Luigi Mangione, Bonnie and Clyde, Tsarnaev, and Raskolnikov
Twenty-six year old Luigi Mangione has been detained as a person of interest in the murder of United Healthcare executive Brian Thompson, and he’s emerged as a popular figure with a certain segment of the left. Call it the romantic nihilist segment, perhaps. But whatever you want to call it, this is a familiar phenomenon, a variation on a theme.
First analogy I thought about were the bank robbers and murderers Bonnie and Clyde, who were somewhat popular with some of the public – and notorious with the rest – in the 1930s and were made into tragic romantic hero and heroine in a popular movie of the 1960s. The real duo:
… escaped the police at Joplin, but left behind most of their possessions at the apartment, including Buck’s parole papers (three weeks old), a large arsenal of weapons, a handwritten poem by Bonnie, and a camera with several rolls of undeveloped film. Police developed the film at The Joplin Globe and found many photos of Barrow, Parker, and Jones posing and pointing weapons at one another. The Globe sent the poem and the photos over the newswire, including a photo of Parker clenching a cigar in her teeth and a pistol in her hand. The Barrow Gang subsequently became front-page news throughout America.
The photo of Parker posing with a cigar and a gun became popular. Jeff Guinn, in his book, Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde, noted:
“John Dillinger had matinee-idol good looks and Pretty Boy Floyd had the best possible nickname, but the Joplin photos introduced new criminal superstars with the most titillating trademark of all—illicit sex. Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were wild and young, and undoubtedly slept together.”
Then there’s Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who became something of a girl fan favorite when Rolling Stone featured a glamour shot of him on their cover.
Mangione himself seems to have been an admirer of the Unibomber, who was brilliant, a Harvard graduate, and who wrote a lengthy manifesto. The Unibomber (Ted Kaczynski) defies easy categorization, but he was anti-industrial and “called for a revolution to force the collapse of the worldwide technological system, and held a life close to nature, in particular primitivist lifestyles, as an ultimate ideal.” And, accordingly, he has been admired by ecofascists, the murderer Breivik, and assorted other nihilists and anarchists.
But another person Mangione most reminds me of – at least from what I know of him at this point – is the fictional character in Crime and Punishment, Rodion Raskolnikiv. This is what I’m referring to:
An impoverished student with a conflicted idea of himself, Raskolnikov (Rodya as his mother calls him) decides to kill a corrupt pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna, with whom he has been dealing, with the idea of using the money to start his life all over, and to help those who are in need of it. It is later revealed that he also commits the murder as justification for his pride, as he wants to prove that he is “exceptional” in the way Napoleon was.
From the book’s
Six weeks ago [Raskolnikov] had remembered the address; he had two articles that could be pawned: his father’s old silver watch and a little gold ring with three red stones, a present from his sister at parting. He decided to take the ring. When he found the old woman he had felt an insurmountable repulsion for her at the first glance, though he knew nothing special about her. He got two roubles from her and went into a miserable little tavern on his way home. He asked for tea, sat down and sank into deep thought. A strange idea was pecking at his brain like a chicken in the egg, and very, very much absorbed him.
Almost beside him at the next table there was sitting a student, whom he did not know and had never seen, and with him a young officer. They had played a game of billiards and began drinking tea. All at once he heard the student mention to the officer the pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna and give him her address. This of itself seemed strange to Raskolnikov; he had just come from her and here at once he heard her name. Of course it was a chance, but he could not shake off a very extraordinary impression, and here someone seemed to be speaking expressly for him; the student began telling his friend various details about Alyona Ivanovna.
“She is first-rate,” he said. “You can always get money from her. She is as rich as a Jew, she can give you five thousand roubles at a time and she is not above taking a pledge for a rouble. Lots of our fellows have had dealings with her. But she is an awful old harpy….”
And he began describing how spiteful and uncertain she was, how if you were only a day late with your interest the pledge was lost; how she gave a quarter of the value of an article and took five and even seven percent a month on it and so on. The student chattered on, saying that she had a sister Lizaveta, whom the wretched little creature was continually beating, and kept in complete bondage like a small child, though Lizaveta was at least six feet high.
“There’s a phenomenon for you,” cried the student and he laughed.
