[OT] Charles Manson - Insane lunatic or Innocent and misunderstood

[Bunford]

Just curious. Watched about 3 hours worth of stuff this morning on him. Found some YouTube user called BackyardTrash who had loads of interviews with him etc.

Hard to believe maybe, but he seems to be very intelligent, honest (though might be lying through his teeth obviously) and probably ahead of his time.

He argues that his main belief is that he was fighting a war on behalf on the planet and believed a holy/race war would come to punish us for messing up the planet. He argues that he followed a belief that the planet was more important than each and every human and that something needed to be done to give the planet the attention it deserves. Seems like the "Family" murders were to try and spark up this war that they believed was coming (which didn't happen when the "Family" predicted, hence them trying to start it then) and trigger something in us all to take note of how we were messing the planet up (though obviously completely the WRONG way to go about it!).

Obviously the whole thing is VERY wrong as entirely innocent people got murdered and people got led astray, and he is probably very clever to manipulate people like he did, but listening to him over many different interviews spanning decades, the constants always there seem to be maintaining honesty and truthfulness, keep pushing the human race messing up the planet and environment agenda and claiming that he is innocent and never broke the law apart from petty crimes he was found guilty for at a young age and served time for.

Just left me feeling a bit bewiledered by it all as I'd never really delved into it before, and like most had made a judgement and knowing very little about the ins and outs of the whole tragedy. Clearly seems like there's a few things loose in there, but if you put time into watching interviews etc you might see that he often seems to be playing up to the "insane" role cos his media notoriety had led it to a place where that's what people expect from him. He claims he plays up to this as the more publicity he gets, the more aware he can make us about the environment and the planet, and he even claims to have started the human race's realisation on how we were damaging the planet.

In the interviews it stated that he could barely read or write, but was a very gifted musician who nearly broke into the mainstream and had an IQ level of about 140-150, which is classed as genius level IQ medically.

It's a strange one, but left me a bit bemused and confused by it all. I mostly think he is probably mental, and guilty of leading a 'cult' into murdering people, but I also kind of find him strangely valid and ahead of his time with a lot of what he says.

A very strange thing to be doing first thing in the morning!

[DvlsAdvct]

There's a fine line between genius and madness

[Bunford]

Yeah... uh... innocent? No. Misunderstood? He carved a swastika into his forehead before he went in front of a parole board. He didn't draw it, he didn't use makeup. He carved it into his forehead.

*shrug* He's not necessarily insane, but he's definitely not innocent, and I think he has made his points kinda clear.

In terms of this, he was clearly mental to do this (as anyone who would be to carve anything on their foreheads!), but people often link this to evilness by mistaking the swastika for a racist/evil symbol, purely because it was used by Nazi Germany in recent history.

However, many years prior to Hitler, and throughout history, the swastika originates from what is thought to be Buddhist, Hindus and Pagans, who consider it to be a symbol of peace, and who also follow similar beliefs in terms of protecting the planet etc as Manson claims to have done (though this could obviously be a cover up for someone who's racist at heart and used it in the Nazi form).

[djcaptainshawn]

Another interesting guy to look up too is Ted Kacyzinksi AKA the UNABOMBER! lol we went over him recently in my enviro ethics class. My professor is actually pen pals with him and co-authored a book with him haha


"Our society tends to regard as a sickness any mode of thought or behavior that is inconvenient for the system and this is plausible because when an individual doesn't fit into the system it causes pain to the individual as well as problems for the system. Thus the manipulation of an individual to adjust him to the system is seen as a cure for a sickness and therefore as good."
— Theodore Kaczynski


pretty interesting guy, plus he was a genius. complete prodigy at math.

[wrong chris]

there's no correlation between intelligence and sanity.


you got dumbfuck crazy ass murderers and you got genius crazy ass murderers.

[DvlsAdvct]

In terms of this, he was clearly mental to do this (as anyone who would be to carve anything on their foreheads!), but people often link this to evilness by mistaking the swastika for a racist/evil symbol, purely because it was used by Nazi Germany in recent history.

Yeah I know that. If he wanted to make his point about peace he could have used a MILLION other symbols. *shrug* Unfortunately, the swastika has been co-opted and its meaning has been destroyed.

[Karlos Santos]

Thing is it though, he didnt use the Swastika as symbol of peace.
He used it cus hes fucking mental and wanted to shock and cus he knows the symbol will cause outrage. Nothing more clever or intelligent than 'I want to shock'


You cant 'always' explain behaviour as having some higher meaning or thoughtful process or being bad but considered.
Sometimes, after all the yadda yadda and what seems like intelligence and reasoning, sometimes you just gotta say "Your just fucking mental"

[Jester]

Dahmer was intelligent too. And he woulda got away with it too, if wasn't for those pesky kids ... and the smell from the 45 gallon drums in his kitchen filled with torso's grossing out the neighbours (no bs, look it up)

[Bunford]

Thing is it though, he didnt use the Swastika as symbol of peace.
He used it cus hes fucking mental and wanted to shock and cus he knows the symbol will cause outrage. Nothing more clever or intelligent than 'I want to shock'


You cant 'always' explain behaviour as having some higher meaning or thoughtful process or being bad but considered.
Sometimes, after all the yadda yadda and what seems like intelligence and reasoning, sometimes you just gotta say "Your just fucking mental"

This made me chuckle

[Bunford]

Dahmer was intelligent too. And he woulda got away with it too, if wasn't for those pesky kids ... and the smell from the 45 gallon drums in his kitchen filled with torso's grossing out the neighbours (no bs, look it up)

Jeffrey Dahmer is another one. I've a weird thing about trying to work out the psychosis of what society/justice system deems as insane, which usually involves taking an interest in serial killers as they're usually the glorified 'insane' people. I'm not weird, honest! Well, not that weird, at least .

In seriousness though, I find it all interesting, especially if they're people who seem abnormally intelligent compared to the norm cos I believe that if you're truly that intelligent (as some of them like Dahmer, and possibly Manson clealy are), you know there's likely to be specific consequences to your actions and you would only carry out specific actions knowing that it'll result in a specific consequence.

However, trying to figure out why these people still want to lead themselves onto these consequences when they're clearly quite superior in intelligene-terms is quite fascinating to try and work out. Can you tell I was a psychology student?

I think it's all fascinating anyway