Another side of Adam Lanza—no, it’s the same side

A reader suggested in the previous entry that I was drawing too quick a conclusion about the appearance of the killer based on one photograph. But here is a second photograph, from today’s New York Times, and Lanza has exactly the same, totally mad face and eyes—the face and eyes of an stereotypically insane person—in the second photo as in the first, suggesting that this is really the way he looked, and is not just the result of one odd photograph.

Adam Lanza in an undated group photo of
the Newtown High School technology club,
which appeared in the school’s yearbook.

And while numerous persons who knew him have indicated they felt there was something wrong with him, evidently nothing was done about him, but he continued to move about at complete liberty. People in modern society are Eloi. They’re so comfortable with themselves and with their world, they’ve been so thoroughly trained not to judge anything or anyone (except of course for white conservatives who are the embodiment of evil), that their instinct of danger, and their instinct to do something about danger, are radically diminished. In a previous age, someone who looked like Adam Lanza would have set off alarm bells, and, at the very least, the eyes of the authorities would have been on him. Among other things, the police would have checked out his home, and when they found that his mother had several guns, they would have strongly advised her to keep the guns where her son could not get at them.

- end of initial entry -

Terry Morris writes:

Actually, in the second photo you posted of him, Adam Lanza looks pretty “normal” to me, at least in comparision with some of the freaks I see almost on a daily basis: freaks sporting piercings all over their faces and bodies, and others bearing all manner of tattoo on their exposed body parts. Then there are those whose clothing indicates there is something wrong with them.

Incidentally I was in a local convenience store some time back and a (white) kid around fifteen or sixteen had his pants down below his rear. I said to him very politely, “Hey man, your pants are falling off.” He replied “Yeah, I know. Ain’t it cool?!” I replied “No, it isn’t ‘cool,’ pull them up!” And he did.

But this is probably the reason why society cannot pick out seriously disturbed personalities like Adam Lanza from the crowd—they no longer stand out as they did when our society was a lot less permissive of these kinds of freakish behaviors.

Stephen T. writes:

My cousin, the family genealogist, told me a story she unearthed. Sometime back in the 1930s, a young man on the family tree was believed to be quite “mad” and eventually acted out in some threatening way, details lost in history. Some of the men in the family, one was probably my father’s eldest brother, talked to the local judge, then scooped the guy up and in a very expeditious manner took him somewhere—we believe it was a Florida state insane asylum—and had him “put away” as they used to say. Nobody knows if he ever got out and at least on my branch of the tree he was definitely never spoken of. Yes, I know: very callous and cruel by today’s standards. Yet a peaceful, sane calm was swiftly restored to the family and safety to the community.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 16, 2012 05:05 AM | Send