Neves Valente – remember him?
The killings of the Brown students and the MIT professor weren’t that long ago (less than a month), but so many events have intervened that those murders may seem more distant in time. Even the killer’s name – Claudio Neves Valente – may not ring much of a bell at this point.
But authorities have released the transcript of a video he made shortly before killing himself. He spoke in Portuguese, so it’s a translation, but the chilling quality of the testimony comes through.
Neves Valente sheds very little light on his motive for the crime. But he describes a lifelong emotional flatness and emptiness, no remorse, and what seems almost a resentment of life itself and people in general. He focuses more on an eye injury he sustained during one of the shootings than on his victims, who seem to be less than nothing to him.
A few excepts:
… [I]t was all a little incompetent but at least something was done. The only objective was to leave more or less on my own terms and – and it’s – it’s already long overdue. …
So, if you don’t like it, tough luck. Tough luck. There was also a lot of shit that I didn’t like, and I had to put up with it. …
I still have money, I would have money for a few more good years, if it was in Portugal or a cheaper place it would still be a long time, but I don’t care …
I’ve been here without caring for a very long time now. To say that I was extraordinarily satisfied, no, but I also don’t regret what I did. Honestly, my only regret is this thing in my eye (laughs). …
I’m not going to apologize, because during my lifetime no one sincerely apologized to me. …
I did not like any one of you. I saw all of this shit from the beginning. I began to grow suspicious since I barely had conscious memories, at the age of three. At the age of five I was already sure. I saw all of this shit from the beginning …
There’s more, but that’s the gist of it, and I doubt anything much more illuminating will come out.
Incredibly tragic that three promising and rewarding lives were snuffed out by this person.
Grievance collector.
I have mentioned previously my high school classmate who did not show up to the 50th reunion, but left a long comment in our reunion newsletter. In that comment he said how much he hated high school, his teachers and his classmates. He also went on to say (not confirmed beyond his letter) that he became an art smuggler. He is gone now, and I have not found anyone who could confirm his story.
But I thought of my classmate’s comment when I read Neves’ statement. As Art Deco said above, Neves is nursing a grievance. It appears my classmate was too. It is a very sad way to live one’s life. Too bad we don’t have any way of heading these people off before they end up killing.
I sadly have a sister who is somewhat like this, though not, I don’t think, prone to violence (though in our thankfully limited interactions with her we prefer not to be alone, just to be safe). She never married or had children, and has told us in no uncertain terms how much she hates all of us (her siblings), our spouses, and our kids. She blames all of her failures in life on us, though as best as I can tell, it’s all just resentment.
Neves is clearly one of T.S. Eliot’s men, in his poem “The Hollow Men,” which describes spiritually empty, post-WW1 figures lacking substance and purpose. Written one hundred-plus years ago, so they have long been among us.
@CICERO: Neves is clearly one of T.S. Eliot’s men, in his poem “The Hollow Men,”
Wow. That’s either a misreading of Eliot or of Claudio Neves Valente or both.
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Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
–T.S. Eltot, “The Hollow Men”
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Clearly Valente was a lost violent soul, eaten up with mistrust, resentment, anger and hate from an early age.
If one requires a quote from a famous poem to hang on Valente it would be:
__________________________________
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
–W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”
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The Hollow Men fit the first clause, Valente the second.
“The Hollow Men” ends “Not with a bang, but a whimper” — not with multiple gunshots.
Valente sounds like every disaffected Leftist I have known or read about.
A normal person gives thanks to God every day for what they have. A Leftist is full of envy and hatred that someone, somewhere has more than they do and not only is that not fair but we need to take their stuff away from them – for Social Justice.
The new housing gal in NYC who says private property should be abolished but breaks down in tears publicly when it is pointed out to her that own her Mother lives in a $1.4 million Craftsman home in Nashville, TN.
there are still more questions, than answers (some unfocused anomie) that came to rest in providence,
He can explain it to someone else.
It fascinates me that from Valente’s account he made these big decisions about life and people when he was barely consciously aware.
How does that happen?
I wonder if his intelligence worked against him here.
Valente was apparently depressed most of his life.
He was reportedly quite intelligent, but that’s no armor against depression. Don’t know if he was ever diagnosed or treated. Many depressives commit suicide, and a few take others with them. A tragedy anyway you look at it.
Like I said old snowy can explain it to someone else.
@ John Galt III > “The new housing gal in NYC who says private property should be abolished but breaks down in tears publicly when it is pointed out to her that own her Mother lives in a $1.4 million Craftsman home in Nashville, TN.”
Another Bernie-of-the-three-homes Socialist, clamoring to Tax the Rich and so forth, but making exceptions for themselves.
To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin’s maxim on legal and illegal rebellions: “Wealth is always acceptable in the first person — our wealth. It is only in the third person — their wealth — that it should be confiscated.”
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Original quote from “1776”: “Rebellion is always legal in the first person — our rebellion. It is only in the third person — their rebellion — that it is illegal.”