… I’ll tell you what. I could kill that damned old woman and make off with her money, I assure you, without the faintest conscience-prick,” the student added with warmth. The officer laughed again while Raskolnikov shuddered. How strange it was!
“Listen, I want to ask you a serious question,” the student said hotly. “I was joking of course, but look here; on one side we have a stupid, senseless, worthless, spiteful, ailing, horrid old woman, not simply useless but doing actual mischief, who has not an idea what she is living for herself, and who will die in a day or two in any case. You understand? You understand?”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” answered the officer, watching his excited companion attentively.
“Well, listen then. On the other side, fresh young lives thrown away for want of help and by thousands, on every side! A hundred thousand good deeds could be done and helped, on that old woman’s money which will be buried in a monastery! Hundreds, thousands perhaps, might be set on the right path; dozens of families saved from destitution, from ruin, from vice, from the Lock hospitals—and all with her money. Kill her, take her money and with the help of it devote oneself to the service of humanity and the good of all. What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds? For one life thousands would be saved from corruption and decay. One death, and a hundred lives in exchange—it’s simple arithmetic! Besides, what value has the life of that sickly, stupid, ill-natured old woman in the balance of existence! No more than the life of a louse, of a black-beetle, less in fact because the old woman is doing harm. She is wearing out the lives of others; the other day she bit Lizaveta’s finger out of spite; it almost had to be amputated.”
“Of course she does not deserve to live,” remarked the officer, “but there it is, it’s nature.”
“Oh, well, brother, but we have to correct and direct nature, and, but for that, we should drown in an ocean of prejudice. But for that, there would never have been a single great man. They talk of duty, conscience—I don’t want to say anything against duty and conscience;—but the point is, what do we mean by them? Stay, I have another question to ask you. Listen!”
“No, you stay, I’ll ask you a question. Listen!”
“Well?”
“You are talking and speechifying away, but tell me, would you kill the old woman yourself?”
“Of course not! I was only arguing the justice of it…. It’s nothing to do with me….”
“But I think, if you would not do it yourself, there’s no justice about it…. Let us have another game.”
Raskolnikov was violently agitated. Of course, it was all ordinary youthful talk and thought, such as he had often heard before in different forms and on different themes. But why had he happened to hear such a discussion and such ideas at the very moment when his own brain was just conceiving… the very same ideas? And why, just at the moment when he had brought away the embryo of his idea from the old woman had he dropped at once upon a conversation about her? This coincidence always seemed strange to him. This trivial talk in a tavern had an immense influence on him in his later action; as though there had really been in it something preordained, some guiding hint….
Of course, bck then there was no social media. Now, there is.
[NOTE: See this for reactions from Mangione’s family and friends.]
An awful lot of people who are approving of the murder, or at least falling all over themselves to make excuses for it. Brian Thompson is not an individual to these people, rather, he is an avatar for things that they don’t like.
I’m reminded of something written by Antoine de St-Exupery. During the Spanish Civil War, St-Ex was tasked by his government to rescue French people who were in danger of being shot by one side or another. In one village…
“”Oh, yes, we shot seventeen of them.”
They had shot seventeen “fascists.” The parish priest, the priest’s
housekeeper, the sexton, and fourteen village notables. Everything is relative,
you see. When they read in their provincial newspaper the story of the life of
Basil Zaharoff, master of the world, they transpose it into their own language.
They recognize in him the nurseryman, or the pharmacist. And when they shoot
the pharmacist, in a way they are shooting Basil Zaharoff. The only one who
does not understand is the pharmacist.”
The pharmacist was the avatar for everything they didn’t like about Spain was being run and the world was being run…similarly for Brian Thompson.
Comparing Mangione to Roskolnikov is brilliant. If anyone could dissect and display evil Dostoevsky could. Whatever unhappiness or pain in their lives these types always find a target or scapegoat that is the cause. But the question remains – would he have committed the murder without the incessant pain? Or was his warped mind only looking for an excuse that the injury and botched surgery provided? If that was the case it was ideology driven. Or perhaps even worse, he only glomed onto the leftist/Antifa type thinking as a cover for his innate depravity.
