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The Alienist
When I started this new job, I looked forward to the idea of riding the train into the city*. I figured I could sleep if I had to, or at least disconnect my brain enough to let it roam around sorting out loose thoughts that hadn't quite been settled by REM sleep. In the event I felt awake, I would be able to knit, so long as I kept the project either relatively small or settled on circular needles. I've since done some knitting on the train- but only some. I've mostly been reading. Thus far I've finished The Man of Bronze and almost finished The Land of Terror, and I've reread A Princess of Mars twice, mostly because my copy fits in my purse. There's been some magazine reading, too, but that hardly counts. Today, though, I finally finished a book I started on the train ride home this past Tuesday: Caleb Carr's The Alienist.
It's a period novel- I can't quite call it historical, since the main characters are (as far as I know) Carr's own creations. It does have a lot of real people as secondary characters, though. It's about the hunt for a serial killer in 1896 New York, and it hinges on the work of a psychologist, a newspaper reporter, and several people from the NYC police department. The big thing here is that in 1896 psychology was still in its infancy; at one point one of the characters indicates that Freud is still revising his theories about sexual abuse in childhood. As of the time of the novel, the use of psychological investigation in police work was almost completely unheard of.
The thing feels very, very much like an episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. I've heard it compared to Silence of the Lambs, too, but I've never watched any of those movies or read any of the books. This is probably just as well. Reading this book only confirmed something I realised quite a long time ago:
I don't want to know why people do what they do. I mean, I do, but on some level I don't. It's utterly fascinating to understand a person's motives, to know what shaped him or her and see its echoes in their present behaviour, to know the reasons behind things that happen- all of that. But on some level I really don't want to know these things. Part of this is because I know that once I have that kind of understanding, I'll probably never be able to turn it off. I already look at soap bubbles and rainbow puddles in the parking lot and delight in what a difference of a few nanometers of substance can make. I can all but see the math that makes the Pulaski Skyway, or the Hell's Gate Bridge, or the Triborough or the Williamsburgh or the Brooklyn Bridges so outstanding. I don't mind that. But I don't want to look over a person's behavior and think 'oh, this is why they do that', because I know that the next step in that chain of thought is, 'and this is what they will most likely do next, or this or this or this, and these are the ways in which I can respond'.
I know what my brain is like. I don't trust it. I don't trust myself. Even if I turn off the chess-analyst perceptions for a time, they'll still be there- somewhere. In the back of my brain somewhere there still lives the same set of quiet, dispassionate perceptions that I developed when I studied premedical courses at university. They speak up now and again whether I want them to or not; they see symptoms, name pathologies, casually suggest causes for things I would be more comfortable not knowing about. They are not reliable, really, largely because they are not trained properly. I expect if I ever got past the organic chemistry aspect, I could probably go back to university, get into medical school, and get the perceptions polished up to the point where I could rely on them to fuel my subconscious hunches.
I don't want that to happen with people.
More than that, I don't want to look at someone who does horrible things- at the time this realization first struck me I was thinking of Saddam Hussein- and have the quiet voice in the back of my head say 'oh, this is what prompts them, this is what drives them'. This is not because of any reduction to a mechanistic or deterministic view of human behaviour; I believe that we all have some form of free will. Maybe reduced by biological or chemical interference, maybe shaped by our upbringing and experience, but there are too many aberrations in the behaviour of people raised to privilege with little to gain and all the world to lose for me to think that everything we do is as conditioned as men like B. F. Skinner would have us believe. No, I don't want to know why people do horrible things because then I would have to follow the line of thought to its logical end. This is what made him. This is what shaped him. This is what prompted him to find pleasure in dominating others. This is how he grew into someone dangerous. This is what gave him the idea, and he acted on it. This is how the road was laid down to becoming the monster, and this is the point where he chose to walk that road, and all of it is perfectly comprehensible whether you want to comprehend the monster or not.
But it's more than just that. I followed that line of fears a bit further. If it's comprehensible- not necessarily right or healthy or even sane to the rest of us, but just comprehensible from the right perspective- then it's reproducible. And it's ordinary. If it happens once it can happen again. Once you understand it, you have to deal with it; you cannot merely say 'this is the action of a single freak who came out of nowhere' and go away thanking God that it's over, because it's not. It's never over. It might happen again, anywhere that the conditions are right, and it all hinges on choices.
And it could be your choice.
