If the past is any warrant for the future, the story of Jared Loughner will soon be transmuted into television crime drama, in a “ripped from the headlines” episode of one of those now numerous shows that deal largely with psychos and the detectives who try to catch them.
That so much of our entertainment should dwell so fixedly on the psycho is puzzling. If bloodshed has long been a preoccupation of art, from slaughter in the House of Atreus to slaughter in Glamis Castle, the shedders of blood have typically been portrayed as having comprehensible, if evil, reasons for killing — revenge, jealousy, ambition, the whole spectrum of motive passion. The psycho, by contrast, has none of these tragic motives for hurting a particular person. His anger or lust either is random in its trajectory, and icily dispassionate, or is dictated by the necessities of an idiosyncratic personal mythology that makes sense only to him. The psycho is in this respect a new phenomenon, or at any rate new to art, Poe being the first to take it up in stories like “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” “There have been murderers throughout history,” I wrote in NR last summer,
but the phenomenon of the lone psychopath intent on cruelty as well as bloodshed seems not to have been remarked until the 1860s, with the murders committed by Dumollard in Montluel and Lyons, by Joseph Philippe in Paris, by Frederick Baker in England, and by Gruyo in Spain. These were followed by the crimes of Vincenzo Verzeni in the Bergamasco region of Lombardy in the 1870s, the Austin Axe Murders in Texas in 1884 and 1885, the Whitechapel Murders attributed to Jack the Ripper in 1888, and the Vacher Murders in France, which began in 1894.
Advertisement
This novel character, the psycho, soon became a staple of popular art. Stevenson published Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1886, two years before the Whitechapel Murders, and Conan Doyle brought out the first of his Sherlock Holmes mysteries in 1887. The genre remains today essentially what those authors made it; the psycho has simply become ever more grotesquely and even ludicrously depraved, and ever less warm-blooded in his motives. Thus the progression from Faulkner’s Popeye (the sexually crippled villain in Sanctuary) and Hitchcock’s Norman Bates (the Hollywood Oedipus), who have the residual detritus of passionate motive, to Hannibal Lecter, the philosophic cannibal of Thomas Harris’s novels.
Possibly our fascination with the psycho tells us only that we adore the macabre, have a soft spot for the skull that lies “beneath the roots of flowers.” (Loughner had a cranial shrine in the backyard, with a bag of potting soil nearby.) But our interest seems to me to go deeper. “Constantly interrupted by commercials hawking pharmaceutical remedies for such garden-variety decrepitudes as depression and insomnia,” I wrote in NR, today’s psycho art fingers “the deeper apprehension that these run-of-the-mill morbidities may degenerate into pathological ones — that under the pressure of modern life the apparently innocuous neighbor or colleague or spouse will ‘snap.’ Such, at any rate, is the storyline commonly retailed when yet another mass killing takes place.”
Jared Loughner differs, it is true, from the psycho who appears normal until, under the weight of accumulated tribulations, he breaks, and reveals an unsuspected strain of psychosis. Loughner differs, too, from the more sinister character who deliberately conceals his lunacy under a camouflage of normalcy, a laborious pretense of sanity. Loughner was openly, flamboyantly weird. And yet before Saturday he seems not to have been, on the surface, palpably insane. His interest in dreams, though eccentric, was not inherently mad, and even if, as some have maintained, he showed symptoms of schizophrenia, schizophrenics, if the National Institute of Mental Health is to be believed, “are not usually violent . . . The risk of violence among people with schizophrenia is small.” Every psycho is a law unto himself; but in the coolly methodical way in which Loughner prepared what he is alleged to have called “my assassination,” he displayed the psychotic quality that perhaps fascinates us most, a malignancy that is not only motiveless but passionless.
The fascination is revealing precisely because the phenomenon itself is so exceedingly rare. We dwell on the psycho not, I think, because we feel ourselves directly threatened by him, but because he seems to us only the most lurid manifestation of a more extensive breakdown. His large morbidities and his absolute isolation are, it is true, far removed from the minor morbidities and comparative loneliness of modern life — from the little psychoses of the unimpassioned depressive, the solitary neurotic, the Eleanor Rigby–style loser. But they are close enough to them to make us uncomfortable, and to make the psycho himself the master-figure of modern popular culture. He is not like the rest of us, but he has, in his solipsism and disconnectedness, realized a destiny that Tocqueville believed could one day overtake the rest of us, should we forfeit the grace that draws a man out of his wilderness. “Thus not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors,” Tocqueville wrote, “but it hides his descendants and separates his contemporaries from him; it throws him back forever upon himself alone and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart.”
