Whether or not mom was the root problem of what terribly went wrong on October 2, 2006 we may never know. Regardless, on that day Charles Carl Roberts IV, a truck driver, who was considered to be a friend of the Amish, singled out several of their daughters for murder. His purported reason for doing so was revenge. The girls, ages six to sixteen, barely into the beginning of life, were shot as if they were plastic targets at a carnival-shooting booth. It was believed that behind the madness was a self-abasement syndrome, a malady that lay festering in Charles Roberts’ Id for twenty years. Carl Jung would have said that although Roberts might not have known it at the time, the illness and its latent reclusiveness was to have had profound consequences when it came between his inner and outer world. That when dissonance became so great then insanity sets in. Some degree of dissonance between the inner and outer world is common to all human beings, and the need to make any correction requires strong creative endeavor to maintain normalcy, which of course Roberts didn’t have. It required the mobilization of great psychic energy, which again, Roberts didn’t muster. The dementia was claimed to be the result of a confrontation that happened when he was just twelve years old, wherein, it exploded into a brutal murder at age thirty-two. Among the observations is that the murder had a misogynist side to it. Roberts only killed girls, boys were sent out of the room. In such a human anomaly we have to ask ourselves the following questions: Is there some sociopathic derailment here; a latent ‘off the track’ dementia in that the chromosomes of man’s DNA are tipped more toward Evil than Good?

Apparently, Roberts was normal ‘up to the point.’ That like the rest of us put his trousers on one leg at a time, ate breakfast, and then went off to work. But on October 2, 2006, something horrible went wrong. Roberts’ persona changed from normalcy into one of madness and his mind fell into a dark abyss.

Killing fields are all over the world, and such carnage is obviously not God’s reason for being. The secular world is restructuring its moral foundation for the shifting one of sand. Albeit, in some strange way are we not partly to blame for what happened to Charles Roberts? Obviously, he was a sociopath. Taking the lives of others, and his also, was a diminished and certifiable act. In snuffing out the lives of six prepubescent girls, it was just a matter of his simply pulling the trigger. So far, in neuropsychology and behavioral science, there is only conjecture as to why he went on this deadly spree. Who’s to say what went on in his mind? At age twelve, he may have seen females as useless inanimate beings, she-devils who made him loath himself. Instilled in his memory was a hate that later erupted into an irrevocable inclination to kill.

Before going on his deadly mission he scanned his weaponrythere was power in what he saw. When he arrived at the location, he carried with him a shotgun, a handgun, several cases of live amunition, chain, nails and plastic ties, which he used to hog tie his victims. Seeing these items carefully laid out helped to facilitate and lubricate his insane decision. The death-dealing arsenal gave its owner a feeling of immense self-sufficiency; indeed, it did give Roberts masterful and total control of the situation.

Apparently, in his brain, there was an ironic synaptic connection, one that sparked a latent declarative memory, a memory for facts, people and temporal events. Roberts’ paranoia grew with intensity, replaying incidents that were crushing to him. The sight of guns and the feel of cold steel intensified his roiling hysteria; all of which emblazoned the picture of what he had to do. Instantly, that sensory information corrupted Roberts’s pre-frontal cortex, that part of the brain that makes us who and what we are. Now he had an exciting and unstoppable mission, a deadly killing binge, one wherein he would execute young girls. After he shot and murdered six, (with some still critical from gun shot wounds) his brain finally said, Charles, there’s no use to go on, you’ve done what you had to do, so finish it off and put the gun to your head . . .

Today, we live in a world of unpredictable psychiatric disorders, those that compel its victims to kill for no reason at all. To take one’s life with indifference is one thing, but taking the life of young and innocent girls, in cold blood, is something else. It’s proof that there is an animality in man’s dark nature, the divided self. What’s taking place is an anthropological misconstruction. A cultural degeneration seems to be taking place.

In 1964 Eric Hoffer, a versatile San Francisco long shore man, wrote a wildly popular book, “The temper of Our Time.” In it he said, “That if we are to awaken and cultivate the talents in a whole population, we must change our conception of what is useful.” Did he mean that that which could be useful included raising the nations moral outlook? Certainly, in the 60’s the slope was beginning to go up, not down, in the index of murder and civil disobedience.

