It’s All About Him, Me, You….

Ted Bundy
Columbine High-School
Virginia Tech University

We’re looking in all the wrong places for why.

The cracks, chips, holes and broken places in the lives of men like Cho Seung-Hui are getting old, fast – very fast. The pain, grievances and self-pity of mass killers are only symptoms of the real explanation. Those who do these things share one common trait. They are raging narcissists. “I died – like Jesus Christ,” Cho said in a video sent to NBC.

Guns, games, lyrics, pornography – they are just trees in the forest of extreme self-centeredness. To list the traits of the narcissist is enough to prove the point: grandiosity, numbness to the needs and pain of others, emotional isolation, resentment and envy.

In interviews with Ted Bundy 25 years ago, the essence of homicidal narcissism can be found. For hours and hour and hours, a man who killed 30 or more women and girls preened for his audience. He spoke of himself as an actor, of life as a series of roles and of other people as props and scenery. His desires were simple: “control” and “mastery.” He took whatever he wanted. From shoplifted tube socks to human life. For the simple fact that nothing mattered beyond his desires. He even went so far as to being surprised that people noticed his victims were missing. “There are so many people,” he explained. The only death he regretted was his own.

Only a narcissist could decide that his alienation should be underlined in the blood of strangers. The flamboyant nature of these crimes is like a neon sign pointing to the truth. Charles Whitman playing God in his Texas clock tower, Harris and Klebold in their theatrical trench coats, and Cho’s Messianic comparisons – they’re all stars in the cinema of their self-absorbed minds.

Freud (everyone’s favorite, you knew he was going to show up somehow, somewhere) explained narcissism as a failure to grow up. All infants are narcissists, he pointed out, but as we grow, we ought to learn that other people have lives independent of our own. It’s not their job to please us, applaud for us or even notice us – let alone die because we’re unhappy.

Narcissism is the signal disorder of America culture. The cult of celebrity, the marketing of instant gratification, skepticism toward moral codes and the ever so, so, so, so popular politics of victimhood were signs of a society regressing back to infancy. Maybe Freud was right. And that is where the immediate danger lies in how we examine mass killers. Everyone (not just the way over-board media) tries and digs up apparent clues and weave them into a sort of explanation. Remember Columbine? Harris and Klebold emerged as alienated misfits in the jock culture of their suburban high school. We learned about their morbid taste in music and their violent video games. Largely missing, though, was the proper frame around the picture: the extreme narcissism that licensed these boys, in their minds, to murder their teachers and classmates.

And with Cho it is the same. Elaborate writings and over the top videos were an almanac of gripes. “I’m so lonely,” he moped, but failed to mention that he often refused to answer even when people said hello. Of course he was lonely.

We need, no must, stop explaining killers in their terms. Minus the clear context of narcissism, the biographical details of these men can begin to look like a plausible chain of cause and effect – especially to other narcissists. And they do not need anymore encouragement.

Then there’s the telling moment in Bowling for Columbine (yes I am mentioning Michael Moore). Marilyn Manson dismisses the idea that listening to his lyrics contributed to the disintegration of the Columbine killers. What they needed, Manson suggested, was for someone to listen to them. This is the narcissist’s view of narcissism: everything would be fine if only he received more attention. The real problem can be found in the killer’s mirror.