Imagine for a moment that you’re 22 years old. You’re healthy, you’ve had a good education, you’re pretty bright. You have a family that’s close; you’re not isolated. You live in a peaceful beautiful place among a population that’s reasonably happy.
How do you come to decide to throw your life away by killing someone you don’t even know? Who hasn’t done a single thing to you, ever, except maybe you disagree with him (and maybe not even that)? You never even spoke to him. Never even tried (probably).
How do you get to the point where you can’t even see your victim as a person, with his own family, with friends, with people who will be terribly hurt by losing him?
Too many people over too much time have arrived at points like that. If we’re so smart, if people can create mRNA vaccines and CERN and mechanical watches and War and Peace, why can’t we keep people away from ending up in a place like that in their lives, and (especially) acting on it?
Maybe there’s something here that could help. Revenge, it turns out, is very much like drug addiction. We’ve made a lot of progress in understanding and controlling drug addiction.
