Lunatics reflect the world around them
Bookworm on Aug 04 2008 at 4:26 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
During the Middle Ages and right through to the early modern era, crazy people believed that they were witches or the devil (or, at least, doing the bidding of witches and the devil). During the post-WWII space era, crazy people substituted creatures from out of space for the devil. Again, their lunacy distilled core symbols of the era.
Keep that in mind as you think about these three news stories, all from the past few days: In Canada, an apparently normal man went berzerk, stabbed his fellow bus passenger to death, and beheaded him. In Greece, a chef went berzerk, killed his dog, and then decapitated his girlfriend. And in Brazil, a man went berzerk and sliced his girlfriend to bits, including the by now obligatory beheading.
Do you think that, just as the looney toonz of past eras reflected their cultures’ obessessive concerns with God, the devil, and Martians, our modern nutcases are beginning to reflect Al Qaeda? Even as it’s disintegrating, has Al Qaeda managed to establish itself as the default setting for societal angst and, therefore, the template on which the insane act out their delusions?
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3 Responses to “Lunatics reflect the world around them”
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For those anti-social and asocial people, the things outside of normal societally accepted boundaries is what they often look towards. They don’t like authority or how society treats them, but being human they seek desperately for another kind of acceptance. They get that from crazy stuff outside normal societal boundaries. At least what is normal for the society they were born and raised in.
No human can entirely reject their culture and society, without adopting another to replace it.
Islam is convenient in this fashion, Book.
The really awful part is that the guy in Canada didn’t just behead the guy sleeping next to him; he ate him, too! Right there in front of the cops.
I think lunatics mimic what they see in the news. Remember the rash of sword killings or the rash of microwave baby killings? One person does it, then others read about it and play copycat. Would these recent lunatics have beheaded their victims had they not heard about Al Quada beheadings? I don’t think so.
This might be the solution for terminating overweight prisoners with bad veins. There is certainly plenty of precedent.