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print 2005-12-01 The radical loser Hans Magnus Enzensberger looks at the kind of ideological trigger required to ignite the radical loser - whether amok killer, murderer or terrorist - and make him explode I The isolated individual It is difficult to talk about the loser, and it is stupid not to. Stupid because there can be no definitive winner and because each of us, from t he megalomaniac Bonaparte to the last beggar on the streets of Calcutta, will meet the same fate. Difficult because to content oneself with this metaphysical banality is to take an easy way out, as it ignores the tru ly explosive dimension of the problem, the political dimension. Instead of actually looking into the thousand faces of the loser, sociolo gists keep to their statistics: median value, standard deviation, normal distribution. It rarely occurs to them that they themselves might be am ong the losers.
Sa muel Butler says, the itching and the pain only get worse. One thing is certain: the way humanity has organized itself "capitalism", "competitio n", "empire", "globalization" not only does the number of losers increas e every day, but as in any large group, fragmentation soon sets in. In a chaotic, unfathomable process, the cohorts of the inferior, the defeate d, the victims separate out. But the radical loser isolates himself, becomes invisible, guards his delusion, saves his energy, and waits for his hour to come. Those who content themselves with the objective, material criteria, the i ndices of the economists and the devastating findings of the empiricists , will understand nothing of the true drama of the radical loser. What o thers think of him be they rivals or brothers, experts or neighbours, sc hoolmates, bosses, friends or foes is not sufficient motivation. The rad ical loser himself must take an active part, he must tell himself: I am a loser and nothing but a loser. As long as he is not convinced of this, life may treat him badly, he may be poor and powerless, he may know mis ery and defeat, but he will not become a radical loser until he adopts t he judgement of those who consider themselves winners as his own. Since before the attack on the World Trade Center, political scientists, sociologists and psychologists have been searching in vain for a reliabl e pattern. Neither poverty nor the experience of political repression al one seem to provide a satisfactory explanation for why young people acti vely seek out death in a grand bloody finale and aim to take as many peo ple with them as possible. Is there a phenotype that displays the same c haracteristics down the ages and across all classes and cultures? No one pays any mind to the radical loser if they do not have to. As long as he is alone and he is very much alone he does not hit out. But when he does draw attention to himself and enter the statistics, then he sparks consternation bordering on shock. For his very existence reminds the ot hers of how little it would take to put them in his position. One might even assist the loser if only he would give just up. But he has no inten tion of doing so, and it does not look as if he would be partial to any assistance. Many professions take the loser as the object of their studoes and as the basis for their existence. Social psychologists, social workers, social policy experts, criminologists, therapists and others who do not count themselves among the losers would be out of work without him. But with t he best will in the world, the client remains obscure to them: their emp athy knows clearly-defined professional bounds. One thing they do know i s that the radical loser is hard to get through to and, ultimately, unpr edictable. Identifying the one person among the hundreds passing through their offices and surgeries who is prepared to go all the way is more t han they are capable of. Maybe they sense that this is not just a social issue that can be repaired by bureaucratic means. In historical ter ms, this fear is very old, but today it is more justified than ever. Any one with the smallest scrap of power within society will at times feel s omething of the huge destructive energy that lies within the radical los er and which no intervention can neutralize, however well-meaning or ser ious it might be. This is the only solution to his problem th at he can imagine: a worsening of the evil conditions under which he suf fers. The newspapers run stories on him every week: the father of two wh o killed his wife, his small children and finally himself. Or the man who sudden ly barricades himself in his apartment, taking the landlord, who wanted money from him, as his hostage. When the police finally gets to the scen e, he starts shooting. He is then said to have "run amok", a word borrow ed from the Malayan. He kills an officer before collapsing in the shower of bullets. His wife's n agging perhaps, noisy neighbours, an argument at the pub, or the bank ca ncelling his loan. A disparaging remark from a superior is enough to mak e the man climb a tower and start firing at anything that moves outside the supermarket, not in spite of but precisely because of the fact that this massacre will accelerate his own end. At last, this radical loser he may be just fifteen and having a hard time with his spots at last, he is master over life and death. Then, in the newsreader's words, he "dies at his own hands" and the investigators get down to work. T he parents, neighbours, teachers noticed nothing unusual. A few bad grad es, for sure, a certain reticence the boy didn't talk much. But that is no reason to shoot dead a dozen of his schoolmates. The conclusion is reached that it was an He can explode at any moment. This is the only solution to his problem that he can imagine: a worsening of the evil conditions under w hich he suffers. The newspapers run stories on him every week: the father of two who kille d his wife, his small children and finally himself. Or the man who suddenly barr icades himself in his apartment, taking the landlord, who wanted money f rom him, as his hostage. When the police finally gets to the scene, he s tarts shooting. He is then said to have "run amok", a word borrowed from the Malayan. He kills an officer before collapsing in the shower of bul lets. His wife's nagging perhaps, noisy neighbours, an argument at the pub, or the bank cancellin g his loan. A disparaging remark from a superior is enough to make the m an climb a tower and start firing at anything that moves outside the sup ermarket, not in spite of but precisely because of the fact that this ma ssacre will accelerate his own end. Where on earth did he get that machi ne gunisolated case. This is correct, since the culprits are always isolated individuals who h ave found no access to a collective. And it is incorrect, since isolated cases of this kind are becoming more and more frequent. This increase l eads one to conclude that there are more and more radical losers. This might refer equally to th e world market or to an insurance company that refuses to pay. But anyone wishing to understand the radical loser would be well advised to go a little further back. Progress has not put an end to human suffer ing, but it has changed it in no small way. Over the past two centuries, the more successful societies have fought for and established new right s, new expectations and new demands. They have done away with the notion of an inevitable fate. They have put concepts like human dignity and hu man rights on the agenda. The have democratized the struggle for recogni tion and awakened expectations of equality which they are unable to fulf il. And at the same time, they have made sure that inequality is constan tly demonstrated to all of the planet's inhabitants round the clock on e very television channel. As a result, with every stage of progress, peop le's capacity for disappointment has increased accordingly.
book): "Instead, they are taken for granted and attenti on focuses on those ills that remain. And these remaining ills are subje ct to the law of increasing annoyance. The more negative elements disapp ear from reality, the more annoying the remaining negative elements beco me...
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