Yesterday, when I wrote my comment on Mishima's novel The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea, I did have no news about the events in New Town, Connecticut. It has been only this morning, sunk in drowsiness, when I learned about it listening to BBC2 in bed. The coincidence is macabre.
My uneasiness in these cases is that, in looking for any motivations underneath such horrendous actions, the official versions normally leave me cold and unsatisfied. Explanations seem to me insufficient to sustain the reality of the facts and I always end up forgetting the story without speaking my mind up. I don't understand the psychiatric profiles -name tags for things we are unable to understand completely- nor its abstruse terminology and vague set of conclusions: "The guy was suffering from paranoia or manifested this and that syndromes, and that made him prone to..., likely to, with tendency to". However, the force that set the motherfucker into motion was not any sort of tendency or likelihood! But a real, specific thrust that made his muscles spring towards his purpose.
I happen to agree with those who claim that criminals of the type of Adam Lanza should be studied and not just piled up in prisons and forsaken -if not left them free if they are under-age. So, please, could we be more specific and study case by case? Who was Adam Lanza? What can we learn from his case?
When a case like this happens, whether becomes public or not -I just learned that, recently, a couple of similar cases were aborted, one in Palma de Mallorca (Spain), where a youngster planned to blow a school with a home-made bomb made out of fertilizers under guidance of the web-, I despised any blame blindly thrown upon Society. "Society" is our scapegoat, the concept that serves a large variety of purposes... Nah! I understand that Society, as a whole, might play an important role. For example, the effects of a long consumption of cocaine over time -out of excessive social permissiveness or inaction-, create monsters that commit terrible crimes out of the blue. However, I think that if the blame is to be on Society in general, responsibility will get diffuse, and will slow down any corrective policy. Society is not an entity in itself: individuals are.
For this reason, re-opening the debate of free possession of weapons in the States is off subject. It was, precisely, the acknowledgement of evil in the Heart of Men and, let's say, Society, what brought in the end the right to possess weapons to the Second Amendment into the American Constitution! Spotting individuals like Adam Lanza or Anders Breivik, and neutralizing them as much as possible is not a matter of sociology but of policy, law enforcement and police action. What difference does it make whether you have a gun or not?! The criminal kids of Mishima also killed, and did not have any fire weapon. I always remember this acquaintance of mine, N. who, being in the States when the shooting of Red Lake in Minnesota took place in 2005, I think, called me and exclaimed: "This is what happens after the culture of no guns: a crazy guy starts killing and you can't do anything. If guns were more freely allowed, someone would have taken him down and we would have to mourn less casualties". Well, it is just a point of view.
Seemingly, Adam Lanza knew what he was doing. He went to kill, that's it. As usually happens, the chronicles do not mentioned the most terrible detail of the event: before running to the school, he had killed his mother at home. The twenty kids their lives he wiped off before killing himself were pupils of his mother. The motive behind is connected, again, with a defective parent-son relationship, whatever it is. And, as usually is the case, Adam's mother was a wonderful person and a magnificent woman, while Adam was a strange boy, talked little, showed languid or deplorable body language and was totally careless of socialization. But, com'on! How many cases do you know? What is the percentage of youngsters in their tens or early twenties displaying a similar behavior? Be serious: what does it take to be a criminal, really?
Although Evil has long rooted into our hearts, I am sure much more can be done in the action realm, rather than in the slippery and treacherous plane of Ideals and Utopias. The shiny, little wand does not work, never did: our heredity is no fairy tale.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
My uneasiness in these cases is that, in looking for any motivations underneath such horrendous actions, the official versions normally leave me cold and unsatisfied. Explanations seem to me insufficient to sustain the reality of the facts and I always end up forgetting the story without speaking my mind up. I don't understand the psychiatric profiles -name tags for things we are unable to understand completely- nor its abstruse terminology and vague set of conclusions: "The guy was suffering from paranoia or manifested this and that syndromes, and that made him prone to..., likely to, with tendency to". However, the force that set the motherfucker into motion was not any sort of tendency or likelihood! But a real, specific thrust that made his muscles spring towards his purpose.
I happen to agree with those who claim that criminals of the type of Adam Lanza should be studied and not just piled up in prisons and forsaken -if not left them free if they are under-age. So, please, could we be more specific and study case by case? Who was Adam Lanza? What can we learn from his case?
When a case like this happens, whether becomes public or not -I just learned that, recently, a couple of similar cases were aborted, one in Palma de Mallorca (Spain), where a youngster planned to blow a school with a home-made bomb made out of fertilizers under guidance of the web-, I despised any blame blindly thrown upon Society. "Society" is our scapegoat, the concept that serves a large variety of purposes... Nah! I understand that Society, as a whole, might play an important role. For example, the effects of a long consumption of cocaine over time -out of excessive social permissiveness or inaction-, create monsters that commit terrible crimes out of the blue. However, I think that if the blame is to be on Society in general, responsibility will get diffuse, and will slow down any corrective policy. Society is not an entity in itself: individuals are.
For this reason, re-opening the debate of free possession of weapons in the States is off subject. It was, precisely, the acknowledgement of evil in the Heart of Men and, let's say, Society, what brought in the end the right to possess weapons to the Second Amendment into the American Constitution! Spotting individuals like Adam Lanza or Anders Breivik, and neutralizing them as much as possible is not a matter of sociology but of policy, law enforcement and police action. What difference does it make whether you have a gun or not?! The criminal kids of Mishima also killed, and did not have any fire weapon. I always remember this acquaintance of mine, N. who, being in the States when the shooting of Red Lake in Minnesota took place in 2005, I think, called me and exclaimed: "This is what happens after the culture of no guns: a crazy guy starts killing and you can't do anything. If guns were more freely allowed, someone would have taken him down and we would have to mourn less casualties". Well, it is just a point of view.
Seemingly, Adam Lanza knew what he was doing. He went to kill, that's it. As usually happens, the chronicles do not mentioned the most terrible detail of the event: before running to the school, he had killed his mother at home. The twenty kids their lives he wiped off before killing himself were pupils of his mother. The motive behind is connected, again, with a defective parent-son relationship, whatever it is. And, as usually is the case, Adam's mother was a wonderful person and a magnificent woman, while Adam was a strange boy, talked little, showed languid or deplorable body language and was totally careless of socialization. But, com'on! How many cases do you know? What is the percentage of youngsters in their tens or early twenties displaying a similar behavior? Be serious: what does it take to be a criminal, really?
Although Evil has long rooted into our hearts, I am sure much more can be done in the action realm, rather than in the slippery and treacherous plane of Ideals and Utopias. The shiny, little wand does not work, never did: our heredity is no fairy tale.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
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