On Aug. 7, Aaron Alexis called police from a Newport, R.I., Marriott. He needed help. He was hearing voices. And three people were following him, sending microwaves through walls, making his skin vibrate and preventing him from sleeping. He had already twice changed hotels in an effort to escape the men and their radiation. And the voices.
Textbook schizophrenia. But do not underestimate it with a mere diagnosis; Alexis was a terrified, haunted man. What was totally nuts to us was very real, as real as our reality, to him. The police visited him, told him to "stay away from the individuals that are following him," and left.
Eventually Alexis does leave. He goes to a gun store in Virginia and buys a shotgun. Then he goes to the Washington Navy Yard and kills twelve strangers before he himself is killed.
Does madness have much to teach us? This is an instance where a total madman, known to the authorities, keeps a security clearance, buys a gun and, acting on his madness, kills twelve and dies himself. One should ask what do authorities do? What justifies their confidence they can help us in anything if not this? If a man as obviously crazy as this guy can wander away from the encounter with the law with nothing more than the moronic advice of "stay away from the invisible people" what would stimulate their intervention? How crazy do you have to be? Is it just the infrastructure going through the motions waiting for lunch? Is it more, like the callous disregard for anyone or any danger?
One should worry here. It may be the government and its agents have no real idea of the world and their light influence on it. They may care for nothing. Ignoring this suffering man is more than callous, it is cruel. And there is the bigger picture of police disappearing from the daily encounters with life and withdrawing to response teams; this may be a tacit admission of their truth: They have limited impact on our lives and have no confidence in improving or intervening with our problems. Their only place is in counterattack upon a clear and defined problem.
One wonders when the rest of the bureaucracy will catch up with their cynical despair.
Textbook schizophrenia. But do not underestimate it with a mere diagnosis; Alexis was a terrified, haunted man. What was totally nuts to us was very real, as real as our reality, to him. The police visited him, told him to "stay away from the individuals that are following him," and left.
Eventually Alexis does leave. He goes to a gun store in Virginia and buys a shotgun. Then he goes to the Washington Navy Yard and kills twelve strangers before he himself is killed.
Does madness have much to teach us? This is an instance where a total madman, known to the authorities, keeps a security clearance, buys a gun and, acting on his madness, kills twelve and dies himself. One should ask what do authorities do? What justifies their confidence they can help us in anything if not this? If a man as obviously crazy as this guy can wander away from the encounter with the law with nothing more than the moronic advice of "stay away from the invisible people" what would stimulate their intervention? How crazy do you have to be? Is it just the infrastructure going through the motions waiting for lunch? Is it more, like the callous disregard for anyone or any danger?
One should worry here. It may be the government and its agents have no real idea of the world and their light influence on it. They may care for nothing. Ignoring this suffering man is more than callous, it is cruel. And there is the bigger picture of police disappearing from the daily encounters with life and withdrawing to response teams; this may be a tacit admission of their truth: They have limited impact on our lives and have no confidence in improving or intervening with our problems. Their only place is in counterattack upon a clear and defined problem.
One wonders when the rest of the bureaucracy will catch up with their cynical despair.
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