Are People Crazy?

Frankly, I don’t know whether it’s worse now, or better, or the same as it’s always been. But the news of the past few days seems to indicate that people, many people in this once-envied republic called the United States of America, really are crazy. There is a madness afoot in this land that I find truly alarming. What set me thinking about this is a piece I just read about Amy Cooper, the now-infamous “Central Park Karen” who threatened to call police on a black man, and did call 911 to report that a Black man was “threatening her”—apparently because she was outraged that such a man would have the temerity to tell her to leash her dog. The man in question, also named Cooper, was not threatening her at all; he was birdwatching in an area called the Bramble that requires dogs to be leashed, and was telling her to comply, even offering her dog a treat. Ms Cooper, in turn, knew that calling the police on a “threatening” black man would result in his arrest and possibly his death. And yet that was the ploy she—a white woman calling police on a threatening Black man, with all that implies in this nation—chose to get back at him for correcting her lawless behavior. 

         Now we find out that this same Ms Cooper has a history that fits alarmingly well with this most recent caper. An acquaintance she claimed to have had an affair with has reported that several years ago, Ms Cooper became ‘obsessed’ with him, and to get back at him for refusing or dismissing her sentiments, sued him for $65,000, claiming several outrageous damages. Her suit claimed that Martin Priest, married and then divorced, had gotten another girlfriend pregnant, and came to her desperately seeking money, lots of it, promising that he wanted to get back with her after his problems were solved. But that prospect disappeared when, according to Cooper, Priest’s girlfriend emailed her and revealed that she and Priest were living together and planning to marry. Whereupon Cooper filed her retaliatory lawsuit. Priest, in a counter-suit, claimed the charges were “completely salacious” and “absolutely false.” According to the account in the May 26 New York Post, 

Cooper’s suit was later dismissed when neither side showed up for court conferences in January and March 2018, records show.

In an interview with the Post, Priest added that Amy Cooper’s lawsuit was a complete fabrication, that “I never had a romantic relationship with her” and that her allegations were “divorced from reality.” 

            It would seem, then, that this “Karen,” who had an encounter with a black man in Central Park and tried to get him arrested and worse, has a history of grievances to which she responds aggressively, to put it mildly. And whether we can believe her lawsuit or not, it certainly appears that she is behaving like far too many other demented citizens of our great republic. When faced with criticism, or rejection, she goes immediately on the offensive. Rather than respond to accusations with self-examination leading, perhaps, to self-corrective behavior (she could have just leashed her dog as the law required), she attacks in the most vile, aggressive way, putting all the blame on the innocent party and seeking to inflict serious damage. It is as if her image of herself is so fragile that she cannot bear the slightest intimation that she could be wrong or, god forbid, disrespected.

            This brings to mind that other vile response, the one by police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis. Too many police officers in our time act as if their orders, particularly those aimed at minorities of color, must be complied with immediately and abjectly. Any resistance, any hint of non-compliance must be met with ultimate force. To do otherwise, to allow a person of perceived lower status to fail to kowtow to an officer’s absolute authority, is to invite that dreaded “disrespect” and the threat of rebellion. It simply cannot be allowed. And when such an attitude is even hinted at, severe physical force, up to and including murder, is required and justified to stamp it out. Violence not to control merely (Floyd was already handcuffed and on the ground), but to punish severely. What we can surmise is that, aside from racism, beneath this attitude lies fear. Fear that the entire order upon which these representatives of the law have staked their existence, will collapse if a single breach if allowed. In the case of George Floyd, the neck of not just Floyd, but of the entire black community, needed to be knelt upon without letup. To assert control even at the cost of his life.

            This is crazy thinking. Yet this seems to be the thinking—if one can call it that—of many of the citizens in our time. Many seem to be on hair-trigger alert, and in a nation that is so widely armed with the most lethal weapons, such hair-trigger sensitivity is dangerous indeed (there are reportedly groups of white supremacists infiltrated among the demonstrators in major cities actually seeking to foment a civil war). It is as if we’re all living in the time of dueling again. Of slapping one’s rival in the face with gloves. As if the much-heralded Christian ethic of ‘turning the other cheek’ has been fully suspended. As if the average person in America has such a fragile opinion of himself or herself that the slightest ruffle of feathers is enough to set off the bomb of self-protective warfare. And that self-protection takes the form of strutting and arrogance and the rapid resort to lethal means of retaliation. Nothing less will do. Nothing less will soothe the easily-bruised, perilously-exposed ego. 

