Interesting piece in the New Republic this week profiling mass-shooters as "injustice collectors" obsessed with their catalogs of enemies and slights against them, whether real or imaginary. I suspect Z would have a lot in common with this type of offender, especially given his own "little list."
www.newrepublic.com/article/122669/inju … -manifesto
"There are such devils."
-The Pledge
Thanks for the link to the article. I do think it applies to Z, even if I don’t necessarily agree with the conclusions about the psychology of "injustice collectors." In the comments to the article, one reader suggests that ‘mobbing’ may have been a contributing factor; I think there might be something to that. Maybe Z experienced a difficult work or social situation that was magnified by his underlying mental disorder.
Mobbing can be understood as the stressor to beat all stressors. It is an impassioned, collective campaign by co-workers to exclude, punish, and humiliate a targeted worker. Initiated most often by a person in a position of power or influence, mobbing is a desperate urge to crush and eliminate the target. The urge travels through the workplace like a virus, infecting one person after another. The target comes to be viewed as absolutely abhorrent, with no redeeming qualities, outside the circle of acceptance and respectability, deserving only of contempt. As the campaign proceeds, a steadily larger range of hostile ploys and communications comes to be seen as legitimate.
More on mobbing:
http://www.kwesthues.com/ohs-canada.htm
http://www.kwesthues.com/unkindlyart.htm
Interesting piece in the New Republic this week profiling mass-shooters as "injustice collectors" obsessed with their catalogs of enemies and slights against them, whether real or imaginary. I suspect Z would have a lot in common with this type of offender, especially given his own "little list."
One other thought about the list, taking into account the "power-assertive" profile for Z, is that it could have been of the same cloth as Nixon’s enemies list.
Based on the examples provided, "injustice collectors" are so off the rails that eventually, their fury explodes into a rampage of violent stupidity that typically leaves them dead. I’m not sure how that squares with Zodiac’s sporadic murders, his extended cat-and-mouse game with police, his cryptic letters, the ciphers, the utter opaqueness of his true motivations, or his quiet withdrawal from the spotlight. He also seemed more than happy to cast himself as the bad guy, whereas ICs always see themselves as the victim.
