January 12, 2011
Jared Lee Loughner: seeking insight from his reading list
Husna Haq in The Christian Science Monitor:
Loughner’s YouTube profile page includes a long list of his favorite books. On the list are “Animal Farm,” “Brave New World,” “The Wizard Of Oz,” “Aesop Fables,” “The Odyssey,” “Alice Adventures Into Wonderland,” “Fahrenheit 451,” “Peter Pan,” “To Kill A Mockingbird,” “We The Living,” “Phantom Toll Booth,” “One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest,” “Pulp,” “Through The Looking Glass,” “The Communist Manifesto,” “Siddhartha,” “The Old Man And The Sea,” “Gulliver's Travels,” “Mein Kampf,” “The Republic,” and “Meno.” Since its discovery, observers have scrutinized the list, straining to find clues about the mysterious 22-year-old suspect. They have attempted to draw correlations between his bookshelf and the impetus that drove him to release an explosion of bullets into Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others, ultimately leaving six people dead and 13 wounded or in critical condition, including Rep. Giffords. What insight does Loughner’s reading list offer?
Anti-government propaganda, for starters. “In examining Loughner’s list of favorite books, which includes Orwell and 'Mein Kampf,' the Southern Poverty Law Center’s [Mark] Potok notes that an anti-government thread runs through all those works," reports Newsweek. In the current climate of political vitriol and venom, particularly regarding health care and immigration, the impassioned political rhetoric may have inspired violence in the mentally-troubled 22-year-old Loughner.
More here.
Posted by Azra Raza at 08:28 AM | Permalink
Comments
It's a very curious list indeed. Eclectic and apparently at odds with itself. Mein Kampf sits uneasily alongside the Communist Manifesto. It is also derivative in the sense that it's the type of reading list a schoolboy might compile based on suggestions from others - Animal Farm, Gulliver's travels and To Kill a Mockingbird being syllabus favorites. A couple of entries seem comical in a macabre sort of way. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse is probably the last novel anyone would associate with Loughner after his moment of infamy.
Some titles remind us that the shooter is not that far removed from the childhood years - Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, Alice Adventures into Wonderland.
Posted by: jonesing | Jan 12, 2011 10:28:21 AM
Ah yes, Mein Kampf, the ultimate antigovernment tract.
Seriously, this trend of trying to diagnose right-leaning thought as a form of derangement, is getting out of hand.
And treating the SPLC - a purely political organization - as an authority in anything is a joke. They think *everyone* outside their offices is a rightwing hate group.
Posted by: anonymouse | Jan 12, 2011 10:41:26 AM
Nobody is calling rational conservative thought "derangement". Reading "Mein Kampf" hardly makes one a Nazi. (Who would read this rambling tract for fun, I don't know...but who am I to say?)
The problem is that lots of "nutty" right wing ideas have gained traction in the mainstream (thanks to Fox, Sarah Palin, Limbaugh, TV evangelists, etc.). People on the edge of sanity draw inspiration from these wacky ideas, and this is what we get: free-flowing anger and the pop-pop-pop of semiautomatic gunfire in public places... Is this what we want for our future: eternal war overseas and at home? This is what the American Right is offering us right now. (and what the Islamofascists offer Pakistan, Iran, etc. as well..an ugly political symmetry, I might say)
Posted by: Bill | Jan 12, 2011 10:55:32 AM
He puts it all in the past tense, indicating he intended this as his self-presentation after his death.
"Interests:
My favorite interest was reading, and I studied grammar. Conscience dreams were a great study in college!"
WTF?
Posted by: Sister Y | Jan 12, 2011 11:36:10 AM
lots of "nutty" right wing ideas have gained traction in the mainstream ... People on the edge of sanity draw inspiration from these wacky ideas, and this is what we get: free-flowing anger and the pop-pop-pop of semiautomatic gunfire in public places
I assume, of course, you're referring to Loughner, right? Citation? Just one? A single, solitary piece of evidence to support the idea that Loughner was inspired by nutty right wing ideas to start shooting? Ideas that can be found in the mainstream, to boot. (And *not* any left wing ideas or paranoias for sure!) This is a science oriented blog, right? KTHXBI
Posted by: anonymouse | Jan 12, 2011 11:44:48 AM
It makes sense, and I don't think it needs much analysis. There's whimsical, dreamy literature (Alice, Oz, Phantom Tollbooth) for his semantics and dream-obsessed self, and hard political literature (everything else) for his nutty politics.
Posted by: Wally | Jan 12, 2011 12:27:37 PM
Well this isn't a court of law but in lieu of "evidence" there are certainly a few indicators and connections worth considering.
