Monday, September 20, 2010

On True Crime Stories

Recently, while watching an episode of a crime show about convicted killer, Scott Peterson, I had the distinct impression that the story would have been much more interesting had it dwelled on the banality of evil. All of the ingredients were there: the handsome middle-class couple, their ordinary life in a modestly-sized city in California, the dashing but sophomoric husband and his cheerful wife smiling at us from photographs.

The only time the show seems conscious of exploring a grave dilemma of the human condition is during interviews, when residents or friends express incredulity that anything like what happened could have happened in their town, and by a man generally regarded as good and normal. Hannah Arendt recorded similar observations in her controversial book on the Eichmann trial.

But the show's producers were uncomfortable with revealing anything as terrifying as that which Arendt uncovered in her book. No, Scott Peterson was apparently not normal. In the episode's concluding remarks, a psychologist cleverly interprets Peterson's condition as bearing the hallmarks of narcissism. As a result of an indulgent childhood and adolescence, during which young Peterson was hardly denied anything (except real promise), the future killer failed to adjust to the realities of adulthood, and particularly to the duties of fatherhood, for he had never really grown up. He is Peterson, the Peter Pan killer.

The viewer can breathe a sigh of relief. What was once an appalling enigma has been encapsulated in legitimate psychological analysis. These things are explicable, he thinks, and are apparently quite rare cases! A psychologist on a television show has told me so! He can go to sleep now without any dread of his close friends or neighbors. He can rest assured of a legitimate explanation for everything, not least of the darkness of his own heart.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

On Hurricane Names

While I don't condone hurricanes, I cannot resist the dark clouds, howling winds and whipping rains of a good tempest. Just as enchanting are the names we bestow upon them. When I learned that one Hurricane "Igor" was spinning towards the Atlantic sea board, I was at once delighted by the Slavonic appellation and curious about possible names for future hurricanes. Dubbing a hurricane, "Igor," would seem to suggest that the National Weather Service has either run out of "typical" names," or just felt like going Russian on a lark this hurricane season. If this is a trend, then it is entirely likely that hurricanes ten years hence will be graced with any of an assortment of odd names: "Cuthbert," "Oedipus," "Stanislaus"?

Then I read that hurricane names are reused every six years, barring those that cause severe damage and may thereon be retired. Goodbye Hortense, Gilbert, Roxanne. Farewell Katrina, Cesar, Mitch. I don't think we shall ever remember you fondly.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

9/11: United but divided

Our memory of the attacks on September 11, 2001 is imbued with a pained sense of lost unity. Indeed, we enjoyed a kind of solidarity on that day, and for some time afterward, but not of a common political purpose or shared national identity. We were united by the trauma of a sudden and (at the moment) inexplicable catastrophe. For a day or more, our humanity preceded every other consideration - national, political, social, ethnic, and religious - as a testament to the integrity, not of the American, but of the human, fabric. We extended our hand and our sympathy to those affected by the tragedy, and thus extended it to all of our neighbors, because we were all affected; September 11 was our national tragedy.

It was not the first terrorist attack within our borders, not the first in New York City, and not the only time that we were awakened by radical shifts in history. But it was indeed the greatest, by the scale of its destruction and by virtue of its symbolic resonance. 9/11 decisively ended the 20th century and inaugurated a new era, along with a new and divisive political climate. In the wake of the attacks, institutions of national security were created and existing ones reinforced, constitutional rights throughout the Western world, and particularly in the US and Britain, were redefined and often systematically violated, and two wars in the Middle East were waged, thrusting all involved into an unenviable quagmire. 9/11 has also forced us to reconsider globalization - whom it benefits, whom it disenfranchises, and whom it imperils.

As families and friends of loved ones marked the ninth anniversary of that day, many insisted on the sanctity of observances, that 9/11 not be mingled with politics. But the proposed construction of an Islamic community center on property adjacent to the former World Trade Center reminds us that 9/11 has always been political, perhaps from the moment it was first broadcast on the media. As this historical event continues to be politicized, it will remain divisive, particularly on the question of restoration. Americans are united in their commitment to rebuild, not only buildings and infrastructure but the entire social order to accomodate a new age. They remain divided on how.