“Some men just want to watch the world burn”
That’s a famous line from the movie The Dark Knight:
It’s a description of the pure chaotic nihilistic impulse. I think that tells us something about Antifa, and also certain murderers whose motives we know little about such as the Las Vegas mass murderer Stephen Paddock. Here’s an excerpt from a post I wrote about him not long after his crime in 2017:
In other words, I believe that Paddock’s basic motive was to kill a lot of people and then kill himself (something I wrote about yesterday). It almost didn’t matter to him who those people would be, as long as there were a lot of them. …
As for why Paddock wanted to become a mass murderer in the first place, I believe that (unless an autopsy locates some organic cause such as a brain tumor in an area that deals with aggression and/or judgment) he was a psychopath like his father before him, and ultimately became an even more violent one. His father was a psychopath of the con man variety; he’s usually been described as a bank robber but that was just one of his many modi operandi … Not all psychopaths are violent by any means, and I think Paddock was a relatively law-abiding one—until he wasn’t.
I then quoted from this comment by “FunkyPhD”:
I suspect that the more we learn about Paddock, the more we’ll find out that he was just a sociopathic, black-hearted nihilist, who wanted his suicide to be spectacular. He served no ideology, was checked by no transcendental beliefs, and had no children or parents or friends or family to shame. He was tired of life, which was easy for him, and – like Oswald – bitter that the world failed to exalt him for his genius, and was therefore determined to punish his fellow human creatures for their indifference. He wasn’t in pain, or in despair, or even lashing out for some unforgivable injury or slight. As Dostoyevski so brilliantly showed, when there is no meaning or purpose or duty or responsibility, destruction of the human community is not only permissible, it is also the ultimate act of freedom. Paddock wasn’t sick (if he were sick, he couldn’t have planned this as meticulously as he did), he was, as you say, just evil. But this kind of evil isn’t a symptom of our times. It has always existed …
And yet certain times foster more of it than usual, and we may be living in such times. I’m not saying that all the recent political assassins follow that playbook; in fact, many of them seem to have political motives and complaints, however twisted. But I wonder how much that’s really operating, and how much is just a screen for nihilistic psychopathy – otherwise known as evil.
Dostoevsky was the master of the subject in his book Demons, published in 1871. A summary of its themes can be found here:
According to Ronald Hingley, [the novel Demons] is Dostoevsky’s “greatest onslaught on Nihilism”, and “one of humanity’s most impressive achievements — perhaps even its supreme achievement — in the art of prose fiction.”
Demons is an allegory of the potentially catastrophic consequences of the political and moral nihilism that were becoming prevalent in Russia in the 1860s. A fictional town descends into chaos as it becomes the focal point of an attempted revolution, orchestrated by master conspirator Pyotr Verkhovensky. The mysterious aristocratic figure of Nikolai Stavrogin — Verkhovensky’s counterpart in the moral sphere — dominates the book, exercising an extraordinary influence over the hearts and minds of almost all the other characters. The idealistic, Western-influenced intellectuals of the 1840s, epitomized in the character of Stepan Verkhovensky (who is both Pyotr Verkhovensky’s father and Nikolai Stavrogin’s childhood teacher), are presented as the unconscious progenitors and helpless accomplices of the “demonic” forces that take possession of the town.
In other words, Verkhovensky is a “useful idiot.”
I read the book in the year 1968 – which, as you can imagine, is one of the reasons it made a big impression on me.
“a man who loses his people and his national roots also loses the faith of his fathers and his God.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Dostoevsky certainly understood human nature better than most. Humans are social creatures whose individual identity is underpinned by groups, beliefs, ideologies ect. God, family, community, ethnicity, nationality… in absence of these anchors, these foundations, it’s not hard to see how certain personalities can be drawn to nihilism. Especially impressionable younger people.
Of course, psychpaths and people with psychopathic tendencies (fictional characters like Pyotr Verkhovensky or The Joker for example) probably would have never embraced these anchors to begin with, believing such anchors to be artifice.
Neo, thank you for linking this to Antifa. They are anarchists as well as communists. Also, a large number of them are gender confused. And as you suggested, many are psychopaths, and the politics is only a rationalization.
Until, perhaps, the Industrial Revolution, cultures had rites of passage for young men and women. This is important to human development*. And it was difficult, if not impossible, to “opt out.”
Elders and peers would have corrected or tamped down a lot of these tendencies before they could grow in isolation. Some of this was cruel and mean. An elder or peer group prone to sadism can over-reach. Unfortunately we still have Fraternity pledges dying in initiation rituals, as an example.
But completely removing these cultural rituals has led to nihilism, as neo writes, and that is also harmful, and sometimes deadly.
The Amish practice of Rumspringa is fascinating.
*It’s present in all of mammalian development and many non-mammalian species.
Some ideologies or ideologically-linked groups offer psychopaths and sociopaths “approved” outlets for their destructive tendencies. “Burn it all down” Antifa and “Kill all the non-Muslims” Islamists have destruction as their primary belief.
Let’s be clear on one point: psychopathy is not a disease; it’s a description.
Anarchists are my first pick to destroy everything without a care. communists just want to rule over everything but don’t want to destroy it all, just run it.
Communism seeks the destruction of traditional society.
Rufus T Firefly. I have been watching the rites of passage in a kitten I got as a birthday present. I live on a ranch, and three of the tomcats, 12 year old Sven, his 7 year old grandson, Stitch, and 3 year old Mugwump have all decided they are Olsoncat.
On August 7th, my beloved calico, Peaches died. On August 21, my birthday, Brenda, my landlady , presented my with a kitten from the barn, since I was short a cat.