Loughner’s rhetoric reflects Tea Party thinking. For example on one of the videos he posted on YouTube he tells viewers “you don’t have to accept Federal laws” and claims that the Obama administration is attempting to exert ‘mind control’ and ‘brainwash the people’. Loughner may have had an interest in the Communist Manifesto but clearly has no sympathy for the alleged 'socialist' agenda of Barrack Obama. A rather odd contradiction which would tend to RULE OUT leftist sympathies.
In line with some Tea Party voices Loughner calls for a return to the gold standard, refers to US laws as “treasonous” and calls for the creation of a new currency. Among many conspiracy theories circulating amongst Tea Party types is the belief that the Federal Reserve is actually a private corporation run for the benefit of international bankers (unnamed).
Loughner’s belief that the government uses language and grammar as a means of mind control also has a right wing source. In a HuffPo article Mark Potok, Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, tracks back Loughner’s views to patriot conspiracy theorist – one David Wynn Miller of Milwaukee. Miller takes the view that the government uses grammar to ‘enslave’ Americans.
Loughner might well be unbalanced but he was clearly influenced to some degree by the political climate around him. Rather take the blinkered approach and engage in denial, kudos to the GOP senator who told Politico “What was too far when Oklahoma City happened is accepted now. There’s been a desensitizing. These town halls and cable TV and talk radio, everybody’s trying to outdo each other.” Kudos also to Arizona sheriff Clarence Dupnik who had the guts to tell it like it is – “We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry…”
Posted by: jonesing | Jan 12, 2011 12:28:33 PM
Here's a fun game: go through your bookshelves and decide what picture of you amateur psychologists might built. From here I see that I'm Christian who resents his parents but maintains a touching faith in Japanese ethno-nationalism. None of these things are true (well, expect the Japanese stuff, perhaps...).
Posted by: BenSix | Jan 12, 2011 12:42:45 PM
Here's a thought - Loughner could be mentally unbalanced AND be influenced by the political climate around him. When it gets hard to tell the crazy from the crazed, that's a problem.
In other news, it's probably too late to get your semi-automatic parts engraved "You Lie!" in honor of Joe Wilson's outburst at President Obama.
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Jan 12, 2011 1:00:24 PM
This is idiotic. What percentage of Youtube/Myspace users actually read the books they list on their profiles? You don't list books you've read, you list books that you want other people to think you've read.
Wait for the psychiatrist's report, folks.
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Jan 12, 2011 1:42:07 PM
Nick, why do we suppose the psychiatrists have read the books they list? My very own nightstand has books on it that I may decide I've read, one of these days. Who's gonna know? Meanwhile, my favorite designation for people who commit crimes as bad as this is "Mentally unbalanced AND criminally responsible."
Vicki, what would we do without your links?
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Jan 12, 2011 2:07:47 PM
I don't think this kid actually read any of these books...
Posted by: mr_goodbar | Jan 12, 2011 3:21:53 PM
The hyper analysis of this lonely, twisted person is laughable. Not only does his syntax suggest very limited reading, but everyone races past the fact that his demonstrated interest is net focused. He cut and pasted these titles from shocking sites to draw attention to himself on his web space. I suspect that his failure to grab attention there figured prominently in his motivation to ramp up.
Posted by: Erich | Jan 12, 2011 8:56:47 PM
Is there an actual evidence — as opposed to, you know, ignorant speculation — that Loughner was influenced by anything other than his own disturbed mind?
Didn't think so.
Posted by: Angus | Jan 12, 2011 10:50:43 PM
This exercise in analysis of the perp is laughable. Its like looking for damp patches in the saloon of the Titanic. Giffords' office windows were smashed, guns were brought to her meetings, she was targeted by a well-known Alaskan huntress. Then she was shot. qed. There are lots of others out there like Loughner, ready for recreuitment.
Posted by: aguy109 | Jan 13, 2011 6:33:50 AM
He doesn't say that he read these books. They are just his "favourites". I don't think that he got past the title of "To Kill a Mockingbird". If he said that he read them, bear in mind that he also wrote that he had studied grammar. Even taking into account Sister Y's observation that he writes about himself in the past tense; it seems that he used the grammar that he studied selectively. His referring to himself as an "army recruit" gives some idea as to how thinly he sliced his words. If he had actually read any of those books his understanding of them would be idiosyncratic.
And Vicki, how do you find these links?
Posted by: Pete Chapman | Jan 13, 2011 11:03:33 AM
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