“When you’re alone like he was alone . . .” Overlooking the significance that Eliot or Tocqueville or Dostoevsky might have found in a character like Jared Loughner, we glibly attribute his acts to “extremist rhetoric” or a “culture of violence.” But the problem of the psycho and the puzzle of our compulsive interest in him speak to strains and uneasinesses in modern life that lie much deeper than rhetoric, whether political or artistic. They speak to a dissatisfaction of which modernity, with all its blessings, has been the accomplice, a vacancy that the psycho seems to us to embody, a type and symbol of our waste lands.
Literary flourishes aside, what the story of Jared Loughner reveals is the sad state of care for the mentally ill in our country, and labeling him a "psycho" or a "lone nut" is a symptom of the problem. We can't commit people who are in obvious need of mental health treatment without going through a complex maze of legal requirements (all in the name of protecting people's "rights"). So, they end up untreated, on the streets, or in jail, where they are free to suffer, content in knowing their "rights" are protected...somewhere. I'm one of those who are convinced that Loughner had been showing symptoms of schizoid disease for years. In the last year or so, it seems to have taken a turn for the worse. His condition untreated, the probability that he was self-medicating with street drugs, socially isolated, and increasingly angry and agitated, he entered into a perfect storm that had tragic consequences. This is not to excuse anything he did -- I believe he knew what he did was wrong. I'll let the justice system sort out his legal culpability. But it's clear that he kept falling through cracks in society, and many opportunities were missed for intervention that might have precluded this overwhelming tragedy.
In my opinion, it is the “Otherness” of psychos is what attracts us. They are not so different that we feat them outright, instead, they are much like us, like family and friends. They are human and most humans don't do what they do. Most humans can't imagine or fully grasp what goes in in the minds of psychos and so we, curious monkeys that we are, we gather and gawk, and poke and puzzle. They are the closest things we have to demons left in this world, a world where increasingly we no longer believe in metaphysical “good and evil”.
Psychos are not new to human history. I warrant that psychos were with us when we came down from the trees but they, when revealed, were dealt with very quickly and decidedly....with the result that the psycho wouldn't be able to harm anyone again. Their memory fed the stories of demons and monsters and became parables of how to behave in human society. Those that were mostly sane and had the capacity for self control learned how to control their bazaar impulses and those that couldn't were dealt with. The harmless where left to themselves and supported by their families or , albeit meagrely, by the community. Eccentrics, functional but odd, were integrated at varying levels in the society dependent on their level of eccentricity. Some were/are far more social than others. But all in all, society integrated everyone that could or wanted to be integrated and those that would not or could not integrate were expelled from society for the safety of others.
In a society where anything goes and everything is good and you're okay and I'm okay, those that are borderline psycho have no boundaries set by society or themselves and are free to indulge their bizarre behaviour. Only in the modern-age do we believe (as a society) that though there are medications that can control a wide variety of mental disorders like Schizophrenia, we not want to infringe on the rights of the mentally ill to be mentally ill. And so, they are left to live their lives amidst general society. When they "snap", it is met with suprise and shock. "How could this happen?" and society is to blame but not for failing to ensure the mentally ill person is properly cared for and medicated but because of some other failing of Society or some sub-group/event.
Learning to deal with the pressures of our modern lifestyles is learning good coping mechanisms. If we can't adapt as individuals, then society adjusts to make living together bearable (IE rules, behavioural norms, traditions, cultures, laws, etc..) If society can't adjust the way it needs to because the adaptations needed are seen to be too old fashioned, or un-progressive, or having too many rules and “judgements” on other people's behaviours and is therefore “Oppressive” expect more disintegration until it becomes so bad, there is a backlash against “live and let live” because it's “all cool” and we're all “okay.”
