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[Errata]

I agree with you regarding scepticism of diagnosing these guys. Oh they are all schizos and want no criminal charges, yes. But obviously JTR had something really wrong with him, don't you think?

Actually I really don't. Nowadays we see crazy people and just sort of alter course. Back then, people were really frightened by the insane. It was maybe a couple of years after the medical establishment stopped treating mental illness as contagious. The populace hadn't caught up. There is no way anyone saw a crazy person within 15 miles of any crime scene, because if they had they would have reported it. And the morning after a killing, they would have reported any crazy person they even knew to exist. Because it had to be a crazy person. But most of these guys aren't. And even if that weren't the case, anybody who has a mental illness that loses control to that degree stays that way. For awhile. It's not like the movies where they lose it for a night and are fine the next day. Mentally ill people don't have the staying power to do what Jack did. They are spree killers. Not serials. And the rare serial killer who has a legitimate psychological issue doesn't kill because of the illness. It doesn't help, but they are killing despite their mental illness. Not because of it.

What Jack the Ripper did was not even on the extremes of serial killer behavior. He didn't eat them that we know of. He didn't bathe in their blood. He didn't engage in truly horrifying torture, He didn't keep their corpses around to have sex with... And even the guys who do all of THAT typically aren't mentally ill. It sounds terrible to say this, but what Jack the Ripper did is kind of pedestrian in comparison to quite a few other serial killers. I think he was a guy who essentially never got out of the cutting open animals phase. I think he had some rage, so obsessive qualities, was probably an unpleasant person to hang out with.. was something wrong with him? Yeah. He killed for pleasure. Was he mentally ill? Not a chance.

[Beowulf]

...Jack the Ripper...probably an unpleasant person to hang out with...

Lol. Well, yes.

But I see where you are coming from, and it's another direction to ponder, yes.

[Robert]

I think Jack probably was a little....waspish?

[RivkahChaya]

Actually I really don't.

I basically agree with you, but I have to say to Beowulf define "something really wrong." I mean, you could say that anyone who goes around butchering other people for no apparent reason has something really wrong with him.

Was there something easily apparent to anyone he stopped to talk to? Very doubtful, and as Errata says, that's what the prostitutes were one the lookout for. They were probably running scared from anyone with a stutter, or a movement disorder that we'd call cerebral palsy now, even a very mild one.

Now, JTR could have had any mental illness from one of several categories. If he had a psychosis, he probably would have presented as anyone's definition of crazy, and probably would have been legally insane as well, if he committed a crime, but people with those kind of illnesses don't commit crimes very often.

He could have had a personality disorder, of which there are several, only a couple of which incline people toward criminal behavior. When that happens, it fits most people's idea of "something really wrong with him," but not legal insanity.

He probably had a paraphilia (aka, fetish) of a disturbing nature, because it required an unwilling participant. That may satisfy the definition of "something really wrong," but some people never act on their feelings, and other people satisfy themselves with simulations, role-playing games, special effects porn, whatever. It's only when you get the coincidence of a paraphilia coupled with some kind of brain damage, or an organic disorder limiting impulse control that you have a societal problem. It might fit legal insanity, or it might not.

When you get a disturbing paraphilia coupled with a personality disorder that inclines a person toward criminal behavior, you get a Ted Bundy, but, while a personality disorder is a kind of mental illness, it isn't insanity. There are lots of people with personality disorders who function just fine; probably most of them, they just are very happy. Paraphilia isn't a mental illness, even if the focus of it is disturbing, because thoughts are not crimes. You can think about pedophilia all you want, but you aren't a criminal until you act on it.

"Something really wrong" is too general. I think what Beowulf might have been going for (he can correct me), was that JTR crossed the moral event horizon. The "event horizon" is the area around a black hole that can't be uncrossed; once an object passes it, it will be sucked into the black hole. The "moral event horizon" is the point in a person's (more commonly, a literary or TV or movie character's life) at which he becomes irredeemably evil. Before crossing the event horizon, the person may have done evil things, and generally been a bad guy, but not irredeemable. However, once crossed, the moral event horizon can't be uncrossed.

As an example, I know people who say that in Star Wars, the Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing) crossed it when he blew up the planet Alderaan. That's not the best example, but I'm trying to think of something familiar to everyone.

I'm not going to say when JTR crossed it, just that he had. (I don't even know that, since we don't know who he was; I'm in the world of theory here.) But, being on the other side of the moral event horizon is not mental illness. It's not a diagnosis, and it's not a legal defense. It's probably most people's idea of "something really wrong," but it's not something you can see when you look at a person.

[Beowulf]

I basically agree with you, but I have to say to Beowulf define "something really wrong."

He had kind of a personal space problem

[RivkahChaya]

He had kind of a personal space problem

*Sigh*

I wasn't making a joke. You introduced a term, and I asked you to define it. Your definition is, I assume, a joke, intending to indicate something like "Hey, don't we all agree that what JTR did was wrong?"

Yes, but doing something wrong, and having something wrong with you, are two separate things, unless your answer is "No, they aren't," in which case, a lot of people are going to fall into your "having something really wrong" category. Or maybe the key word is "really." Do a lot of people have something wrong with them, but few cross the line into "really wrong"?

My understanding of "having something really wrong" was "having a pathology," and I don't concede that, because a lot of people who commit violent crimes don't have a pathology.

[Beowulf]

*Sigh*

I wasn't making a joke. You introduced a term, and I asked you to define it. Your definition is, I assume, a joke, intending to indicate something like "Hey, don't we all agree that what JTR did was wrong?"

Yes, but doing something wrong, and having something wrong with you, are two separate things, unless your answer is "No, they aren't," in which case, a lot of people are going to fall into your "having something really wrong" category. Or maybe the key word is "really." Do a lot of people have something wrong with them, but few cross the line into "really wrong"?

My understanding of "having something really wrong" was "having a pathology," and I don't concede that, because a lot of people who commit violent crimes don't have a pathology.

Yeah, I get this. Don't feel the need to explain it is all.

[RivkahChaya]

Well, then don't expect me to agree to a term you refuse to define.

[Beowulf]

Well, then don't expect me to agree to a term you refuse to define.

I never did. I was simply expressing my opinion.