Shards

Today is the anniversary of the murder of Sharon Tate by what the press called, strangely, "The Manson Family". I knew of the actress only through my passing interest in terrible movies, specifically "The Fearless Vampire Killers", but the story was riveting. The circumstances of her murder were particularly gruesome but the arresting aspect of the event was the nature of the attackers: They seemed on the surface to be totally mad yet they were organized and moved like a pack. Manson himself was less interesting than the others; he was never physically involved in the killings and his influence in the events only highlighted the main problem. By themselves the murderers were inexplicable but, as agents, the pitiless blood drinking lunatics were impossible.

Madness is a terrible curse only exaggerated by our misapprehensions of it. We sniff around its edges, sometimes come to ridiculous cultural conclusions and submit the victims to more of the same. We have tried to frighten madness out, boil it, burn it, exorcise it, reason with it and more recently stun it with pharmaceuticals. Yet of all its diverse appearances, one thing is constant: The madman never organizes, never joins. His illness separates him spiritually from others, isolates him not because he is shunned but because he is unable to form bonds. He is alone with his illness, castaway and marooned. Contrary to fanciful social allegories, there is never a revolution in a madhouse.

Yet here we have a group of total crazies planning and executing an attack on several families over several weeks. Many had previous psychiatric diagnoses and one later made a motiveless attempt on Gerald Ford's life. How could these people organize? How did they group and integrate towards an end? Is there some new pathology afoot? Or has the culture become so large and so forgiving that, at its edge, otherwise inexplicable social behavior--like snake handling--can find a home.