Jared Loughner – Prophet?
Although there are very few statements to build on so far, we should be on the lookout for the next phase of the Jared Loughner lunacy. Jared’s worries about mind control and some variant of illiteracy that made sense to him contain just enough of a link to reality that they will spark interest in a few people in the “real world.”
When Loughner asked, “What is government when words have no meaning,” he wasn’t simply exposing his own lack of grasp on reality. He was crafting a question that was just meaningless enough to fix itself into the subconscious of a segment of the rest of us.
Several years ago I had a conversation with a new convert to Islam. While I had theological differences of opinion with this person, it wasn’t the actual theology I found so disturbing. What I found disturbing were meaningless phrases that were being used to support the conversion. One in particular stuck in my mind, that Islam “can’t be approached from the back.”
That an idea or belief cannot be approached from the back is an absurdity, yet this guy was completely fixated on this phrase. To him it had a meaning. To me it was meaningless near-gibberish in the context of the discussion.
Loughner’s words seem to be much the same type of meaningless, yet meaningful-sounding gibberish. Much as a lack of solid, easy answers leads some to believe the government knocked down the twin towers, there will be those who will see Loughner’s wacky words as prophetic.
We have a 24/7/365 news cycle now, folks. It is only a matter of time before we have people on TV taking this nutcase seriously for his beliefs. After all, even Manson has a fan club.
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Comments
“can’t be approached from the back.”
On the few occasions I have spoken to the on-the-street insane here in LA, many of them have that same fixation on a meaningless phrase that somewhere, in other circumstances, might have meant something, but in the person’s usage merely emphasizes his disconnection from reality.
New blog post: Jared Loughner – Prophet? http://bit.ly/f6yX2G