I believe Mangione was irrational, psychotic; those who claim to understand him and his motive for planned murder are seriously wrong.
Some call him psychopathic, but they are not correct. Medically, I believe he is a paranoid schizophrenic, a grave disorder characterized by major delusions (e.g.,”I am Napoleon”), the so-called “absence of reality testing” which usually hits in late teens or twenties. Tragedy is, there is no cure for this, only meds which cause lethargy, muted personality, and major obesity, so the needy often refuse the meds.
Having “community mental health clinics” for the ambulatory is no answer; the old asylums (incarceration), often “State hospitals”, were right for these patients, as sanctuaries with health care provided. But our federal legislators and bureaucrats know better.
I am afraid it is not only elements of the left doing it. I have seen many right wingers and centrists celebrating it too or at least being rather mealy mouthed about it. And it is I think a terrifying omen. The victim may not have lived up to our standards (and what are they? What excess of wisdom and knowledge do we know about managing a medical company?) but he was a self-made man who was murdered by a radical in cold blood in downtown New York City. This bodes badly, and whatever benefits this get sour of the health insurance business will probably be offset by the ensuing panics and fears caused by the second order effects.
It also I think poses a specter of how much more comfy the concept of assassination is becoming. And that should be terrifying. I have my issues with Dostoyevsky but he knew what he wrote of regarding revolutionary radicals and nihilists.
What about Ted Kaczynski? Apparently Luigi mentioned him.
Marisa:
Did you read the post? I discussed him as well.
Turtler:
Yes, some on the right, too, although more on the left. It is indeed ominous. It’s a form of dehumanization that seems to be becoming more common
Reminds me a bit of Leopold and Loeb as well
Yes i find that a ridiculous notion. About the thompson assasination. i recall anothet character in belys st petersburg the son of a minister loosely based on pobestdenev or ignatiev the hard men of the czars regime who was tasked by the social revolutionaries to target his father
Of course the twist in the story is the sr boss azev is himself an okrana agent
This is related to the general theme of the post, but not Mangione specifically.
A week ago I took a longer walk to one of my favorite parks and sit in my favorite spot. And there on the seat was this pamphlet. At first glance I assumed it was Jehovah’s Witness material, but upon closer examination it proved to be anarchist promotional material.
The cover is entitled:
To Change Everything
an anarchist appeal
The back cover has another nostrum and the website:
Don’t Cling To The Old World
crimethinc.com
The content is organized as bullet points on the left page and a one page explanation on the facing right page.
Left page: The problem is property
Right page: The foundation of capitalism is property rights — another social construct we inherited from kings and aristocrats. (and so on)
The website has this gem, entitled:
Festivals of Resistance
A Call for Gatherings the Weekend Before Trump Takes Office
Calling All Anarchists
https://crimethinc.com/2024/12/03/festivals-of-resistance-a-call-to-gather-the-weekend-before-trump-takes-office
neo is correct when she calls it the “romantic nihilist” segment, as these people often consider themselves to be freedom loving humanists. But I’d call it the “stupid nihilist” segment.
I believe Mangione was irrational, psychotic; those who claim to understand him and his motive for planned murder are seriously wrong.
–Cicero
Anyone else notice a problem here?
Raskolnikov was also one of the first I thought of. But then I thought, no. It took a whole book to run him down, Luigi was caught in five days.
It’s like J6 and the anthrax attacks in 2001 and the Duke lacrosse case and the Centennial Park bombing never happened. There is a lot being reported and repeated about this person which we yet have no way to know is true…
Why are so many of us convinced the media is reliable about this murder, 5 days in, when we know it deceives us, or gets things badly wrong in the beginning, all the time? The truth has not got its boots on yet.
I believe Mangione was irrational, psychotic
I also wondered if he had succumbed to schizophrenia, late teens to early thirties is the usual window for males. I have a cousin who succumbed at 18. It was sudden, he was quite normal before that, or maybe we just missed the signs. His parents thought it was triggered by marijuana, there does seem to be some relationship.
Niketas:
Of course the evidence is preliminary and things could change. But it’s pretty persuasive at this point, much more so than in the cases you cite.
