“[He] brings a great deal of intellectual and emotional maturity to the classroom.”
That’s a fine compliment, and I wish it were about me. But it’s not — it’s a blurb from one of James Holmes’ letters of recommendation for graduate school that CNN published following the Aurora shooting.
I probably don’t need to qualify his name with any description for you. You know who he is, you know what he did and you’re most likely aware of his extensive academic background.
But why would you ever need to know anything about that part of his life?
It’s just a piece of a subtle new trend in describing shooters and mass murderers.
“Smart guy” has become the new “good kid.”
Today, as news about Holmes and the shooting continues to pour in, nearly every publication covering the tragedy and court case prefaces its description of Holmes with some variation of “former graduate student” or makes some reference to his academic tenure at the University of Colorado.
The world saw the same type of characterization of Adam Lanza after the Newtown, Conn., shooting. The Associated Press was sure to include a quote from a former classmate saying, “[Lanza] was probably one of the smartest kids I know.”
Similarly, news sources included firsthand accounts of Andrew Engeldinger as an “intelligent” man after he killed five people in Minneapolis last September. Finally, 16-year-old Bryan Oliver, who shot a classmate accused of bullying him last month at his school in Taft, Calif., was called a “genius” in a Yahoo! News article.
Does it matter? I suppose these brief mentions of intelligence may serve as some sort of concise portraiture, but what are we learning? What is intended by the inclusion of these details?
No matter how I analyze it, it’s not good.
In one scenario, there’s an unfair judgment of value that implies these killers were smart and thus had potential.
Should we consider their crimes more tragic?
That would be akin to admitting an uneducated killer’s life was somehow worth less from the get-go, simply because he or she wasn’t a “genius.”
On the other hand, the mention of their intelligence might be used to heighten the killer’s perceived evilness, like mad scientists or the shark that ate Samuel L. Jackson in “Deep Blue Sea.”
Are we, however, supposed to instantly associate Holmes’ plot with his education?
There are plenty of intricate murders carried out by unlettered individuals and many — hopefully all — LSU grad students would never fathom killing someone.
Maybe I’m overthinking it, but this need for understanding is exactly what media outlets are appealing to when they ply us with these factoids.
People think if they can just understand a little bit of the killer’s mind, know his background or what his mother’s like, they can rationalize or contextualize a piece of the madness.
The truth is that people find comfort in establishing structure after the chaos seen in the wake of shootings like Aurora or Newtown. There are the candlelight vigils, the group prayers, the wakes, the funerals — all of this funneling us forward through the days and months when we would otherwise be paralyzed by fear or the echoing hollowness of loss.
But over time, these structures inevitably and unceremoniously fall apart around us. There are no more events to attend, national attention wanes and the phone calls and care packages become less frequent.
After the attention stops, little bits of characterization may make us feel closer to truth and understanding. However, they provide little and draw attention away from the issues truly worthy of consideration. These killers weren’t just smart — maybe they were mentally imbalanced, abused at home or bullied at school.
Intelligence or education has nothing to do with it. But for some reason, when my eyes skim over the word “smart” or “genius,” my brain wants to register it as useful information.
Instead, let’s treat these facts like candy — nice, but without substance and unhealthy for everyone in large amounts.