Because, really, that's what it comes to for me in the end. I do not want to look at the behaviour of someone like Saddam Hussein and see its roots, because roots are so often entwined with common things- fears, desires, beliefs- that they can be found in a hundred different places. I don't want to look at the monster and realise: that is already present in me, and if I had chosen differently it would be me, there, now. I saw Sweeney Todd performed at my local community theatre once. Not far into the show I turned to my friend in the next seat and said, "If I ever snap, it'll wind up like this. I can almost guarantee it." I know there are terrible things living in the bottom of my skull. I have fears, as does everyone else. I have desires, as does everyone else. I know that I have been very lucky. I had a good upbringing. I developed a conscience. I developed self-control. Not as strong as I might like, perhaps (I'd have broken some of my bad habits long ago otherwise), but I have it. And I know that if I had chosen differently, I could have done very terrible things- and that as long as I am still alive I am still a being who has the power of choice. I have never formally studied psychology, or even informally made much study of it beyond the occasional stab or two, because I do not want to deal with what Nietzsche said. He said that if you stare into the Void for long enough it stares into you, that he who fights monsters must take care against becoming a monster himself.
The monsters are already here. Hell, they're already everywhere, when it comes right down to it. But the reason I've never tried to study psych in earnest is because I do not want to see them in myself any more clearly than I absolutely have to. Suppress, control, harness, whatever- so long as I retain human dignity and decency, so long as I choose and do good, that is enough. I don't want to see the shadows and the darkness and the hell that boils under the surface of so many, because I do not want to think I am looking into the mirror.
I'm already cynical enough, dammit. I’m optimistic at times, yeah, and I'm terribly trusting when I shouldn't be, but I can still go cynical as anything at the drop of a hat. I don't want to give that any more fuel than I have to, and I really don't want to focus it on myself. Call it egotistical or self centred or whatever else you want to call it, but there it is: there are some things I don't want to know about myself, because I have my suspicions and fears and would be more comfortable not knowing they were right.
(And, yes- this kind of thing is a rather large part of why I like John Constantine so. He is all the stuff that lives at the bottom of the skull. When I write John, I start with the assumption that my conscience has been beaten senseless, thoroughly rogered with an unmentionable object, then thrown in the basement with its hands cuffed behind its back. Then I say 'now what would I do if I were 80 percent sure I could get away with it?'. Then I make it sound British. Hey, presto- John.)
I feel a bit better for having got that off my chest. I am, however, forced to add one last note: I can never run away from things entirely. I tried to turn my back on computers, because they pointed towards a world I didn't like (too many issues of Wired make one ill at the prospect of an electronic future). I got sucked back in. I tried to walk away from public health and interpersonal politics, because it meant someone was suffering because someone else wouldn't listen to people who knew what they were talking about. I wound up working at the Red Cross- apolitical, hah, my ass. I have a feeling that I will not be able to escape this, either, and that one day I will understand. I just hope I hold it all together properly, and that I learn to keep the back of my skull quiet for once in its life. I'd like a little peace, you know?
*If you live anywhere in the New York City area, New York City is 'the city'. I don't care if you live in the shadow of Newark itself, or if Newark lies physically between you and New York- New York City, generally Manhattan, is 'the city'.
It's a period novel- I can't quite call it historical, since the main characters are (as far as I know) Carr's own creations. It does have a lot of real people as secondary characters, though. It's about the hunt for a serial killer in 1896 New York, and it hinges on the work of a psychologist, a newspaper reporter, and several people from the NYC police department. The big thing here is that in 1896 psychology was still in its infancy; at one point one of the characters indicates that Freud is still revising his theories about sexual abuse in childhood. As of the time of the novel, the use of psychological investigation in police work was almost completely unheard of.
The thing feels very, very much like an episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. I've heard it compared to Silence of the Lambs, too, but I've never watched any of those movies or read any of the books. This is probably just as well. Reading this book only confirmed something I realised quite a long time ago:
I don't want to know why people do what they do. I mean, I do, but on some level I don't. It's utterly fascinating to understand a person's motives, to know what shaped him or her and see its echoes in their present behaviour, to know the reasons behind things that happen- all of that. But on some level I really don't want to know these things. Part of this is because I know that once I have that kind of understanding, I'll probably never be able to turn it off. I already look at soap bubbles and rainbow puddles in the parking lot and delight in what a difference of a few nanometers of substance can make. I can all but see the math that makes the Pulaski Skyway, or the Hell's Gate Bridge, or the Triborough or the Williamsburgh or the Brooklyn Bridges so outstanding. I don't mind that. But I don't want to look over a person's behavior and think 'oh, this is why they do that', because I know that the next step in that chain of thought is, 'and this is what they will most likely do next, or this or this or this, and these are the ways in which I can respond'.
I know what my brain is like. I don't trust it. I don't trust myself. Even if I turn off the chess-analyst perceptions for a time, they'll still be there- somewhere. In the back of my brain somewhere there still lives the same set of quiet, dispassionate perceptions that I developed when I studied premedical courses at university. They speak up now and again whether I want them to or not; they see symptoms, name pathologies, casually suggest causes for things I would be more comfortable not knowing about. They are not reliable, really, largely because they are not trained properly. I expect if I ever got past the organic chemistry aspect, I could probably go back to university, get into medical school, and get the perceptions polished up to the point where I could rely on them to fuel my subconscious hunches.