Just so we’re aware, some of these details about him we’re repeating so confidently are derived from CNN finding an anonymous deleted Reddit account which they think might be him, but they won’t actually say is his, though that doesn’t stop them from incorporating it into the narrative.
Wow! I made the same connection with Raskolnikov, Neo
“Their celebration of Thompson’s killer is a “milestone” in the Left’s radicalization process, because it’s a shift from one kind of target to another. Nobody’d heard Thompson’s name before; his slaying was later justified by virtue of his position rather than for a public thing he’d specifically done. The Left’s move from individual targets to a class of targets is significant.”
https://x.com/davereaboi/status/1866520937429926108
I guarantee that Luigi did not grow up with a tradition of faith. Without God anything is permissable.
Neo, I commented before reading the thread in detail so I missed your mention. My apologies.
Davemay:
You guarantee? That’s quite a statement, considering how little we know about that aspect of his life. It’s not as though no murderer was ever raised with religion, and it’s not as though all murderers were raised without religion.
I have a hunch there was some sort of religious upbringing for Mangione, and I base it on the story of his family, such as for example these things:
Niketas:
The story of Mangione’s back surgery comes primarily from his Twitter profile and friends of his. See this
Marisa:
No need to apologize. I’m not offended 🙂 .
@Chuck 7:31pm
I am glad you agree with my concern re paranoid schizophrenia. A horrible, accursed malady that strikes the intelligent and able in the prime of life and turns them into useless human shells.
I knew of a young man, Nat. Guard Apache helo pilot and able schoolteacher who, after a year of anti-psychotic meds for florid, sudden-onset, disabling schizophrenia, drove his car into a bridge abutment at 80mph and died instantly. I believe it was suicide, not an accident.
Has zip to do with Raskolnikov or other characters of fiction. But perhaps some find that reference to fiction useful for their understanding. I read Dostoyevsky many decades ago, my memory is dusty on this, and comparing the real tragedy of Mangione to a fictional Russian character leaves me cold.
Let us remember Mangione as an extraordinarily gifted young man before insanity destroyed him.
Neo, I concede that ” guarantee” is strong. I’m thinking in terms of Dostoevsky (“if there is no God then everything is permitted”.) Mangione’s anti-capitalist rants seem to align with campus radicalism. I do doubt that he was raised with faith in a meaningful sense. Liberalism is a religion for many people.
It seems in his manifesto he talks about his Mothers health problems and the issues with health insurance.
Mangione:
Plenty of people raised with religion abandon it. Plus, there are religious murderers such as the people who have murdered abortion doctors. In addition, many Christian religions as well as reform Judaism are populated by liberals. Perhaps they are not included in your definition of “faith in a meaningful sense,” but I would disagree. (plus that definition would be a way for you to exclude religions that feature liberalism).
And of course it almost goes without saying that fundamentalist Islam informs many jihadi murderers.
What’s more, I know (and I would bet you also know) many atheists. Not one of them is a murderer or even much of a lawbreaker. Some are even politically conservative and not liberal at all.
The message of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment does indeed include one of spiritual redemption through religion and sacrifice. Dostoevsky was a very keen observer of human nature and and in particular of the Russian nihilists of the 1800s, a group with which he was intimately familiar. I’m a big admirer of Dostoevsky’s work and think him to be a genius, but I very much doubt he was saying that religiously-raised people never commit murders. By the way, what did Dostoevsky really write about belief in God and whether everything is permitted??
Cicero:
I’ve read a lot about Mangione, and I have yet to read a single thing that indicates schizophrenia.
That doesn’t mean evidence of schizophrenia won’t emerge. It’s certainly possible, and he is in the typical age group for that malady. But so far the evidence is that he is quite in touch with reality and that the killing was politically motivated – for reasons somewhat akin (although hardly identical) to those of the fictional character Raskolnikov.
I have seen nothing indicating – for example – that he has said he was told to do this by voices that only he could hear, or that he believed Thompson was actually a demonic space alien. Of course, defendants sometimes falsely claim schizophrenia as a defense.
In addition, I think it’s interesting that the Unibomber’s original lawyers wanted him to plead guilty by way of insanity, and had at least one psychiatrist willing to say he was a paranoid schizophrenic, but he refused.
