敢或者不能想到政治上的原因。就觉得他们自己或者＂完美＂社会有矛盾。 还有儿童是社会的未来。去抹杀他们是攻击社会的未来。

第二是跟最近几个月的中国人去抹杀住在中国的日本人的案子。这些明显跟中国政治台上说的话有关的。

不好意思我中文有点差，还在学习。

Current globalist regime over works people which causes mental problems… If you are not working, you are poor, which causes me tal problems.

If you do this to everyone all the time, there will always be able with mental problems that they can’t control and they will do this.

“As a” right off the bat, no effort to back up the claims being made (instead assuming that people will automatically trust them), coming from an account that has no previous interaction with the platform, from a user who’s clearly used enough to Lemmy to know where to post questions and how to format them…

I’d strongly advise caution towards this post.