The problem with trying to novelize mass shootings from any perspective is that one (in this case Kriss) seems to assume that one can 'get to the bottom' of the motivation or consciousness of the perpetrator when in fact there is no bottom, only a void. The corollary to this might be: “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
The Man of the Crowd is a fantastic, spectral work from the opening epigraph, to its first sentence with the quote ('it does not permit itself to be read') to the last sentence which includes the same quote. Which conjures up: 'Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.'
Thank you GD. Very much agreed. It's a challenging idea - that there are conditions in which empathetic creatures should actually turn off their empathy. No baby photos of Hitler. No sympathetic novels of mass shooters. I have no idea where the lines are drawn exactly, but I do feel that they're there - and a lot of religious traditions tend to be very good at having strictures and taboos that are clearly defined but unexplained. I'm usually all for the Church of Art - which means empathy, exploration - but even the Church of Art has its limits.
The problem with trying to novelize mass shootings from any perspective is that one (in this case Kriss) seems to assume that one can 'get to the bottom' of the motivation or consciousness of the perpetrator when in fact there is no bottom, only a void. The corollary to this might be: “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
The Man of the Crowd is a fantastic, spectral work from the opening epigraph, to its first sentence with the quote ('it does not permit itself to be read') to the last sentence which includes the same quote. Which conjures up: 'Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.'
Thank you GD. Very much agreed. It's a challenging idea - that there are conditions in which empathetic creatures should actually turn off their empathy. No baby photos of Hitler. No sympathetic novels of mass shooters. I have no idea where the lines are drawn exactly, but I do feel that they're there - and a lot of religious traditions tend to be very good at having strictures and taboos that are clearly defined but unexplained. I'm usually all for the Church of Art - which means empathy, exploration - but even the Church of Art has its limits.