They’Re Nut Cases, Pure And Simple

We are now hearing all about Benjamin Smith’s world view. He is the young man, a member of some hate everybody group, who shot at several blacks, Asians and Orthodox Jews, killing two.

Now we are told of some ideological basis for his “acts of hate.” No doubt, he thought he had one.

In reality, the personal histories of Smith and other “hate” criminals reveal little more than collections of mental confusion. Smith wasn’t a philosopher. He was a head case.

Smith. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. Columbine High School gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. All are, or were, disturbed and angry young white males.

Repellent belief systems don’t so much latch onto these guys as these guys latch onto them. They need an ideology to imbue their mental instability with a respectable veneer. Smith was an adherent of the World Church of the Creator, which follows an anti-black, antiJewish, anti-Christian doctrine. Note how the organization’s bland name helps its members feel kind of normal.

What makes them so different from the famous Son of Sam serial killer, David Berkowitz, who terrorized New York City 22 years ago? Not much except the espousal of a creed that gives some philosophic cover to their unhinged behavior. A language of logic, no matter how badly applied, is probably important to young men who fancy themselves members of a white middle class mainstream. Sprucing up one’s paranoia with a political explanation is certainly more dignified than going the Heaven’s Gate route. You’ll remember how the 39 cultists ate poisoned pudding and applesauce so that their souls would hitch a ride on a UFO. Everyone dismissed these people as just plain crazy.

McVeigh’s right-wing militias liked to dredge up quotes from the Founding Fathers. That gives their anarchism a patriotic and articulate air.

On the “left,” Ted Kaczynski wrote learnedsounding denunciations of high technology. The depredations of modern science were his upscale excuse for mailing explosive devices that killed three and injured 29. His targets were academics and businessmen. Berkowitz’s were young women with long brown hair. Harris and Klebold went after high school athletes. McVeigh blew up anyone who had business at a federal building in Oklahoma City.

That Smith targeted racial and religious minorities sounds less strange only because it’s more common for disturbed people to project their inner turmoil on perceived outsiders.

Last April, we read about the “intellectual” underpinnings of the death-worshiping Goth culture that animated Harris and Klebold. Followers of the Goth scene would have been regarded as lunatics had the dark aesthetic not infiltrated middle-American life. Its eerie posters, computer games and music CDs sit unobtrusively in many middle class homes. Hatred of others is said to be a manifestation of self-loathing. Harris and Klebold followed their crimes with casual selfannihilation, as did Benjamin Smith.

One common thread running through this gallery of social monsters seems to be a serious sexual angst. None had anything approaching a normal relationship with a woman.

Smith left the University of Illinois after being charged with attacking his girlfriend. Matthew Hale, the 27-year-old leader of the World Church of the Creator and nationally famous bigot, still lives with his parents. In his member profile for America Online, Klebold wrote that he would never marry and said he liked to chase women with guns. And women were Berkowitz’s targets.

In some cases, the rampage followed rejection by the male-dominated military, a traditional source of macho reinforcement. McVeigh had been turned down by the Army’s elite special forces. Harris wanted to join the Marine Corps but was disqualified for taking psychiatric medication.

Plumbing the psyches of misfits is a job for trained social scientists. However, it seems fairly obvious that hate groups use political rhetoric as protective coloration for the mental disintegration of their members. The philosophies offer structure for the seriously disturbed individual who is sane enough to not want to appear crazy.

To their victims, of course, it makes little difference whether the orders are being given by Matthew Hale, singer Marilyn Manson or by a dog named Sam.