I named him Tom, ( but he is called Tommy for now, him being only three months old ). It is obvious from his markings that he is descended from Sven, Tommy is 1/3 scale replica of Sven.
I am fascinated by watching Tommy’s Great great Grandpa Sven, Great Uncle Stitch, and Uncle Mugwump teaching ” how to be a cat “.
Sven is a 15 pounder, Stitch and 18 pounder, and Mugwump is a massive 20 pounder, all three of them being muscular barn toms.
It is clear Tommy wants to be like Uncle Mugwump, and judging by size of his paws, I think he will be.
At base, “nihilistic psychopathy – otherwise known as evil” is a desire to be one’s own god, unaccountable to any outside agency. This is the ‘taproot’ of all isms on the left.
@ Neo: “But I wonder how much that’s really operating, and how much is just a screen for nihilistic psychopathy – otherwise known as evil.”
It is probably my incomplete understanding of language, but:
1) when I read about psychopathy or related mental illnesses, I have an image of people who have studied the range of observed psychological behaviors and attempts to identify their causes, etc., with the aim of understanding them and “healing” sufferers when possible. This implies to me that they believe they do (at least sort of) “understand” these conditions, at a description level and perhaps more deeply. It becomes something (at least potentially) understandable from natural causes and sources (genetics, neurochemistry, physical traumas, etc.).
2) In contrast, when I read or see the word “evil”, it seems generally to be identifying, but not necessarily describing, something that is not totally “knowable”. It is something we normally don’t wish to acknowledge that we might possess (or become possessed by). It may be highly undesirable and the opposite of “good”, but that still side steps a deeper understanding, often assigning it to demons or Satan or similar not natural forces or sources.
3) While GB’s phrase “a desire to be one’s own god, unaccountable to any outside agency” brings it back into a natural psychological realm. But my #2 on “evil” is not meant to be something someone desires (proactively) but something a person may exhibit as beyond their (supposed) control to resist.
4) It may be a stretch, but when we consider the fatal flaws in the protagonist in a Greek tragedy, is that also considered human psychology (natural) or an influence from the gods?
IrishOtter49 on September 26, 2025 at 2:30 pm:
“Let’s be clear on one point: psychopathy is not a disease; it’s a description.”
I am not quite sure if you are agreeing with one of my suggested categories 1) or 2) above, or something else?
I have read that psychopaths make up around 4% of the population (some but not all being violent), and thus they are “born that way” genetically. But we also identify other diseases as being “genetic diseases”, sometimes seeking a “cure” via stem cell changes or whatever??
One can be “born” a certain way without a genetic issue involved. Some in utero accident, exposure to some toxin, radiation.
If we presume the perfect psychopath doing this stuff, the question is what’s in it for him versus the unavoidable cost. Does his own death matter to him? A life on the lam seem, worth it? Does the NEED preclude any such calculations?
It is not logical [not suposed to be] that one would so such things as Paddock did.
Hence the more logical conspiracy theories.
He sent his girlfriend back to the Philippines and wired $100k after her. There was a report he’d settled with a casino for the same amount. Would the perfect psychopath bother, at least with the second case?
It would be interesting to figure out how many of the perfect psychopaths manage to get themselves killed of jailed for life before they get to the Big Thing. Maybe screwing up their lives as they go means they never get the arrangements for the Big Deal quite completed.
@ Richard Aubrey > “Maybe screwing up their lives as they go means they never get the arrangements for the Big Deal quite completed.”
Which is, overall, a very good thing.
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this again
https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/09/multiple-people-shot-at-michigan-mormon-church/
a reminder inquiring about the nlg was the bridge too far for joseph welch re mccarthy,
https://x.com/DataRepublican/status/1972328734108835850
No ideas yet on what the Michigan LDS church assault was about. Terrible; two dead so far, and more may be in the burned-out building, which they can’t get into yet. Perpetrator was killed by police who responded.
And, in NC, some disturbed person shot into a waterside bar in Southport, killing three and wounding several others. He was arrested alive.
All I can come up with at this time is that unstable people are doing copycat shootings.
RIP to those murdered.
— Skip
But the ‘rule it all’ phase has a nasty tendency to slide gradually toward ‘burn it all down’ over time.
@Richard Aubrey, your idea about psychopaths failing to launch, as it were – that is, being pre-empted before managing to realize the ‘Big Deal,’ as you put it – is interesting. Maybe what is particularly relevant about that is (and here I’m also pulling in Kate’s idea about copycats): what is the critical mass of psychopaths required to successfully ‘manifest’ with a big splash in society in order for a sort of cascade to begin? 0.1%? If we could know that, maybe we could get a handle on how stringent our protective measures, as a society, would need to be.
Kate, I appreciate your mention about the fact that the motive in the Grand Blanc atrocity is unknown as yet. Being from Michigan, I’m sensitive to what might come out of the inquiry.
Philip.
I suspect there’s a degree of psychopathy beyond which working with others, psychopath or not, doesn’t succeed. Hope so, anyway.
Damaging a society requires the long view and some patience as one or another idea is put into action. For example, maybe thirty years ago, some supporters of gay marriage–not gays themselves getting married–promoted it was a strategy for destroying the institution of marriage and through that, contemporary society. Can psychopaths wait that long?
Philip Sells, the news this morning from Michigan is grim. Four dead, perhaps as many as seven more in the burned-out building. And the murderer was a Trump-loving, PTSD-afflicted, man whose child has a very serious illness. He was obviously very ill mentally. Why he chose an LDS church may be horrifying, too. Lord, have mercy.
The current violent talk and actions from the left may be precipitating violent reactions from unstable right-leaning people. Uncontrolled violence begets violence in response.