In the meanwhile, the victims will continue to be the board-line personality and those wholes lives are negatively impacted when that mentally ill person slips over the borderline to active, and possibly violent, madness.
you seem to be suggesting that condemning violent rhetoric somehow detracts from legal and moral condemnation of jared loughner.
it's possible that violent rhetoric was a contributing factor in this act; but this wouldn't necessarily mean that palin or limbaugh would in any way be guilty of conspiracy to murder. or are you suggesting that anyone who thinks conservative rhetoric is too violent is also suggesting palin and limbaugh are guilty of the murders in tuscon? somebody would have to be pretty stupid to hold that view.
if loughner is in fact a psychopath, if he is crazy, then would you support his being let off on first-degree murder charges by reason of insanity?
There is one other literary, or philosophical thinker Mr Know Beran left out - Friedrich Nietzsche. In his volume "Also spracht Zarathustra", there is a section known as "On the Pale Criminal"; one verse stands out:
"Thus speaketh the red judge: "Why did this criminal commit murder? He meant to rob." I tell you, however, that his soul wanted blood, not booty: he thirsted for the happiness of the knife!"
Some writers translate "happiness" as "joy". And it was that verse which inspired Bertolt Brecht's infamous song Mackie Messer (Mack the Knife).
As I understand it, Nietzsche himself was inspired by Dostoevsky's character Rodya Roskolnikov (Crime and Punishment).
I do agree with the author's assessment taken from De Touqueville. Unfortunately, many thinkers of the last 100 or so years have mis-interpreted Nietzsche. Ideas and categories such as alienation have become empty abstractions; many of our ideas have become clouded by Freud and Marx, and a host of post-modern thinkers (all would be well if we were more equal, less repressed sexually, and more politciall conscious). Dostevesky and Nietzsche knew better. What compels indivisuals like the Klebolds, or Loughners of the world is either beyond our comprehension, or too horrific to comptemplate.
JPK nicely stated...although Nietzsche misiinterpreted is an understatement...he also had no use use for snobbish intelletual atheism...the kind that is alive and well across Europe and the U.S.
I think at this point there is consensus that it was certainly not the fault of Democrats, Republicans or Tea Party that Congresswoman Giffords and the others were shot. The bottom line is, Mr. Loughner is mentally ill and acting out of his psychotic fantasies.
But I also think those who are still trying to cast blame on one particular person or party have it backwards. The tragedy is not that Mr Loughner identified with conservatives or liberals, but that so many Americans identify American political rhetoric with Mr. Loughner.
It's way over my head. I think there are normal brains, a range that is pretty wide, and abnormal brains, a range about which we know all too little. Why a brain is abnormal and how a brain becomes abnormal is likely a very wide-ranging thing, too; disease, injury, self-inflicted, or societally-inflicted warping of thought processes - certainly, in our world, likely a combination of the two. Who knows? These metaphysical things are, as JPK said, "beyond comprehension, or too horrific to contemplate." Fortunately, as Beran points out, "the phenomenon...is... exceedingly rare."
The line "Every psycho is a law unto himself" rang true and made me think of Jesus' words about the end times in Matthew 24:12: "And because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold."
Certainly lawlessness increases around us in every arena of American life. We even watch the rule of law failing, and lawlessness becoming legislated, and it can be overwhelming and discouraging especially to conservatives!
Then this article gives voice to the concerns all of us have about the darkness lurking inside the human heart. Evil can only be tempered by eternal Truth reigning in our hearts, as America's founding fathers knew so well.
I get discouraged at lawlessness abounding in our communities and long for a return to the rule of law in our land. But I realize, too, if I don't allow love in my heart to wane, I help keep lawlessness at bay for another day.
The treatment (or lack thereof) of the mentally ill in this country is a disgrace. It began in the sixties with the "enlightened" notion that people shouldn't be institutionalized unless they were a clear and present danger to themselves or others. Unfortunately, today clear and present danger means " one act away from killing or being killed."
To be sure, there were bad institutions and some mentally ill individuals who were abused. And many mentally ill individuals today can function very well in mainstream society. However, since the sixties, the answer has been to simply turn the mentally ill out on the streets to fend for themselves under the guise of individual freedom.
On the street, there is no support for the mentally ill. Governmental programs are consistently axed because of their perceived liberalism. Non-profit organizations are mostly interested in helping families or children-- not mentally ill adults who smell bad and disturb social gatherings. In the worst situations, the mentally ill are relegated to $400-$500 per month disability checks, which they turn over to owners of boarding homes, who provide them with a mattress in a filthy room they share with several other people, one bologna sandwich per day, and $50 per month spending money. I have seen some situations where the yards of these homes are covered with human feces because the only bathroom in the house is non-functioning. Meanwhile, the owner of the "facility" drives around in a Hummer. Are you beginning to see why so many of the mentally ill opt for homelessness?
