Leftovers
This is actually an item I was half-considering for yesterday’s CNN responses, but there was no comedy in it.
It may not be humorous, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a ridiculous question. Here’s a quote from Jared Loughner, which I recently came across over at Bothersome Things – read it and decide for yourself.
“If you’re editing of every belief and religion reaches the final century then the writer for every belief and religion is you.
You’re editing of every belief and religion reaches the final century.
Thus the writer for every belief and religion is you.
You control every – thought, action, and lifestyle – for the person or people as the mind controller.”
– Jared Loughner
I hate to show my ignorance, but I just don’t get that quote, and the improper use of “you’re” doesn’t help. Unless that’s part of the point of the poem, in which case I am totally lost.
As for the Arizona suspect, can my answer be “neither”? I dislike using the word “evil” because it is a too easy dismissal of the issues that drive a person. Very, very, few in history have been killed or murdered just for the sake of it without some sort of justification (whether we’d agree with it or not). Nor do I like assuming he’s mentally ill. Not everyone I casually call a kook or a nut (this guy included) is clinically mentally ill just because he took a stand and did an action that is disagreeable to 99.9% of the public. I beleive this guy has warped mental processes, I beleive he may actually get some kind of high from killing, I beleive he intelligently planned this out (in the logical sense, not the sense that he made the intelligent choice), I would call him nuts, but I dislike the pat catchall or “evil” and the easy justification (and perhaps victimization) of “mentally ill.” He’s a warped individual who needs to go to be punished.
I think he’s trying for the nutter equivalent of “If you can dream it, you can be it.” I don’t think it’s intended as a poem so much as a bit of muttered mantra.
I agree that evil is a useless catch-all, and that mental illness is a hugely broad way of describing quite a number of conditions with a variety of symptoms and attributes – but I also think Loughner was suffering from delusions that are outside our realm of comprehension.
I’m certainly not arguing that he should be left to wander about; he should definitely spend a good long stretch in one type of institution or another, but I also don’t think that the tragedy would have happened if he’d been on his meds and well looked after.
This is a video from his youtube channel, as an example:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uRjwPWaxiY]
I haven’t looked at him nearly as well as maybe I should have. If he is indeed delusional then he is indeed mentally ill and needs some sort or institutionalization.
My general point is that sometimes mental illness is assumed whenever a person simply doesn’t conform to the norms of society. In many cases, and apparantly in this one, true mental illness exists.
And the mantra? I still don’t get it.
Agreed. All too often mental illness is used as a shield for people who simply believe something that’s outside the mainstream – Timothy McVeigh comes to mind as an example. It not only gives the criminal cover, and casts a bad light on people who need real help.
Still, that said, Loughner’s ranting seems like it would fit well on a bar of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap, and reeks of the sort of obsession that can overwhelm an imbalanced mind.
Have you seen the film What the Bleep Do We Know? It’s full of terrible science, but, in a similar way, I think at some level he’s trying to claim that if you control (edit) your thought processes, somehow that will change the outcome of history.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WON3-vNhDTo]