Blog/2025-02-24/Luigi Mangione Fandom Is Bad
I was at a friend's barbecue the other day and we were playing Wavelength when Luigi Mangione came up. I wasn't particularly surprised that I was in the minority in my belief that he's a bad guy. Neither I nor the others there pushed the subject, obviously, but the view of this straightforward murderer as a hero might change over time and I want to pre-register my position that he's a killer and random political violence is not a good thing for society.
I don't think it's true that Violent Reprisal Is Never Warranted. I also don't think it's true that Diffuse Harm Should Never Be Met With Specific Retaliation. Absolute stances like this are not useful in testing society's edges.
I just don't believe that a descent into political violence is advantageous to any of the people I know. This is particularly because the people I know with this opinion have not lived in countries where political violence is anywhere near common. The only surefire thing I can say about this sort of thing is that encouraging it tends to cause it to spread and the set of plausible 'enemies of the people' grows out of control of one's original intentions.
The other thing is that as random acts of violence grow, government services tend to start failing. This is from the natural negative effects to the economy, then the knock-on effects of fear stalling action, and then finally the state transferring unwillingly all power to the kind of person most willing to do the most harm at the least motivation.
There are lots of things I love about America, but one of my favourite things about this country (and most developed countries) is that I can drink water from the taps and the gas is piped into the home metered at a granular level. I really don't want that to stop.
