05-31-2021, 09:34 AM
Two to add: Rachel Carson and Jack Kerouac, definitely misfits of the GI Generation.
It is likely best that we forget the garden-variety criminals. Many of them had big problems in childhood, like growing up in extremely dysfunctional families (abuse, neglect), getting exposed to too much environmental lead, or having head injuries resulting from some accident (let us say getting kicked in the head by a horse). They may be dullards who think that they can do crime better than some schmuck on a TV drama and simply make different mistakes.
Or, as with mobsters, they come from criminal cultures in which becoming a mobster is a possibility.
It is likely best that we forget the garden-variety criminals. Many of them had big problems in childhood, like growing up in extremely dysfunctional families (abuse, neglect), getting exposed to too much environmental lead, or having head injuries resulting from some accident (let us say getting kicked in the head by a horse). They may be dullards who think that they can do crime better than some schmuck on a TV drama and simply make different mistakes.
Or, as with mobsters, they come from criminal cultures in which becoming a mobster is a possibility.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.