My two cents

The ubiquitous topics of discussion everywhere and always in the moment are the University of Idaho murders and George Santos. What could I possibly say that's somehow an original contribution and relevant to the (admittedly blurry) focus of this blog? Let's see what I can come up with.

Sure, the U of I murders got the OJ treatment in the corporate media partly because the victims were white, young, good looking, and at least modestly privileged as full-time college students. Reporters and editors could identify with them as their younger selves and also their own children. But in fairness, the mystery -- the horrific and inexplicable nature of the crime -- is what really kept the story alive. Sure, there have been hundreds of murders since that have gotten little or no attention, but I have to admit I was very curious about this one. On the other hand, until the authorities made an arrest there was really nothing new to report about the case, but they managed to fill airtime anyway.

As for George Santos, the story is ubiquitous for the totally legitimate reason that it's a) totally outrageous and b) compellingly demonstrates abject failures of journalism, the Democratic campaign apparatus,  and our political culture. The guy's entire existence is a fabrication, much of which was actually reported by a small local newspaper weeks before the election, which was entirely ignored by major media, the Democratic candidate's campaign, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, as well as the RNC and their committee of course although you wouldn't expect them to drop the dime. In addition having run for office as a fictitious character, he was totally impecunious, subsisting on menial jobs, sponging off of friends and acquaintances, and according to an ex-boyfriend petty theft, until suddenly, a year before the election, he had or claimed to have an annual income of several million dollars a year, and loaned his own campaign $700,000, the source of which he has not explained.

 

A further outrage in the Santos story is that no Republicans in congress, with the exception of a few who will be leaving office tomorrow, have said anything about him at all. He will take his seat tomorrow and start voting, and that's all they care about. But that's not what I want to talk about here. As for the U of I murders, assuming the authorities have the right guy -- and believe me, if they don't, there will be hell to pay -- the most likely surmise anybody can come up with is that this was a thrill killing. The alleged murderer had no apparent connection to any of the victims, but he was obsessively interested in the inner experience of criminals, so it appears this was, to him, essentially a scientific experiment to find out what would happen in his own head if he committed an atrocity. We aren't 100% sure this is true, but let's go with it. Per accounts of his fellow criminology students, his demeanor after the murders was pretty much unaffected, although he might have been a bit more animated than usual. 

 

So, all this is a long way of getting around to the point that the human brain is unfathomably complicated. It has capabilities we are barely beginning to understand. But that also means it has nearly infinite ways to go malfunction. What constitutes proper functioning is of course open to debate, and is fiercely debated, within broad limits. 

 

But it is is undeniable that we are a social species. Our evolutionary success depended on our cooperative nature. It is essential that for the most part, we can trust each other, that we mostly tell the truth and we're mostly helpful, friendly, courteous, kind . . .  Major exceptions happen between and among tribes, when groups of people rule some people in to the trust and cooperation sphere, and rule others out. The results can range from mutual hostility to slavery, war and genocide. It is a major theme here that people should stop doing that, and include everyone. 

 

But these cases are not about that. They're about brains that malfunction socially within the tribe. The malfunctions are rather different. We don't know that Santos is capable of violence and we don't know that Bryan Kohberger is prone to lying about anything except that he murdered four people (allegedly).  But that's the point -- there are a multitude of possible ways that brains can go wrong. It doesn't really work to try to stuff them in to diagnostic buckets. If you had to do it according to the DSM5, you'd presumably diagnose them both with sociopathic personality disorder, but obviously it's absurd to claim that they both have the same "disease." That just isn't a helpful way of thinking about it.