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Ben writes:
"It depends what the object of that fear was. Since we're speaking of people with irrational delusions, it may be significant that a fear of law enforcement would not qualify on that score. There wouldn't be anything irrational or delusional about a serial killer fearing the possibility of capture at the hands of the police."
Correct, Ben. And all very logical.
Problem is, we do not know to what extent applying logic will help us in the matter!
Your point is that people with irrational minds and delusions are often overcome with irrational fears, and a fear of the police would be a rational one. And that is a very rational conclusion.
But like you say yourself, we may not be looking for rational conclusions here.
To begin with, maybe he killed his victims because he harboured an irrational fear that THEY were after him. Maybe they died simply because they approached him, and maybe he thought that their decision to persecute him was coupled to their abdominal organs - cut them out and the trouble is gone.
Case solved? Maybe, actually - but probably not. Killers of that sort of disposition are generally not as skilful as the Ripper seems to have been when it comes to leaving no traces and disappearing quickly. But it would tally with your desire for irrationally pointed out persecutors!
I am thinking along the lines that the Ripper was not that raving mad in 1888. My contention is that he was driven by an urge to procure inner organs (and yes, that IS raving mad in a sense, but another sense than the one we are discussing here), and that he tried hard not to get caught while doing so, coping with that task in a, generally spoken, rational fashion.
And if he did just that (tried to stay uncaught), then he knew that he was committing criminal actions, and that the society would punish him if they caught him. So in that respect, he was a rationally thinking man.
But if he was Fleming, we know that he was prone to suffer from delusions of persecution. And that is a disease that is irrational in itself, but it does in no way have to be focused on irrationally chosen subjects. The diseased may of course be convinced that his neighbours cat is persecuting him. That would be irrational from the outset, and then the diseased would add things to the picture as the disease grows in him. He would interpret the cat´s moves and doings as malicious and part of a plan to harm himself.
But delusions like these may of course also have a perfectly "rational" origin. If a policeman tells somebody with such delusions "Now, you behave, or I will come and get you!", then that very clear and rational wording may turn into something very different as the diseased starts chewing on it.
Point is, if you have the disease, it is all just a question of time before you are obliged to make your choice of who or what is persecuting you. And the irrationality of it all cannot necessarily be read in that choice of persecutor, whereas it can ALWAYS be read in the delusional distortions of how the diseased interpret their "counterparts" moves. In other words, he may have felt that the police were persecuting him (and he would have had extremely good reasons to do so), but he may not have felt that they did so for rational, logical and legal reasons only.
There is of course also the possibility that his built-in knowledge of what he had done to Tabram, Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly was what ultimately set of the disease - the inner pressure was built up, and when he blew his top he did not do so by spilling the beans but by making the decision that someone, something, in whatever shape or form, would come after him and crave vengeance on behalf of his victims. If so, it is tempting to think that he may have been able to cope with his conscience as long as he had no personal connections to the ones he killed.
All guesswork and conjecture, of course. But fitting such guesses and conjecture into the minimalistic framework of facts that we have to go on is what we are left with, I feel.
On a sidenote, there will be more conjecture in that article of mine, whereas it seems you will be relying more on hard facts in yours. Looking forward to that one too, Ben!
The best, Ben!
Fisherman
"It depends what the object of that fear was. Since we're speaking of people with irrational delusions, it may be significant that a fear of law enforcement would not qualify on that score. There wouldn't be anything irrational or delusional about a serial killer fearing the possibility of capture at the hands of the police."
Correct, Ben. And all very logical.
Problem is, we do not know to what extent applying logic will help us in the matter!
Your point is that people with irrational minds and delusions are often overcome with irrational fears, and a fear of the police would be a rational one. And that is a very rational conclusion.
But like you say yourself, we may not be looking for rational conclusions here.
To begin with, maybe he killed his victims because he harboured an irrational fear that THEY were after him. Maybe they died simply because they approached him, and maybe he thought that their decision to persecute him was coupled to their abdominal organs - cut them out and the trouble is gone.
Case solved? Maybe, actually - but probably not. Killers of that sort of disposition are generally not as skilful as the Ripper seems to have been when it comes to leaving no traces and disappearing quickly. But it would tally with your desire for irrationally pointed out persecutors!
I am thinking along the lines that the Ripper was not that raving mad in 1888. My contention is that he was driven by an urge to procure inner organs (and yes, that IS raving mad in a sense, but another sense than the one we are discussing here), and that he tried hard not to get caught while doing so, coping with that task in a, generally spoken, rational fashion.
And if he did just that (tried to stay uncaught), then he knew that he was committing criminal actions, and that the society would punish him if they caught him. So in that respect, he was a rationally thinking man.
But if he was Fleming, we know that he was prone to suffer from delusions of persecution. And that is a disease that is irrational in itself, but it does in no way have to be focused on irrationally chosen subjects. The diseased may of course be convinced that his neighbours cat is persecuting him. That would be irrational from the outset, and then the diseased would add things to the picture as the disease grows in him. He would interpret the cat´s moves and doings as malicious and part of a plan to harm himself.
But delusions like these may of course also have a perfectly "rational" origin. If a policeman tells somebody with such delusions "Now, you behave, or I will come and get you!", then that very clear and rational wording may turn into something very different as the diseased starts chewing on it.
Point is, if you have the disease, it is all just a question of time before you are obliged to make your choice of who or what is persecuting you. And the irrationality of it all cannot necessarily be read in that choice of persecutor, whereas it can ALWAYS be read in the delusional distortions of how the diseased interpret their "counterparts" moves. In other words, he may have felt that the police were persecuting him (and he would have had extremely good reasons to do so), but he may not have felt that they did so for rational, logical and legal reasons only.
There is of course also the possibility that his built-in knowledge of what he had done to Tabram, Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly was what ultimately set of the disease - the inner pressure was built up, and when he blew his top he did not do so by spilling the beans but by making the decision that someone, something, in whatever shape or form, would come after him and crave vengeance on behalf of his victims. If so, it is tempting to think that he may have been able to cope with his conscience as long as he had no personal connections to the ones he killed.
All guesswork and conjecture, of course. But fitting such guesses and conjecture into the minimalistic framework of facts that we have to go on is what we are left with, I feel.
On a sidenote, there will be more conjecture in that article of mine, whereas it seems you will be relying more on hard facts in yours. Looking forward to that one too, Ben!
The best, Ben!
Fisherman
Sink the Bismark
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