@ TommyJay at 6:31 pm:
Your account about the pamphlet is not surprising. Many (probably most) of the BLM and ANTIFA members subscribe to this philosophy, which is basically Marxist/anti- capitalist.
Was Mangione one of these anti-capitalist/anarchists? Did he pick it up in school? Or online? His friends and family all seem shocked. He apparently never shared these ideas with them. Obviously, his family are well to do. I understand they are in construction.
The whole incident seems quite bizarre. Why would a son of a well to do family suddenly commit a murder?? What’s the motivation? Does he have a beef with the healthcare industry? Does he have issues with United Healthcare in particular? Is he against all corporations? Did he have a schizophrenic break? Many more questions than answers so far.
But I think the pamphlet you picked up explains why some people are celebrating the murder of a CEO. And we ignore this at our peril. We thought we won the Cold War against international Communism, and yet, it’s growing stronger in our midst.
Though things have been relatively quiet since Trump won, I think they are just planning and organizing. The sudden fall of the Assad dictatorship is the sort of thing that will give them hope. Things are moving very rapidly both at home and overseas. I wish I felt more confident that things will proceed smoothly as Trump takes office.
@ Neo > ” what did Dostoevsky really write about belief in God and whether everything is permitted?”
Thanks for that fascinating examination of the phrase, and where it occurs in his writing, and what he might have meant by it, as the thought recurs several places.
One is reminded of the similar observation attributed to Chesterton, in several forms: “The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything.”
It is also cobbled together from various parts of his books.
https://www.chesterton.org/ceases-to-worship/
The recurrence of events is a phenomenon that has not gone unnoticed.
“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.” Eccl., 1: 9-11.
Circumstances may change. Human nature does not. The Mangione saga is one that has played out time and again over millenia. It only strikes us as novel because we humans, in addition to our capacity for violence against our fellows have a remarkable capacity to forget everything and learn nothing, which was also noted by Solomon four thousand years ago. “There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.” ibid.
Neo, respectfully, I think you’re expecting too much crazy before concluding this guy was entirely rational. One thing I picked up from regularly reading Assistant Village Idiot’s blog is the irrational inhabit the same world the sane do, and their delusions often reflect the zeitgeist of the age. When UFOs and extraterrestrials were high profile topics then they were controlled by aliens. When the CIA and FBI are big news then it’s the government using beam devices to affect their brainwaves. The fact that the shooter seems to be impacted by current political topics doesn’t necessarily indicate sanity, and I think Nikolas’s warning is at least partially correct. The media may be publishing correct information about him but we need to be wary of them shaping the discussion in ways they think are politically useful. Ann Althouse posted on a NY Mag article that was certainly trying to shade away from the possibility that his beliefs were influenced by the usual leftist indoctrination over 18 years of schooling and toward some sort of ‘radicalization’ by tech-bro podcasters like Tim Urban and Joe Rogan.
John Hinkley was almost exactly the same age when he shot Ronald Reagan.
Hinkley had been treated for depression but as far as I know was not treated for any kind of psychosis. Hinkley appears to have been a little farther gone and not able to progress as successfully in life as the Thompson shooter but he still managed to be well enough to avoid jail or institutionalization, and was able to plan and carry out his attack on Reagan.
Neo, I never said religious people never commit murder. I share your sentiments about Dostoevsky. Still, I believe too many people are raised with “religion-lite,” or no religion at all. That’s a dangerous development.
Christopher B:
I never said that Mangione is entirely rational. Actually, I doubt he is. I said there’s no evidence he is schizophrenic, which is a very specific diagnosis with very specific characteristics.
Davemay:
I agree that people with no religion are probably more inclined towards nihilism and/or hedonism. But there are also religions (Islam, for example) that lend themselves to extremist violence.
John Hinkley was almost exactly the same age when he shot Ronald Reagan.
Hinkley had been treated for depression but as far as I know was not treated for any kind of psychosis.
==
What his family knew ex ante was that he was (for his cohort) and extreme failure-to-launch problem. His schizophrenia was diagnosed later. If I’m not mistaken, he had medication-resistant schizophrenia that merited confinement (quite apart from what his criminal conduct merited).
