American Psycho
After reading Bret Easton Ellis’s ‘American Psycho’ I got to thinking about how many people in the world exist and live like, Ellis’s protagonist, Patrick Bateman. People who lead seemingly ‘normal’ lives and yet once away from the publics view perform acts in which are considered, by society, to be heinous, people like doctors whom molest, teachers who are paedophiles, politicians that make exceptionally dirty dealings in order to gain power. Society looks down upon these people more so then others because they are supposed to be ‘educated’ and know the difference between what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour. The question is how many people like Patrick Bateman exist and move amongst society without being noticed and caught, the thought alone scares me, people need to think about it realistically, how many rapes and sexual assaults go unnoticed because people are too afraid to speak up against offenders whom are seemingly ‘regular’ and ‘respectable’ citizens? It’s an unnerving thought but one we must think about, what happens to all those people that disappear without a trace, do they face horrible accidents that could not be avoided or do they become victims of (all the people like) Patrick Bateman’s seduction never to be seen again?
posted by spicey pineapple @ 5:54 pm
8 Comments:
Every society has its share of good people (who contribute to the world's suffering in their own small ways but dont brag about it like a few others) as well as bad people.
Likewise there are people who suffer silently and people who stand up for themselves against all odds against the powerful and the influential.
Its all about the choices we make. At every moment we have 2 choices. Its for us to follow the good or the bad one.
In life there are many quotients and i hope each one of us find the 'mean'.
Good points you made here. We only know about the ones that get caught through a watchful eye, the victim speaking out, etc. Then there are those abusers who can continue what they do because in their group it's considered "normal", e.g., in some religions the wife is taught to submit to the husband even if he beats, rapes, or otherwise takes advantage of the situation because it's her duty to obey.
... which is sick.
The level of education doesn't mean a person will be more prone to being a good citizen. It is true that more highly educated people tend to have roles in society with a higher 'duty of care', yet these are the roles that often result in your 'american psycho esq' moments. Maybe we need to rexamine the roles and level of power that we entrust people with? Or maybe that primordial self will never be supressed...even with all the education and 'good' conditioned behaviour. They say jesus drank wine, so im sure he also had his moments of drunken calamity....don't tell me he never got tipsy on that stuff! So we all stray, but how far we stray and in what situation we stray is the issue i guess.
these types of sick people are the results of bad childhood and careless upbringing. They should be punished in public so that their punishment become an example for other. too bad our society have such a small punishment for such crimes.
patrick bateman is the perfect example of the people that live in our society although hidden to the naked eye people like bateman get self stimulation out committing such devious acts to human kind, and therefore cannot control the way in which they do things,
if anyone has seen the movie you will notice that bateman picks his victims out and plans the criminal act in such a way that it looks like no crime has been committed until the skeletons are revealed later in the film, much as i would like to admit, this is not always the case in real life, when such crimes are uncovered most of the time it is too late. In my eyes ppl that commit such inhumane acts deserve to be punished the same way that they punished others.
Anonymous
Interesting thought. I have nothing hugely profound to say here. But it does make one think.
PS Thanx for stopping by.
In higher education there are people with massive IQs,
some of whom are pretty good teachers, but at that the same time would qualify as psychopaths. They are so smart and so good at acting that they can fool most people into thinking they are charming, good and wonderful. But behind closed doors they abuse students. The abuse can be psychological, leaving
no physical evidence, but can be so damaging that it takes years to recover.
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