Why aren't these places shut down? Two reasons: (1) We don't have any alternatives we are willing to provide for the mentally ill and (2) the local and state level code enforcement departments are horribly understaffed and under budgeted.
The other current option to turning mentally ill individuals out on the street is to let their families care for them. Judging by the current situation, in which the Loughners are not the only ones, that doesn't work too well either! On the contrary, for a variety of reasons, the mentally ill frequently destroy the lives of their families first. Then they wind up in the mental health system.
The answer is not simply to throw more money after a bad policy-- but I guarantee you, while caring properly for the mentally ill will cost more money up front than we are currently spending, it will cost a whole lot less on the back end. Just imagine what the total cost of Mr. Loughner's actions will be.
Beran's piece may have literary merit but sows confusion on the current case. The 'psycho' exists in fiction -it's a derogatory non-specific word borne of fear and ignorance which combines various medical conditions for maximum entertainment. Psychopaths are rarely psychotic and I would doubt if Loughner is a 'lone psychopath'. Obviously, there are more specific terms that describe the small number of mentally ill people who are a danger to others. Paranoid schizophrenia is the principal problem, especially in men under 50 who refuse treatment.
As has already been noted, the provision for psychotic patients in North America is shamefully inadequate. Governments were more than happy to close down the old 'lunatic asylums' but never put the money saved into community care.
One reason psychiatrists don't like committing patients is there are no beds to put them in. It's no surprise that prisons, by default, have become our mental hospitals.
Not to sound pedantic, but Norman Bates was created by author Robert Bloch. Hitchcock based the movie on Bloch's novel, and was quite faithful to the source material.
Leaving the philosophical to those equipped to understand it, I posit this simple question and answer. Who was the only individual that actually had the responsibility to protect the citizens that were gunned down? Why, Sheriff Dupnik of course! The Police motto states "to protect and to serve". That is what is expected of these folks each time we hand them a paycheck from the public treasury. Sheriff Dupnik was missing in action, when he was required to earn his pay last Saturday. He quickly appeared once the coast was clear (compliments of some brave citizens performing what is of course his function) to cast blame on a whole group of people (who pay his salary)that weren't anywhwere near Tucson. The man has gone far beyond common decency and decorum. He owes the citizens of this country an apology, he owes the victims of this tragedy an expalanation as to his whereabouts at the time of the shooting and he owes the good citizens of the 8th district all the money he has feloniously taken while impersonating an actual lawman.
The psycho alone pulled the trigger. As for the rift between right and left, only a threat percieved by both to be greater than the threat to either by the other can bring the two together. Even then, once the greater threat is neutralized, the two will again unseal the rift.
The two will never come together, for they are fundamentally different animals, in the sense that thought defines the person. The left percieves the right to be stupid, selfish, and inferior. The right percieves the left to be emotional, illogical, and wrong.
Mr. Beran might add modern "art" to his examples of perversity. Celebrated works of Dali, Bacon, and many others have the creepy quality that one finds in the stories of serial killers and mass murderers.
In my opinion, the problem is not the mental health system but the legal system that prevents many people like Loughner from being legally forced to accept mental health services.
As is abundantly clear, and stated by other commenters, the state of mental health care in this (and many other) countries is severely lacking.
The question is why. Mental Illness in its many forms; depression, bipolar, schizophrenia (the three 'major' mental illnesses) is simply not understood.
Psychiatrists pass out medication as if it were candy believing it to be the 'answer.' "Here, take some of these, I'll see you in a month for another 45 minute session. Let me know how it goes..."
And treatment of any kind only happens when the person in question requests treatment. I doubt Mr. Laughner even knew he needed any help; its part of the diagnosis of someone who has Schizophrenia and its called Anosognosia; an inability to realize that you have a problem or are ill.
The answer is not medication; however medication is a tool in the toolkit. The answer is education and understanding, the former being easy to come by, the latter not so much.
This is by NO means an excuse for someone who is so delusional as to become psychopathic and kill other people. Loughner is a criminal killer and should be (and most likely will be) treated as such.