==
This fellow Mangione was born in 1998. Over the last ten years, he’s managed to complete three diplomas and pile up a significant work history. He’s not a failure-to-launch problem.
Let us remember Mangione as an extraordinarily gifted young man before insanity destroyed him.
==
Excuse me, but where is the evidence that he was ‘insane’ in any sense of the word?
and had at least one psychiatrist willing to say he was a paranoid schizophrenic, but he refused.
==
I think Dr. Kaczynski’s brother said the report from one examining psychiatrist was surprisingly insightful and really nailed his brother. Note also that TK was a 55 year old childless bachelor when arrested and had a 27 year long history of peculiar behavior.
NBC News is gushing so hard over Mangione that Stephanie Gosk has turned straight!
Guy’s face has high-T features. Ev Psych folks say that increases positive perception of the person. And not solely among women. Men–back in the day–needed another bad ass in the hunting band. Or the rifle squad. Wonder what would be said about him if there were not pictures.
I was in the insurance business for many years. Only health insurance company issues I had were the result of inaccurate coding of billing from the physician’s office. Once that was straightened out, there was no hesitation in payment.
However, there may be exclusions as to cause of injury. No idea if this is the case in Mangioni’s situation, presuming he has a gripe in the first place.
All of which being said, the family’s assets could have covered anything this guy had done to him or for him without blinking. A problem with the insurance company would have been academic and handled by the family’s attorney(s).
The commission of the crime was sloppy. Showed his face before hand in the hostel and elsewhere. As if there could be no connection. Speaking of which, what was the connection before…there was a connection? Did they manage to track him, in his masked and hooded anonymity, back to the hostel?
He kept the gun?
If he hadn’t had the gun when picked up, what would there have been on him? Constant surveillance coverage, unbroken (honest, the NYC prosecutor promises) coverage back to the hostel or coffee shop, of a guy in the jacket and mask. And then the face.
DNA is no good until you have him, so whatever he left around wouldn’t help to find him.
Pitched the back pack. So you arrest anybody you find who doesn’t have a back pack? No, probably not. You have to connect it to him. Which you can’t do until you have him.
So the face in NYC and the face in Altoona and…the gun. Without the gun, this might be a tough case to make.
Four fake ID? What’s the point? If you have them, and it might be a good idea to have a handful, don’t carry them, for heaven’s sake. Just the one you think you need. Store the rest for future adventures.
Just how bad is his back? In any of the surveillance, or in his behavior since arrest, is there any indication of restricted or painful movement? Is the presumption this is an issue anywhere near relevant?
His shouting about various items once arrested leads me to think he hasn’t watched Law And Order and so doesn’t understand the Miranda thingy. Might convict himself in a fit of public righteousness.
Ordinary lefties I’ve talked to or heard can make the case for assassination, just as soon as finals are over or something, without any moral qualms showing. But actually doing it…. Practical issues, but no problem if somebody else does it. And among them is the tiny fraction who can manage their qualms, if any, and figure the practical side as well. Maybe this guy, with the leisure and lack of immediate problems one enjoys with money, had time to drink the lefty stuff to a surfeit.
But how did he know the schedule?
Something to consider: How is it we know more about Luigi Mangione than we do about Thomas Crooks?
I’m a big admirer of Dostoevsky’s work and think him to be a genius
Not sure if you’re familiar with Henri de Lubac but Dostoevsky features prominently in his work, especially in regard to nihilism and secular humanism. For what it’s worth I think Lubac is an unrecognized genius.
Has anyone read anything specific about his family’s wealth? His immediate family, mom and dad? Or their occupations?
I’ve read details about his grandfather’s wealth. He did well. But I believe I read the grandfather and grandmother had 10 children and there are at least 30 grandchildren. Did all that wealth trickle down? Did the 10 siblings all go into their father’s business and do as well, or better?
Luigi’s High School tuition was in the elite tier, but I’ve heard of wealthy grandparents setting up funds earmarked for prep or boarding school for all their grandkids.
I don’t have an opinion on his parents’ wealth, one way, or another, it’s just that I keep reading “Luigi’s family was wealthy” but haven’t seen specifics.
https://hollywoodlife.com/feature/luigi-mangione-parents-5352657/