Is life becoming meaningless? Recently, an old man was asked, “Is life more meaningful today than yesterday. Are times better now?” He replied, “Life isn’t and times aren’t! In the fifties and sixties we skidded into the slime of drugs and rampant sexuality. There was that phrase, ‘Turn on, tune in, drop out. Think for yourself and defy authority.’ People now defy authoritythey defy the law too. Life was slower before then, more respectful, not so material, not so contrary. Today, all over the world, there is conflict and error. That’s all you hear and see on TV. We are caught up and glued to the tube.”

Let me now digress and say something about television; add to the old man’s admonitions about TV. Conflict and error is presented by two mediums, and each has its own way of affecting our psyche. In writing this article, I feel that words provided a more discrete and comprehensive mental picture of the tragedy. Why? Because reading provokes thinking, it allows the mind to mull over a predicament. The printed word is more into thought and reasoning then that of audio/visual. Reading is more agreeable to the senses; it lets one escape from the noise and visual grip of TV. Most of the television we see today has a redundant format, one that is spooled over and over again. It’s true, in the world of entertainment; television holds a top position when it comes to being both informing and educational. But, at the same time it has metastasized itself into the human psyche. For the juvenile, video games are watering holes for cults, utopias and wild schemes. Many kids have become fixated with video kill games, some that they later play out in real life. The object is to destroy as many bad guys as you can, cops included. It is a mind gripping and challenging sport, one that inculcates combat and killing. In time, these young players will become the next generation’s archetypical leaders. It is hoped that such casual “recreation” will not impart Jung’s dissonant theory. Video kill games are an insidious implant and they ‘may’ do what I said earlier, ‘tip the player’s psyche toward doing great bodily harm.’

In this age of uncertain wisdom, we have to avoid providing things that might create the wrong Charles Roberts. We shouldn’t support dissolute or material constructs, sensory artifices that have pathological modalities. 
 Eric Bok, President Emeritus, of Harvard University, and the author of, “Our Underachieving Colleges,” writes about the lack of moral reasoning; he quotes the Socratic dictum, ‘that knowledge of the good will lead to a commitment to the good.’ Unfortunately it is a truism that is listlessly applied by the general population. President Bok says, that ‘Teaching Moral Reasoning,’ should not be a by-product of a university’s extensive curriculum. ’Professors are not teaching moral responsibility. What’s going on in the university is the lack of critical thinking, an atmosphere that’s inescapably political. What’s not being taught is man’s innate righteousness, his true purpose in life. Except in Catholic Colleges, and other church affiliated institutions, professors rarely touch on the subject of ethical reasoning.’

Had moral reasoning been imbedded unswervingly in Charles Roberts psyche, he would have had the power to overcome the insidious dissonance outlined by Jung. . Instead of having Rectitude and Self Righteousness formed early in Roberts life, instead the parable, “The good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do,” was the unfortunate result.”

The Amish believe in the Shakespearian epigram, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” There is a Spiritual versus Material dichotomy here. Had Roberts’ mind, reflected the divine Principal of man’s Goodness, instead that of mortal thinking, the Innocents would still be alive.

Hoffer said there is always incessant change, that which affects the path from boyhood to manhood. Never before has the passage been so uncertain, so explosive. And Bok wrote, “Most of the problems are not being seriously addressed. The quality of learning and teaching in our colleges is largely designed for other purposes. One can think of several reasons why the improved powers of moral reasoning and greater moral awareness ought to have some positive effect on man’s ( my italics) behavior.”

“On Jung” by Anthony Stevens, “Professor Jung was deeply impressed by a Pueblo chief whom he met on his visit to New Mexico during the winter of 1924-5. The chief described the alarm that the white Americans inspired in him.” ‘See how cruel the whites look,’ he said. ‘Their lips are thin, their noses sharp, their faces furrowed and distorted by folds. Their eyes have a staring expression: they are always seeking something. What are they seeking? They are always uneasy and restless. They have lost the capacity to think with the heart, and live through the soul.’”

What’s circulating in my mind at the end of all these aggravations is that [if] we do not learn to think with the heart, and live though the soul, then we are destined to hatch another “Generation of Vipers.”

References:

Our Underachieving Colleges, Derek Bok, Princeton University Press

On Jung, Anthony Stevens, Rutledge

The Temper Of Our Time, Eric Hoffer, Harper & Row

October 17, 2006

Cecil Ballerino

Palm Springs, California

Comments (1)

Vipers' Publication Date
written by Peter L. Winkler on November 18, 2006

Wylie's Generation of Vipers was first published in 1942.

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