            If this mental condition sounds familiar, it should. It’s very close to the diagnosis of the same mental condition exhibited by the president of the United States: Malignant Narcissism. This is the most extreme form of narcissistic personality disorder, said to be characterized by not only extreme narcissism (narcissism is named after the ancient Greek demi-god Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool), but also the added conditions of antisocial personality disorder, aggression and sadism, and paranoia. Thus, such a person’s interest would be directed exclusively at what affected him or her with no concern for the welfare of others (the basic narcissism), but also be excessively worried about harm coming from imagined others (paranoia), and prone to want to hurt them either before they could strike, or in retaliation for imagined harms. The retaliation would be characterized by extreme, excessive forms of aggression, with the intention of doing more damage than might be proportional. We see this and have seen it for years with Donald Trump. His response patterns have been attributed to advice he early in life received from his mentor, the notorious Joe McCarthy lawyer, Roy Cohn. Cohn apparently advised Trump not just to respond instantly to a perceived attack, but to counter-attack with twice as much venom. And never admit guilt or wrongdoing. Trump clearly took that advice to heart, not only as a ruthless real estate promoter and businessman, but also as a politician. He had very early on discovered that most politicians, though ruthless too, played by a set of rules which he could exploit by simply ignoring or flouting them. And he did. He insulted without limit. He sued for ridiculous reasons. And he distracted from problems by being outrageous. When he became president of the United States, he adhered to the pattern that had got him there: no ethical restraints, no compassion, hue always to the strategy of all out warfare against perceived enemies—whom he saw everywhere. By using Twitter to implement this strategy, he could be almost free from cooperation with or oversight by the press, which he made one of his prime enemies. In all this, Trump has set the pattern of behavior for our time. After all, if the man holding the highest office in the republic obeys no moral or ethical restraints, but is characterized by unconstrained egotism and self-interest, and is free to insult openly, bullying even those on his side, then the ethical field is open for every American to behave in the same way. Insult, attack, and take no prisoners.

            Of course, there are countless other factors that determine the moral and ethical and mental patterns of an age. It cannot be without consequence that everyone is by now aware of the perils looming from the dangerously rising temperatures known as global warming, human-made perils that threaten not only humans but vast areas of biological life on the planet. Nor can people be unaware (though they may deny it) of the exacerbation of this danger because of inaction and outright lying by both government and industry. The pattern of deceit and chicanery set by leaders like Trump is therefore reinforced in other primary domains. Everyone does it, is the idea; so why can’t I? And the ethic of capitalism itself, said to be the most natural, i.e. most fitting system of economics ever devised, reinforces this same notion: every man for himself, get all you can while you can, and screw the consequences. Exploit everyone, including the entire natural world which we believe God created for humans to exploit, and don’t omit whatever you can steal from government; it’s business, after all, and when it comes to business, ethics and human empathy just don’t apply. Neither does obscene wealth for the few and abject poverty for the many. It’s Nature’s way. 

            All this is crazy, of course, and ignorant and self-destructive and self-terminating in the extreme. But by keeping only short-term advantage in mind, by ignoring human suffering or paying it lip-service, by ignoring not only human connection but also the human connection with all other life forms, the foolishness can be sustained for a time, in some cases a long time. But eventually, the psychopath is caught. Eventually, the natural order demands its balance; its price. All that warring on nature leads to storms, pandemics, ocean acidification, and rising heat waves that increase in intensity. Videos surface and broadcast the injustice far and wide. Revulsion sets in. Widespread suffering and rebellion sets in. And suddenly, the entire game, not just the winning part but also the consequences, is revealed in all its fury. We may be in one of those revelatory moments now—a moment that is revealing the gross injustice in our health care, our life opportunities, our access to the most basic necessities. With more to come. So that generalized disgust, remorse, repentance, and reimagining and reforming might begin. Let us hope so. For we have had enough of the rule of the crazies. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time for some sanity.

Lawrence DiStasi