MASS-MURDER AS A CULTURAL NORM

Richard Koenigsberg

I've always been impressed by the phrase of a well-known historian, "the specious present" (specious = something that seems to be real and true, but is not real or true). The disc jockey Murray the K  said it best: "What's happening now, baby."

The world in which we live in today: one in which what is happening at the current moment seems to be so "really real; the only reality there is.

The mass-murderer in the spotlight presently is, however, part well-established tradition of national leaders that "kill a lot of people." Mass-murder is not an anomaly. It's a well-established cultural form; a cultural norm.

Newton said he was "standing on the shoulder of giants." So is Vladimir Putin. Following in the footsteps of the men in the photos above. Not an anomaly. A normative aspect of modern civilization. Standing on the shoulders of other "great leaders" who made a name for themselves by killing large quantities of people. "Making history." Hoping to be remembered. To be "written up in the history books."