Malachi Ritscher's Delusion

I don't like to pick on people who are obviously insane, but delusional people often repeat as sick farce certain social memes that are taken seriously, at least by some, in their political ideologies though not acted out in their personal lives. This is the case with deceased (i.e., self-immolated) war protestor, Malachi Ritscher, who, before dousing himself with gasoline and setting himself on fire, had thoughts of murdering Donald Rumsfeld. Here is how Ritscher interpreted the moment in question (and whether it happened or not is pretty much irrelevant):

I have had one previous opportunity to serve my country in a meaningful way - at 8:05 one morning in 2002 I passed Donald Rumsfeld on Delaware Avenue and I was acutely aware that slashing his throat would spare the lives of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people. I had a knife clenched in my hand, and there were no bodyguards visible; to my deep shame I hesitated, and the moment was past.

Ritscher had clearly bought into a kind of satanic version of the  "Great Man" theory whereby, as Thomas Carlyle once proclaimed, "The history of the world is but the biography of great men."

This theory is usually contrasted with a theory that talks about events occurring in the fullness of time, or when an overwhelming wave of smaller events cause certain developments to occur. (Source Wikipedia)

I see this theory emerging again and again in anti-Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld posters, effigies, even editorials, which assume that ONE MAN has the power to will historical events to occur and therefore, by definition, the removal of that ONE MAN must inevitably reverse those events. This is patent nonsense, but I think people only notice how foolish it is when they see it expressed on such a grandiose scale by a madman, who clearly sees himself as a Great Man as well, capable of changing history with one lurid and repugnant tantrum. This is not to say that individuals cannot influence events or need not take responsibility for their part in them, but only to say that they are a single variable in an incredibly complex equation.  So rest easy, Mr. Ritscher, your gesture wouldn't have achieved a damn thing on the broad historical scale you imagined yourself acting on; it would just have made a murderer rather than a suicide out of you.

Via KisP

Comments

[Carin]

Personally, I think he made the correct choice.

[gail]

I think he was crazy as a bedbug and should have been locked up for his own and other people's protection.

[JJM]

Gail, I see George Bush's hand in this somewhere!

[steve]

shame on you. this man had a son and people who cared about him. have you lost touch with your humanity? nobody is asking you to agree with him but to slander a dead man you didn't know. that is pretty low

[james winter]

hmm, your comments seem a little cold and short on charity, despite the macabre reference to killing Rumsfeld. further, the so called 'great man' theory does seem to characterize the needless mess the US is in with Iraq - as a result of the decisions of a few far from great men. If Bush had listened to his far smarter father, 3000 US lives, plus a trillion dollars, could have been saved. Frankly, the money (and lives) could have been better spent on investing in US education, infrastructure, and massive tax cuts for lower earners (who would be more likely to actually spend it than the richest 5% of the US population).

[gail]

It is not by any means a slander to say that someone who desired to commit a politically inspired murder was mentally unbalanced, and I don't feel the need to provide grief counseling along with my analysis. The "shame on you" canard is a cheap attempt to avoid addressing the issue.

[gail]

James, the macabre reference to killing Rumsfeld is what the post was about.

[gail]

And I continue to maintain that the Great Man theory is twaddle.

[gail]

shame on you. this man had a son and people who cared about him. have you lost touch with your humanity?

Steve, Ritscher is the one who did harm to his family. My contention is that it was the result of mental unbalance, not simply indifference to their welfare.

[JJM]

"If Bush had listened to his far smarter father, 3000 US lives, plus a trillion dollars, could have been saved."

Alternatively, had his 'far smarter father' pushed on to Baghdad in the first place, then Saddam would have been history long ago.

[gail]

In any event, making Bush disappear would leave the Great Man theorists with Cheney, then a number of congresspeople and cabinet officers, none of whom, individually, would make much of a difference in long term strategy. The theory is just full of holes. It's fantasy, not practical politics.

[gail]

I thoroughly resent the idea that I should have to tiptoe around the memory of someone who had stalker-killer fantasies.

Unfortunately, while the Guardian readers who have contributed the comments that remain in this thread made their points in a reasonably decent way, some have attempted to be abusive, and I do not feel the need to contend with them.