The Alienist

[camwyn]

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'.

Comments

[aethereal-girl.livejournal.com]

And yet you still want to be a writer.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

The one thing that keeps coming back to hit me in the head is the sheer banality of evil. You get the occasional true spectacular monster, but he's usually supported or encouraged or created by lots of others who do what they do because it seemed like the thing to do at the time and they didn't want to make a fuss or it was too much effort or they weren't paying attention or they didn't realize what was going on.

I'm fascinated by human behavior and what makes people tick, managed to gain two degrees in anthropology because of that, and read books and watch TV and movies for character over plot or story. And what that's all garnered for me is a deep faith in the intrinsic weirdness of human nature.

[drharper.livejournal.com]

You might consider reading a book I found fascinating. _People of the Lie: Hope for Healing Human Evil_ by M. Scott Peck.

Now, to give my take on this, yes, it's very disturbing to realize that you have the potential to become a monster. However, hiding from that knowledge doesn't to you much good, in my humble opinion. If anything, you run a greater danger of making choices that do set you on the road to monster-hood through willfull unawareness. To quote one of the commentators on the Extended Edition FOTR, "...we all have something inside us that is the start of the 'wraithing process'."

But, not only is awareness of your own potential for evil a help in you avoiding it, it can also be the starting point for trying to "heal" evil in others. After all, it's damn near impossible to help a person in the healing process without feeling some form of compassion for them. The awareness that "there, but for the grace of God, go I" can spawn this. Not that evil should be condoned or excused, but it is possible (though extremely difficult) to redeem it.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

My basic theory on people is that no one thinks they are a bad guy (or girl). Ask any criminal, and they will have a reason for what they did, even if the reason is 'she deserved it.' Saddam probably never work up thinking 'I'm going to do evil now.' I'm sure he could rationalize every one of his despicible actions.

Everyone is capable of doing things. Everyone has the choice not to. Many people don't realise they have the choice, because they are too deep into whatever their problems are to see them.

Terry Anderson the former Iranian hostage wrote poems in his head while he was imprisoned, and one he wrote really stuck with me. He basically says he sees that his captor is another human being who has the same potential for good and evil in him that Terry has, but he, the captor just made a choice that Terry knows he could never make.

He ends the poem "I'll never love him, I'm not Christ/but I'll try to achieve forgiveness/because in the end, as always/Christ was right"

[colubra.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, understanding a problem is the first step towards solving it.

[camwyn]

Well, yes. Because while I know there is a John Constantine in my brain, there is also a Sergeant Preston. And there is the far more ordinary Wayne Zhuang, who is neither a Very Bad Man like John, nor a red paladin like the Sergeant, but who wants very much to take the universe by the lapels and shake it until it makes sense.

Sometimes, even when you are digging in the shit, you find diamonds. And as I said, I can never truly run away. I have lately come to the conclusion that it is no longer going to do me any good to walk away; things will find me, so I might as well run at them and catch them on my own terms, ne?

[camwyn]

That's the thing- the compassion bit, I mean. There is a bit of me that's immature and horrid and vile that doesn't want to feel sympathy for these people. It doesn't want to understand- it only wants to punish, to hit them until they shut up or collapse or cry or go away. I fear that part even more than the monster-potential, because it's not through grand horridness that you get monsters and monstrous situations, it's the wretched little crabbed bits of the soul that get you in the end.

I think what this book, and to a lesser degree L&O: CI have made fairly clear, is that I had better frickin' well study psych now. Properly. After all, every running-away-from dream I've ever had (you know the sort, right? Eek, the monstrous thing is chasing me! Must run!) has ended with either stepping aside and watching the thing chasing me recede harmlessly into the distance, or... well, I had one where I eluded it, doubled back, found it, and was told that it would now explain to me all it knew and why it did what it did.

I think that one speaks for itself.

[camwyn]

I'm sure he could, too. I have a feeling that a lot of his justifications run to the tune of 'yeah, that's a problem, but as long as I'm happy, what do I care? And me being happy requires the machine of society to work a certain way, so I'd better get back to ensuring that it does...'

Eventually I wind up coming back to one of the smaller, but most critical, parts in the early chapters of the Book of Exodus. The daughter of Pharaoh had no discernible reason to do what she did, and stood to get into quite a lot of trouble for it, but she rescued a Hebrew baby anyway. It helps to remember that.

[camwyn]

The only time in my life I've ever truly wished to un-know a thing was for several days after I'd been scratched by a cat suspected of having rabies. I wished with all my might that I didn't know the symptoms and the consequences, because I kept imagining them starting. Otherwise... well, otherwise even the nightmarish stuff that I've known has been stuff I did not regret knowing.

Here's hoping learning this kind of thing falls on the right side of the line between the two.

I don't know if you're better or worse knowing, really...