The average person, especially the media pundits, does not understand the difference between psychopathy and psychosis. And truly someone experiencing psychosis, which is a break from what the rest of us perceive as 'reality' is, as far as I can tell from first hand reports, similar to a dream state. The person experiencing psychosis sees things and especially hears things, sometimes very loudly, that those around him or her do not see and hear. On extremely rare occasions, what a psychotic person sees and hears makes him or her commit terrible acts; usually suicide, sometimes homicide. Please, PLEASE realize when I say rarely, I mean RARELY. NIMH has the stats if you like statistics.
Causes of psychosis are deep secrets, that even the medicos, psych techs and psychiatrists don't really understand. They believe that brain chemicals have run amok. I'm not sure what that means, so I explain the illness as a brain 'disorder.' But is it really a disorder? Perhaps not. People suffering from delusions and psychosis were at one time called Prophets. But it should be treated as any other disorder, and it rarely is. If you had diabetes or heart disease and your doctor treated you the way the 'system' treats mental illness, you would be appalled.
Having dealt with mental illness, diagnosed as Paranoid Schizophrenia to be exact, for almost ten years in a loved one, the more I learn the more it frustrates me.
Another commenter posted that this 'treatment system' that we have all began in the sixties, which is true. 'Enlightened' thought believed that mental illness should only be a concern when someone is a danger to self, to others, or is gravely disabled. And truly, there are many people who have a diagnosis and are totally functional, working and contributing folks. 'Enlightened' thought also caused the major institutions for treatment to be shut down, and now the treatment facilities are mostly jails and prisons.
But how does one determine the criteria of harm to self or others? Currently it's only done after someone has caused harm or is lying in a gutter somewhere or has committed suicide, the ultimate self harm. It is a slippery slope when you try to determine someone's intent. But signs abound, though many disregard those signs, don't recognize the signs (which is usually the case) or the signs are not 'extreme' enough.
So the question remains of what to do. I can inform the authorities my loved one is very, very sick. He can even be gravely disabled, and yet the 'authorities' are very reluctant to do anything. That's about all I can do; I can't forcibly put an adult on time out. Sometimes the 'authorities,' the police and mental health services community, put him on a 72 hour hold, fill him full of medication and release him in four or five days when he becomes 'lucid'.
This serves no purpose, because in order to help him, what he would need cannot be delivered to him. He will be back in a month or two, sometimes three to repeat the cycle again. If he were to have 6 months of intensive treatment from doctors, therapists, spiritual counselors, nutritionists, vocational counselors and a personal trainer he might (and I emphasize might) do better in the long run.
Such treatment does not exist and could not exist because of the resources involved. But I keep advocating for it, it's my only recourse to the stress and frustration I experience on a daily basis, unless of course I had a million dollars. So advocacy and posting comments on blogs are my recourse...
The final upshot of this is that it is an extremely difficult conundrum that we, as citizens, need to understand more fully and somehow come to grips with. We live in a free country where we are very careful (most of the time) to not interfere with a person’s civil and human rights. These 'random acts of violence' are not going to go away.
Nor does it make sense to blame anyone; we are all in this together, so it's really our collective 'fault' if fault can be placed.
I personally believe, after having observed and taught other family members about mental illness over the past six years that we are ALL on the scale somewhere. We all have our depression, anxiety, psychosis (dreams are an example...), mania, denial, neuroses and delusions.
There is a theory (and it's just a theory...) that those on the extreme ends of the spectrum got there because it has been naturally selected for and has brought us language, higher math, music and art.
The only difference between someone who is 'crazy' and someone who is 'eccentric' is their personal financial position. All I can say is I will keep fighting the stigma, misconceptions and the lack of understanding and do my best to educate others. That's the best I can do. And I will not stand for, for whatever reason, someone killing others. It can't be excused away by psychosis or psychopathy. I would, I think, feel the same way if it was my son in Laughner's shoes, but I'm not sure.
I just don't think my son would be allowed to arrive at the extreme point Mr. Laughner found himself at without some kind of intervention on my part. Mr. Laughner received no intervention. We don't know much about him except there were some signs he exhibited behaviorally before he executed 6 people and wounded 14 others.
What signs do we need before we step in? That’s a really, really good question...
Please see www.NAMI.org for help with your situation. NAMI has affiliates all over the country, and you can find someone locally who will help you. NAMI is where I found my advocacy.