I don't want that to happen with people.
More than that, I don't want to look at someone who does horrible things- at the time this realization first struck me I was thinking of Saddam Hussein- and have the quiet voice in the back of my head say 'oh, this is what prompts them, this is what drives them'. This is not because of any reduction to a mechanistic or deterministic view of human behaviour; I believe that we all have some form of free will. Maybe reduced by biological or chemical interference, maybe shaped by our upbringing and experience, but there are too many aberrations in the behaviour of people raised to privilege with little to gain and all the world to lose for me to think that everything we do is as conditioned as men like B. F. Skinner would have us believe. No, I don't want to know why people do horrible things because then I would have to follow the line of thought to its logical end. This is what made him. This is what shaped him. This is what prompted him to find pleasure in dominating others. This is how he grew into someone dangerous. This is what gave him the idea, and he acted on it. This is how the road was laid down to becoming the monster, and this is the point where he chose to walk that road, and all of it is perfectly comprehensible whether you want to comprehend the monster or not.
But it's more than just that. I followed that line of fears a bit further. If it's comprehensible- not necessarily right or healthy or even sane to the rest of us, but just comprehensible from the right perspective- then it's reproducible. And it's ordinary. If it happens once it can happen again. Once you understand it, you have to deal with it; you cannot merely say 'this is the action of a single freak who came out of nowhere' and go away thanking God that it's over, because it's not. It's never over. It might happen again, anywhere that the conditions are right, and it all hinges on choices.
And it could be your choice.
Because, really, that's what it comes to for me in the end. I do not want to look at the behaviour of someone like Saddam Hussein and see its roots, because roots are so often entwined with common things- fears, desires, beliefs- that they can be found in a hundred different places. I don't want to look at the monster and realise: that is already present in me, and if I had chosen differently it would be me, there, now. I saw Sweeney Todd performed at my local community theatre once. Not far into the show I turned to my friend in the next seat and said, "If I ever snap, it'll wind up like this. I can almost guarantee it." I know there are terrible things living in the bottom of my skull. I have fears, as does everyone else. I have desires, as does everyone else. I know that I have been very lucky. I had a good upbringing. I developed a conscience. I developed self-control. Not as strong as I might like, perhaps (I'd have broken some of my bad habits long ago otherwise), but I have it. And I know that if I had chosen differently, I could have done very terrible things- and that as long as I am still alive I am still a being who has the power of choice. I have never formally studied psychology, or even informally made much study of it beyond the occasional stab or two, because I do not want to deal with what Nietzsche said. He said that if you stare into the Void for long enough it stares into you, that he who fights monsters must take care against becoming a monster himself.
The monsters are already here. Hell, they're already everywhere, when it comes right down to it. But the reason I've never tried to study psych in earnest is because I do not want to see them in myself any more clearly than I absolutely have to. Suppress, control, harness, whatever- so long as I retain human dignity and decency, so long as I choose and do good, that is enough. I don't want to see the shadows and the darkness and the hell that boils under the surface of so many, because I do not want to think I am looking into the mirror.
I'm already cynical enough, dammit. I’m optimistic at times, yeah, and I'm terribly trusting when I shouldn't be, but I can still go cynical as anything at the drop of a hat. I don't want to give that any more fuel than I have to, and I really don't want to focus it on myself. Call it egotistical or self centred or whatever else you want to call it, but there it is: there are some things I don't want to know about myself, because I have my suspicions and fears and would be more comfortable not knowing they were right.
(And, yes- this kind of thing is a rather large part of why I like John Constantine so. He is all the stuff that lives at the bottom of the skull. When I write John, I start with the assumption that my conscience has been beaten senseless, thoroughly rogered with an unmentionable object, then thrown in the basement with its hands cuffed behind its back. Then I say 'now what would I do if I were 80 percent sure I could get away with it?'. Then I make it sound British. Hey, presto- John.)
I feel a bit better for having got that off my chest. I am, however, forced to add one last note: I can never run away from things entirely. I tried to turn my back on computers, because they pointed towards a world I didn't like (too many issues of Wired make one ill at the prospect of an electronic future). I got sucked back in. I tried to walk away from public health and interpersonal politics, because it meant someone was suffering because someone else wouldn't listen to people who knew what they were talking about. I wound up working at the Red Cross- apolitical, hah, my ass. I have a feeling that I will not be able to escape this, either, and that one day I will understand. I just hope I hold it all together properly, and that I learn to keep the back of my skull quiet for once in its life. I'd like a little peace, you know?
*If you live anywhere in the New York City area, New York City is 'the city'. I don't care if you live in the shadow of Newark itself, or if Newark lies physically between you and New York- New York City, generally Manhattan, is 'the city'.