The Serial Killer - Part XVIII
Maybe it is best now to interrupt our little history lesson for a little while so that I can sum up some of my reflections about what serial killing is not.
Serial killing is not simple, plain killing. And you should not base your assumptions on wether someone is a serial killer solely on the basis of his, shall we say, concurrent pattern. The so called experts stop counting at three. They should not.
Killing twenty people does not make one automatically a serial killer. On the other hand, killing three people might make someone a serial killer if certain conditions are met. We will come to that later. For now let me just say that intent and purpose are not by all means the only conditions we're dealing with here.
Serial killing is not killing because you are bored, have no other purpose in life or have a taste for vengeance, whatever motivated that lust. If that was so, Batman, Spiderman and almost all comic heroes of our time would have to be considered as such. Serial killers are predators, and predators are much more complicated than that. They are creatures of rituality, simbology, archetypes.
Serial killing is not an exotic thing, although most people might definitely consider a blessing that there aren't many killers of the sort around. Serial killers are average, common, normal people who function in society and mingle with you every day. We are not weirdos who live in solitary isolation down in some eerie basement. We are people, like you.
We're just ... different people. With different needs. Different purposes. Different drives. Most surely different desires. And absolutely different natures.
Serial killers murder, not because they are forced to do it, not because a voice inside their heads tells them to do it (except, of course, in accute schizophrenia cases - but for me those should not be considered serial cases), but because they want to do it. It is a conscious decision, not a product of a mind driven to insanity. And that is probably the most difficult thing to understand about serial killers. But soon we will be analising the very particular features of psycopathic behaviour.
Summing up and proceeding - serial killers are not raving mad, lunatic, sick, mentally pathological mad men or women. Their danger lies precisely on the fact that they are very sane indeed. Very conscious and very rational about what they are doing. Hence lies the crux - what do you call a person who is not mad or mentally disturbed, yet enjoys, seeks, philosophies and finds his or her reason to live in killing other human beings? Do you have a name for it? A categorie, beyond those ridiculous adjectives such as "monster" or "demon"?
The central point of the issue here is precisely the word "other". I said "other human beings", but the fact is serial killers do not consider themselves as other human beings. Or, better, they do not consider human beings in the same categorie as they are. And by removing that little tiny annoying word "other", we are thus able to eliminate a very problematic obstacle in our understanding of what a serial killer's nature is.
Let me put it this way: have you ever killed a fly or an ant? If your answer is no, then you are positively a rare specimen of the human species.
Serial killing is not simple, plain killing. And you should not base your assumptions on wether someone is a serial killer solely on the basis of his, shall we say, concurrent pattern. The so called experts stop counting at three. They should not.
Killing twenty people does not make one automatically a serial killer. On the other hand, killing three people might make someone a serial killer if certain conditions are met. We will come to that later. For now let me just say that intent and purpose are not by all means the only conditions we're dealing with here.
Serial killing is not killing because you are bored, have no other purpose in life or have a taste for vengeance, whatever motivated that lust. If that was so, Batman, Spiderman and almost all comic heroes of our time would have to be considered as such. Serial killers are predators, and predators are much more complicated than that. They are creatures of rituality, simbology, archetypes.
Serial killing is not an exotic thing, although most people might definitely consider a blessing that there aren't many killers of the sort around. Serial killers are average, common, normal people who function in society and mingle with you every day. We are not weirdos who live in solitary isolation down in some eerie basement. We are people, like you.
We're just ... different people. With different needs. Different purposes. Different drives. Most surely different desires. And absolutely different natures.
Serial killers murder, not because they are forced to do it, not because a voice inside their heads tells them to do it (except, of course, in accute schizophrenia cases - but for me those should not be considered serial cases), but because they want to do it. It is a conscious decision, not a product of a mind driven to insanity. And that is probably the most difficult thing to understand about serial killers. But soon we will be analising the very particular features of psycopathic behaviour.
Summing up and proceeding - serial killers are not raving mad, lunatic, sick, mentally pathological mad men or women. Their danger lies precisely on the fact that they are very sane indeed. Very conscious and very rational about what they are doing. Hence lies the crux - what do you call a person who is not mad or mentally disturbed, yet enjoys, seeks, philosophies and finds his or her reason to live in killing other human beings? Do you have a name for it? A categorie, beyond those ridiculous adjectives such as "monster" or "demon"?
The central point of the issue here is precisely the word "other". I said "other human beings", but the fact is serial killers do not consider themselves as other human beings. Or, better, they do not consider human beings in the same categorie as they are. And by removing that little tiny annoying word "other", we are thus able to eliminate a very problematic obstacle in our understanding of what a serial killer's nature is.
Let me put it this way: have you ever killed a fly or an ant? If your answer is no, then you are positively a rare specimen of the human species.
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