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The Marksman & His Society Society doesn't quite know what to make of its serial killers. It is no great leap for experts to acknowledge that madmen look perfectly normal, that their life may in most respects be ordinary, that they may even make fine family men and neighbors. It is more difficult for them, however, to see the boundary between the 'normal' and 'pathological' as permeable. To the question "what makes somebody deliberately kill?" the safest reply seems to be some variation of, "something goes wrong in the person's head" -- either defective brain chemistry or a mens rea made sick by social circumstance. The finger points naturally to the perpetrator's pathology, not to anything in the society that might allow such a pathology to ripen. Murder, especially serial murder, is clearly an aberration, and the existence of aberration almost absolves society of any latent guilt or responsibility. A man holding a rifle a few hundred yards away from his target, ready to pull the trigger and end someone's life, has already crossed the threshold of pathology. But what steps, what pre-formed pathological tendencies preceded and were necessary for the actual killing? Does the pathology exist only in the madman's "mind," or is it nurtured and reared in society? How does one go about settling the etiological score? Perhaps a fragmented, depersonalized, egocentric, profit-driven society is the kind in which anomie might more readily flourish, and in which extremely estranged individuals might more easily be given the impetus to commit violence. Perhaps not. Perhaps rough sketches such as this one cannot come close to the crux of the matter. Consider, though, the number of ways in which people seem to be separated from one another, isolated and cut off; consider, too, the ways in which experience today seems to be increasingly transactional and commercial and less intimate and personal. § How many people, for instance, find in their mailbox a handwritten letter anymore, a postcard or personal gift? Nearly one of two pieces of mail is either a bill or an unsolicited piece of "junk". Heads of households, in other words, aren't strangers whom others seek eagerly to get to know: they're prospective customers, a "somebody" from whom somebody else wishes to draw money. When charities and non-profits send missives, they don't usually ask the recipient to donate her time to the organization or get involved in any personal way: no, the missive almost always is a direct appeal for money. § How often do we "experience" the person behind the counter in a department store or grocery store or bookstore as merely a robot that facilitates the transaction? Does anything even approximating a sympathetic experience result from such encounters? § How many companies are only too eager to move their operation overseas to take advantage of cheap labor, nonexistent health codes and environmental laws? How many Aaron Feuersteins really live in America? And what does the easy displacement of a workforce mean in human terms? How must the workers and families of Flint, MI have felt when General Motors simply closed shop (despite posting decent quarterly earnings in a down market) and moved the plant abroad? § Once upon a time, not long ago in the past, living in Philadelphia was different from living in Baltimore, which was different from living in Dallas or San Francisco. Today main streets and boulevards are so dotted with corporate chain stores as to seem indistinguishable from one another. Drive anywhere, visit any city or suburb or town, and witness the passels of McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chickens, Borders Bookstores and Home Depots, Starbucks cafes and sports stadiums. What are the ethological ramifications of having a corporate hangout spot in every neighborhood, in every backyard, in every town and city? How much is lost in historical identity, in the interest of people to gather around a public square and trade stories, touch base, have a beer or two? § To what extent is human experience cheapened or diminished when people sit behind computer or television screen, or chat almost exclusively over a cell phone, or communicate almost exclusively via e-mail or fax? The list above can easily be expanded, but the questions remain the same. Is there too great an emotional gulf between people today? Is serial killing merely an extreme expression of such a gulf, an extreme instance of depersonalization? Is there more a tendency today to see others as "its" rather than "thous"? And are the roots of pathology to be found in various facets of society or in the lymph and blood of an individual personality?
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