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Can You Find Reason in Insanity?

TL;DR: After every atrocity, people hunt for the reason a mass shooter or bomber did it. This essay argues the hunt is a category error: insane acts do not have reasons a rational mind can use, and treating them as if they do gives the act more sense than it ever had.

I find it amusing, in an ironic and sad kind of way, when people try and figure out why an insane person did something. It’s insanity! Shooting a whole bunch of school children is the act of an insane person. You can come up with all the reasons you want, but the simple fact is the act was not rational, it was not sane.

For all we know, he thought the space aliens were invading and he was doing his duty to protect us. Who knows? Who cares? It was something a rational, sane person would do.

Blowing up a building in Oklahoma city with a rented truck full of fertilizer, not something someone does by accident, is the act of an insane person. Whatever his reasons, they are not the reasons of a rational being.

What sane people do

Rational, sane beings can sit down and talk with one another. Sane people understand there are lots of options. Talk. Move. Run. Hide. Eat. Bribe. Protest. Picket. Whatever. There are many, many options to work out one’s problems.

If the home life of the kid who shot the children was so bad, he could have run off and joined the circus, or hitchhiked to another state, or some such thing. Instead, he chose to deliberately shoot children in a school.

The search for reasons

And now the newspapers are trying to come up with a reason, some rational cause. He didn’t like his mother, his mother was going to put him in an asylum, he didn’t like the favor of his cookies, whatever. None of those are the reason he did what he did. He was insane. He was not a rational being. It’s that simple. Stop trying to form a reason. That makes it somehow “okay”. He had a reason, after all, for doing what he did, however weird that seems. Nope. He was not sane. Period.

Our legal system spends countless hours and millions, or even billions, of dollars to prove whether someone who committed murder was sane or insane. He murdered another human being (assuming this is not an accident or self-defense). Pre-mediated murder is not the act of a sane being. Stop trying to find an excuse or a reason. Just stop it.

There is no excuse. There is no reason. There is no rationality to the act.

Blowing up a building in Iraq with a car bomb is not sane. Blowing up a building in Oklahoma is not rational. Shooting school kids is not rational. Putting on a vest with explosives and walking into a crowded mall is not something a sane person does.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is hunting for a shooter’s motive a mistake?
Because the act was not rational, and treating it as if it followed reasons a sane mind can use gives it more sense than it ever had. You can invent explanations all day; the act remains insane.
Are you saying we should not investigate these crimes?
No. Investigate, prosecute, prevent. The objection is to the public ritual of demanding a coherent why from an incoherent act, as if the right explanation would make it make sense.
What should we do instead?
Accept that some acts have no usable reasons, stop amplifying the perpetrators, and put the energy into the rational things: prevention, care, and the people harmed.


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