and went after them where it hurts.

no way he was getting out alive.

he probably knew that. he probably wanted it that way.

History is replete with mentions of the "deceptively benign look of evil". Heaven knows his photo seemed to depict a pleasant man that we all might have enjoyed meeting.

And, yet, this man went on a violent vengeful rampage....

I think many will be content to leave it in discrete (black and white) terms and just conclude him to be a horrible, evil man. Heaven knows attempts to explore the complexities of this situation are almost certainly going to be met with accusation that those who do so are somehow defending his horrible deeds.

But, that is not very satisfying to those looking for more than simplistic answers....

Personally, I have very little use for the word evil. It's too simplistic. I virtually never apply it to individuals no matter what they've done. It explains nothing. What he did was certainly vile. I've read his manifesto carefully- 3x now. I think it reflects on a sick mind.

Can some good come out of his murderous spree? Perhaps. And that would be a positive thing, but I wouldn't credit him for it.

nothing less, nothing more.

typically it's a general reference meaning insane, in that sense the word is often used to mean out of touch with reality--psychotic. It also means beyond normal order, which sounds like a non-specific theoretical definition of pathology.

If Dorner fit some general criteria of being psychologically deranged, then he would also have met some specific criteria. IOW there is something more to be said.

an almost desperate linking of things that have no logical connection.

Comparing him to Trayvon Martin is off base. The author claims that as with Martin, how you view Dorner is "a function of where you sit politically, ideologically, and racially.". I doubt that holds true.

And this is just utterly dishonest bullshit:

"Dorner is the African-American, "hulking, 270-pound former college football player" who was armed and dangerous. He was the 21st century echo of the "giant negroes" who attacked "innocent" white people as heralded in sensationalistic American newspaper headlines in the late 19th and early to mid-20th centuries. "

This author is surely aware that neither Michelle Quan nor her fiancee were white.

The article goes steeply downhill from there.

"Perhaps, Christopher Dorner will be transformed through popular culture and storytelling into a figure talked about for decades and centuries to come, with multiple versions of his tales and exploits, shaped by the griots and bards for their respective audiences? "

Highly unlikely that Dorner will become a "folk hero".

The author claims he's a Rorschach test. Only in the sense that everything is.

"In total, Christopher Dorner is a Rorschach test. We will see in him what our life experiences, cognitive maps, and life worlds, have taught us about violence, trust, the State, racism, and the police. Irrespective of how individual members of the public perceive Christopher Dorner, institutional power sees him, and folks like him, quite correctly, as a threat."

Dorner committed suicide by cop. The author ignores that.

"You can call him Django, Bigger Thomas, a badman, a bad nigger, or Dan Freeman. Regardless, Christopher Dorner will not live to tell anymore tales. I would suspect that he knew such a fact and had already accepted it. Such a decision made him all the more lethal. "

More bullshit:

"As he sat, surrounded, in that cabin with his foes having now encircled and closed in, was Dorner meditating on his role as an anti-hero to some, a villain to others? Did he make peace with the outcome and the consequences of his decision to shoot and kill several people? He fought “The “Man.” But, in the end, did “The Man” really win? Given the bloody end of the Christopher Dorner saga the public will likely never get a clear answer."

Fought the man or went on rage fueled rampage that entailed murdering people who had nothing to do with what he claims happened to him?

I think the admiration the author feels toward Dornan (and that admiration is clear. It doesn't take much reading between the lines to get that), is misplaced.

I listened to some of the news reports and really was not engaged by Dorner.

The LAPD's response by shooting up the 2 ladies in the truck, left me questioning their policies, procedures, training and those involved, but Dorner.............

I don't believe we have to have an opinion on every issue.

Last edited Wed Feb 13, 2013, 11:55 AM - Edit history (1)

that we (as in some members of society), might want to have some understanding of Dorner.

Gun violence is a complicated problem that will only be partly solved with bans on high capacity magazines, 5-cent taxes per bullet, enhancements to the National Instant (background) Check System, or SWAT teams setting a barracaded dwelling on fire.

Preventing gun violence also requires having an understanding of how it is that a person moves into being a spree killer. We can't act to prevent what we don't see coming. In most intentional searching we don't notice something outside the image of our search.

So society as a whole, and to some extent each of us as individuals, need to have understanding of the signs we need to notice.


In a case like Dorner's that means the collective 'we' of society needs to work to understand how something like the basic human need for self-esteem can turn the ubiquitous basic primate sensitivity to unfairness (over something like getting fired, which is a traumatic personal event but relatively common) into an obsessive embitterment that over years grew to be the lens for Dorner's personal view of life.

Dorner's embittered perspective seems to have been acquired. His intellect, and management of his behavior had moved him to being a officer in the naval reserve (an indication of fairly high psycho-social performance) before it turned him into a murderer. If those around him knew what to watch for, they might have had some chance to notice him settle into the painful and dysfunctional worldview which Dorner named in his manifesto. Perhaps there could have been intervention and mitigation of his view of life as a long-sequence of injustices.

From the viewpoint of speculation about why we may need to understand Dorner, a rationale seems to be the principle that prevention of another episode like Dorner's requires such understanding.

That what he did worked. Maybe moreso than what he thought. He litteraly tipped the hand of the LAPD.