The Sense of Senselessness

Jared Lee Loughner liked jazz and hip-hop. He turned to heavy metal after heartbreak. Last Saturday, he made himself known to the whole world as the crazy Tucson killer.

Was it the music’s fault?

Jared Lee Loughner was a good student and didn’t take drugs. Around age 17, he started smoking marijuana and taking hallucinogenic mushrooms. Last Saturday, he killed six people in a small political rally, seriously wounding thirteen.

Were drugs the cause?

Jared Lee Loughner had long curly hair, up until his girlfriend broke up with him. He shaved his head and started hanging out with “Goths.” He was seen with black fingernails.

Last Saturday, he killed a nine-year old girl, a federal judge, and four other people— one of whom, a man, jumped in front of his wife so she wouldn’t be fatally hit.

Should we blame the “Goths”?

The young man’s mother, according to what the Washington Post tells us, had deep depressive episodes, during which she didn’t leave the house. The father had frequent violent arguments with his son. The grandfather was sent to jail when the father was six months old.

We know what happened on Saturday.

So, was it the fault of the grandfather? The father? The mother?

I forgot to mention that Jared Lee Loughner spent hours playing video games. He was obsessed with math, formal logic and grammar, and was recently passionate about a work of science fiction that denounced the all-powerful State and big business. So, can we find the cause of his murderous madness somewhere?

We search, apparently, because irrational and unpredictable behavior is too scary, too unbearable.

We “try to impose some order on the chaos, and make sense out of that which seems senseless,” Barack Obama said in his excellent speech on Wednesday.

These tragedies resemble a psychological Rorschach test, which involves showing a series of blots to the patient. We make him say what he sees. And without him being too aware, he reveals himself.

Similarly, we could project how we are faring on the action of a person who has lost contact with reality.

As soon as the tragedy happened we rushed to condemn the toxic political climate in the United States. Someone tried to assassinate a democratic politician. There is actually a drift in the political discourse and in the tone of the media. There is the unbearable Sarah Palin and all this nihilistic, moronic, aggressive right.

So, without even waiting to find out anything about the person behind these killings, already, everywhere, we were tempted to say that this climate, this movement, was the cause of the murders.

The little that we know now about Loughner does not allow us to detect a political reason that is the least bit organized. Rather, a delirious, psychotic mind — like so many others behind killings, particularly in the United States, a deeply sick mind. One who gained access to a gun without difficulty. And who chose an easy and spectacular target. What did she really represent in his delirious mind? The government, authority, his mother … who knows? To extend to the army, or the logical consequence of the tea party, is seductive but completely gratuitous.

Of course, we have to try to understand, the American president said. But at this time, we can neither really say what happened in Loughner’s head nor what could have prevented him from acting.

Once more, Obama found good words and the right tone to speak to Americans. He spoke about the victims, about God, apparently, and he spoke about the courage of those who disarmed the assassin.

Obama wanted to make use of this story that shows one of the worst sides of the United States, in order to show the most brilliant side: a meeting between an elected official and citizens on the ground — of American democracy. Heroism in its most simple and natural expression. In addition, he talked about individual compassion as well as the improvement of public life. A certain talent is necessary in order to conclude with optimism and hope a discourse on a crime so absurd and make people believe.

And if he saluted the necessary “national discussion” in the sense of all that, he was calling for humility and a bit of reflection.

Good idea, Mr. President.