[(Anonymous)]

...See, I do know enough - about psychology, and myself - to realise that I'm borderline socipathic, and the kind of things it would take to shut down the 'border guards' if you will. I've been there, and it's a very strange, colorless place, and it was only fortune that I wandered back over to our side of things before Something Nasty happened. On the one hand, it's good, because i know what to avoid, and what countermeasures to take if I'm having a bad day (just popping in the right mix CD to play can do wonders) but at the same time, there's the fear of maybe not catching it sometime, and doing something that I *would not* regret, but *should*... and the humiliation of knowing that it's such a close balance.


The facade seems to be effective: I've never done anyone serious harm, and most people seem to think I'm a bit odd and perhaps shallow but generally fun and if anything a bit innocent. Still, there's always that niggling thought at the back of my mind, what if, but, uh oh... and always the emotionless and uncaring core under the surface, that neither understands nor cares about the reactions of others. Shallow? Sure, because anything that dips too deep finds the event horizon of sanity.

I... Nevermind, I'm deleting most of this. Even anonymous, it's too personal...and that's what I'm talking about, really. Knowing that your real thought processes are things that would make casual accquaintances flee, and even close freinds think twice and distance themselves.

I guess the subject line is wrong... I do know, and wish I did not, because not knowing would be better. Not knowing would mean I wasn't so far gone as to NEED to think about it.

[goweli.livejournal.com]

But isn't 'rational' evil better than a outside-third-party objective evil force?

I think I'd rather know 'Bob was a killer because his parents abused him and treated him like a dog', than 'Bob's a killer because I said so'. I guess my thing is there must be logic somewhere, for there to be some sort of sense, even if tenuous. I like seeing how to get from point a to b to c. I dislike chaos, (though that might be difficult to tell from the state of my bedroom). I dislike arbitrariness, if that's a word.

My other question, if you don't want to understand about evil, do you want to understand about good and 'miracles'? Just curious if it goes the other way.

[camwyn]

But isn't 'rational' evil better than a outside-third-party objective evil force?

Oh, yeah; I never really believed in the Devil, mostly because I always felt that between human choice and the physical force of entropy, everything credited to the Devil was pretty well accounted for. As I said to one of the other commentors, though, there is a nasty little crabbed part of my soul that doesn't want to feel empathy or sympathy with people who do very bad things. It just wants to make them go away or be punished until they stop. I suspect that has been informing a lot of my sentiments and fears on the subject, which is why I said in a different comment that I think I'm gonna have to study psych now. It's not like I haven't nibbled at it from all different directions anyway- religion, anthropology, character development, animal handling...

My other question, if you don't want to understand about evil, do you want to understand about good and 'miracles'? Just curious if it goes the other way.

Understanding about good requires less acknowledgment of unpleasant things in oneself. A bit cowardly of my psyche to prefer it so, but it's true.

Border-psycho-guy from above

[(Anonymous)]

Understanding about good is useful: It allows you to think about it and do what's 'right' whether it's actually the first thing that occures to you or not. In person and day to day, I'm one of the nicest guys you could hope to deal with, because I literally live by the golden rule: Because I know I don't understand how other people will feel about anything I might do, I imagine someone else doing it to me, and act accordingly. This leads me to generally come out the loser in social situations, because few people ask for enough to be truly inconvenient, and if someone has a problem, I'll offer to help if I have the neccessary time and rescources. It's only if I'm forced to act without time to consider (or when I specifically think about it, as when writing the peice above) that I get all empty-eyed and bleak. Anyway, I've said more than enough on the subject, I think.

[goweli.livejournal.com]

...As I said to one of the other commentors, though, there is a nasty little crabbed part of my soul that doesn't want to feel empathy or sympathy with people who do very bad things. It just wants to make them go away or be punished until they stop. I suspect that has been informing a lot of my sentiments and fears on the subject, which is why I said in a different comment that I think I'm gonna have to study psych now.

Fair enough. I await to hear of any studies in psychology. The enthusiasm for which you show subjects is fun to see, if not exhausting on occasion.

Understanding about good requires less acknowledgment of unpleasant things in oneself. A bit cowardly of my psyche to prefer it so, but it's true.

But does understanding about good require acknowledge pleasant things about oneself? I've found that a lot of people find it much easier to deal with/understand/live with being 'bad' than being 'good'.

Ah, one of my favorite parts of _Contact_

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

"Ellie wanted to know how the Pharaoh's daughter knew it was a Hebrew baby. The teacher blushed and told her not to ask unseemly questions."

[(Anonymous)]

Sometimes, I fantasize about (I wouldn't go as far as saying I want to) going out and committing some serious crime, like murder, to be evil. As far as I know, I'm sane, and understand the difference between right and wrong (which is why I'm not doing this) -- so if I were to murder someone, it would be evil, not mental illness.

Does that make any sense?

(Of course, if I did do that, it would probably prove I _was_ mentally ill...)