[Arizona Daily Star: Transcript of Sept 23 Video Made by Jared Lee Loughner]
Near the end of this video made in September of 2010, Loughner, the shooter in Tucson, AZ, makes the following comment:
If the student is unable to locate the external universe, then the student is unable to locate the internal universe.
Where is all my subjects? I could say something sound right now, but I don’t feel like it.
For me, the final sentence quoted above may be the key to understanding both, Loughner’s general state of mind and his actions on January 8, 2011.
Of course, I am cautious to remain skeptical about his exact motivations for the shooting. For instance, I imagine new details may emerge that will show why Loughner fixated particularly on Congresswoman Giffords for so long and ultimately chose a public event organized by Giffords’ office to act upon his motivations. New details could emerge that will shed light not only on his fixation on the Congresswoman but also on why this was the day, January 8, 2011, particularly, that he would choose to act. What, particularly, within the previous weeks or months led Loughner to commit the heinous acts of January 8, 2011?
Dreaming Free Speech
I have no way of knowing whether Loughner was on drugs when he made the video embedded above. Most commentary under the various YouTube postings of the video suggest that most viewers bothering to comment think Loughner was either schizophrenic or on drugs, or both, when he made it. Why? Because Loughner’s commentary sounds disjointed, illogical, rambling, and, well, crazy. However, tandem with these interpretations of his performance above is the assumption that those who make videos for an audience intend to make a point or express directly their viewpoints or philosophies with the intention of communicating clearly and logically what they believe. So, when Loughner begins,
"OK, here’s what we’re doing. We’re examining the torture of students.
We’re looking at students who have been tortured. Their low income pay in two wars.
The war that we are in right now is currently illegal under the constitution. What makes it illegal is the currency. The date is also wrong. It’s impossible for it to be that date.
It’s mind control.
and continues in like manner, his audience assumes that Loughner is “being logical” for Loughner. In other words, Loughner must believe that what he is saying makes perfect sense, has no gaps, but proceeds from Point A to Point B to Point C directly – and, moreover, that Loughner believes he is communicating all these points directly to his audience.
I could say something sound right now, but I don’t feel like it.
This, occurring near the end of the video, suggests that Loughner knew he was not being “sound.” Furthermore, his obsessions with grammar and mind control suggest that his approach in this video may have been an absurdist approach: Language does not have inherent meaning but is merely what we make of it. Such a philosophical standing may produce a corresponding negligence when the philosopher chooses to “communicate.”
I put “communicate” in scare quotes, because I find Loughner’s stance toward issues of communication to be one largely informed by nihilistic terror. Communication may require one to conform to the standards of communication so that both parties, the performer and the audience member, can share in understanding or meaning – but who created those standards? Loughner’s obsession with grammar as it relates to what he called mind control suggests, for me, that he believed that the standard-bearers, so long as they are not the same people who created the standards in the first place, are merely individuals who are being controlled by the standard-creators. Thus, to dip into a particular nihilistic logic, he who would not be controlled must therefore create his own language – the “coin of the realm” conforming to his, the nihilist’s realm – or at the very least must not submit to the expected standards of communication (creating negligence, willful negligence, if not a private language outright.)
The videos Loughner posted on his own YouTube account further display this approach to communication. Again, most commenters see the syllogisms in these videos and come to the conclusion that Loughner is deranged, insane, and/or on drugs, because they expect his communications to follow particular standards; in this case, the standards they expect are the classical standards of logic and syllogism.
All humans are in need of sleep.
Jared Loughner is a human.
Hence, Jared Loughner is in need of sleep.
-- so far, so good perhaps. Here is the next frame:
Sleepwalking.
If I define sleepwalking then sleepwalking is the act or state of walking, eating, or performing other motor acts while asleep, of which one is unaware upon awakening.
I define sleepwalking.
Thus, sleepwalking is the act or state of walking, eating, or performing other motor acts while asleep, of which one is unaware upon awakening.
I’m a sleepwalker – who turns off the alarm clock.
Until the last line, this may not appear illogical or untrue. On the other hand, lines 2-4 may superficially appear to be a tautology or a circular proof, leading the viewer to wonder at the redundancy or perverse circularity of Loughner’s logic. The word-ordering in the second line may seem odd. The second line’s, “If I define sleepwalking, then..,” may seem like an internal and incomplete syllogism if taken by itself, with one premise missing; perhaps it could be read as, “If I were to define sleepwalking, then…” or merely as “I may define sleepwalking as…” Loughner’s point here seems to be a focus upon the power of being able to define sleepwalking however one wants to define it. The third line states that he chooses to define sleepwalking. The second and third line together therefore lead logically to the fourth line. However, the final, fifth line subverts the logic of the previous lines and appears to display Loughner’s main point that “sleepwalking” (and one supposes, any word) may be defined however one wants to define it. Rather than a former sleepwalker who forgets his sleepwalking actions, he is a sleepwalker who is able to know that he is sleepwalking, one who consciously turns off the alarm clock in order not to wake, and thus is able to prevent forgetting that he has been a sleepwalker. Truth is in the mind – and, intention – of the person in control of defining that truth; that is, Loughner may remain in control of the reality that exists around him and indeed of himself and his own relation to that reality.
Compare this approach to reality to the idea of “rejection of logical truth” as described in the Wikipedia article on logic, which utilizes another philosopher of nihilism, Friedrich Nietzsche:
Friedrich Nietzsche provides a strong example of the rejection of the usual basis of logic: his radical rejection of idealisation led him to reject truth as a "mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short ... metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins". His rejection of truth did not lead him to reject the idea of either inference or logic completely, but rather suggested that "logic [came] into existence in man's head [out] of illogic, whose realm originally must have been immense. Innumerable beings who made inferences in a way different from ours perished". Thus there is the idea that logical inference has a use as a tool for human survival, but that its existence does not support the existence of truth, nor does it have a reality beyond the instrumental: "Logic, too, also rests on assumptions that do not correspond to anything in the real world".
The next frame in the video introduces another obsession of Loughner’s, that of being able to be a lucid dreamer, or of being able to shape his reality however he likes: of being in control rather than being controlled by exterior standards.
I find Nietzche’s use of coins as a metaphor for truth (or indeed, as a metaphor for metaphors, metonyms, etc., which stand as truth) to be interesting, given Loughner’s obsession with currency and coins:
If I’m thinking of creating a new coin that’s in my control as treasurer then I’m thinking my new coin is starting a new currency system.
I’m thinking of creating a new coin that’s in my control as treasurer.
Hence, I’m thinking my new coin is starting a new currency system.
In that video posted on his YouTube account, he urges his audience to create their own coins. While it is true that Loughner made a logical association with the Constitution of the U.S. when referencing official currency, particularly Article 1, Section 10’s description of state powers, "No State shall...make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts,” and while I would note his concern for his own actual financial well being when he mentions the possibility that he will be homeless as a result of being expelled by Pima Community College (as expressed in the video embedded above) – I wonder to what extent his references to currency are largely epistemological rather than pragmatic. The U.S. Constitution’s reference to currency, issues of fraud alluded to within the video embedded above, and so forth, which relate to the real currency system, may be mere examples Loughner uses, or metaphors, for his larger concern. Currency, coins, gold and silver, merely have the value we assign to them; the Mint or Treasury that create them and control them are analogous to the creators and standard-bearers of language and grammar.
When Loughner refers to “free speech” in the video embedded above, in all likelihood he believes that his use of logically-free speech – his use of his own logic and his own willfully negligent communication -- caused him to be expelled.* Pima Community College has certain standards relating to the communication used by students in the classroom environment; Loughner chose to follow his own standards in order to be free of exterior control; and thus, he was expelled “for his free speech.” It is likely that this understanding led him to decide upon the fraudulent nature of Pima Community Colllege, an institution that accepts payment while purporting to elevate and support the principals of free speech – but not for him.
Additionally, when Loughner refers to other students and teachers as being “illiterate”, and when, in another video he posted to his YouTube account, he says,
This video is my introduction to you! My favorite activity is conscience dreaming; the greatest inspiration for my political business information. Some of you don’t dream – sadly.
He is likely referencing the fact that they, he believes, are unable to choose their own logic. Their speech, their currency, are predetermined by others who maintain control over their reality.
When he laughs in the video I’ve embedded above, it is likely that his own recognition of the supposed “incoherence” of his speech – his willful negligence in his communication, his choice not to be “sound” or to fill in all the gaps in his logic for his audience -- combined with his understanding that his non-dreaming audience are prevented by standards not of their own choosing from understanding what he is saying, is a joke to him. Anyone viewing the video will come to it with preconceptions and will be mind-fucked. How funny.
Sharing the Dream
I do not wish to minimize the tragedy of January 8, 2011, and I believe we should wait for more information to emerge that might help to explain why Loughner did what he did exactly as he chose to do it. However, a transcript from a video featuring another well-known nihilist might shed some light on Loughner’s actions on January 8, 2011:
Hm? You know...
You know what I noticed?
Nobody panics when things go "according to plan."
Even if the plan is horrifying.
If tomorrow I tell the press that, like, a gangbanger will get shot...
...or a truckload of soldiers will be blowing up...
...nobody panics. Because it's all part of the plan.
But when I say that one little old mayor will die...
...well, then, everyone loses their minds.
Introduce a little anarchy...
...upset the established order...
...and everything becomes chaos.
I'm an agent of chaos.
Oh, and you know the thing about chaos?
It's fair.
The use of this example may appear to be sensationalistic. I also believe it is not exact. Another example could be made: Shakespeare’s Iago. In Othello, Iago gains much satisfaction each time he realizes that he has been correct about Othello. Each manipulation of Othello serves to reinforce Iago’s belief in his own superior ability to judge the reality of Venice, the reality of Othello, and indeed the reality of the other characters in the play. The other characters accept a “plan” (to use The Joker’s terminology) but Iago operates from his own “plan,” and this is the principal reason for their failure to prevent his manipulations as well as for Iago’s great delight with every success. Because he recognizes each character’s largely unconscious adherence to “the plan” that the character follows – you could say, the value-system -- he is able to subvert their expectations and manipulate them down paths of his own choosing. Indeed, meaning itself is variable, amorphous, and subject to the will of whoever is able to consciously manipulate it, or define it.
I doubt that either The Joker or Iago will be exact parallels with Jared Lee Loughner. To what degree Loughner expected his heinous action to affect the larger society (as with The Joker) or was merely attempting a subjectively satisfying revenge by showing a single individual, Congresswoman Giffords, that her concept of “The Plan” was hers and hers alone, not his, and thus utterly inadequate to reality (similar to Iago’s attack on Othello), perhaps only Loughner can say.
Loughner’s actions on January 8, 2011, did not resemble the fictional Joker’s efforts, in that Loughner’s was one occasion quite likely to lead to his death or arrest – an all-or-nothing action – and it also did not follow Iago’s strategy of subtle manipulation over an extended period of time. As metaphors, The Joker and Iago do not hold up as exact representations of Loughner. However, given that Congresswoman Giffords is a representative of our government, and given Loughner’s reported dissatisfaction with her answer to the question, “What is government if words have no meaning?”, and given his belief that the government tries to control individuals through manipulation of grammar and currency, we might wonder whether the attack on January 8, 2011, was merely a show of his philosophy. He could plan, as Congresswoman Giffords – and, perhaps he meant, all representatives in the government – could plan. The senselessness of his actions on that horrible day could show believers in the government that their actions are just as senseless: their plans are inadequate, unhinged from reality.
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* Update: Actually, the video embedded above may have been the cause of Loughner's suspension from Pima Community College. However, it would appear that Loughner anticipated being suspended, given his references to becoming homeless as a result of Pima Community College actions and his references to having lost free speech there.
Neat post. I've done some reading along the lines of the language of psychosis & dream/nightmares so of course your treatment was a treat.
Posted by: MB2MB | 07/13/2011 at 08:47 PM