Charles Manson is dead at 83
November 19, 2017 10:30 PM Subscribe
Charles Manson, the mass murderer and cultural icon, has died. (NYT link) He was convicted of the murders of 9 people, most famously Sharon Tate (wife of Roman Polanski, the movie director). However, Manson was not physically present for any of the killings, which were carried out by his followers, known as the "Manson family."
From the obituary:
From the obituary:
To the end of his life, Mr. Manson denied having ordered the Tate-LaBianca murders. Nor, as he replied to a question he was often asked, did he feel remorse, in any case.
He said as much in 1986 in a prison interview with the television journalist Charlie Rose.
“So you didn’t care?” Mr. Rose asked, invoking Ms. Tate and her unborn child.
“Care?” Mr. Manson replied.
He added, “What the hell does that mean, ‘care’?”
*shrug*. No big loss.
posted by happyroach at 10:40 PM on November 19, 2017
posted by happyroach at 10:40 PM on November 19, 2017
. for Abigail Folger
. for Wojciech Frykowski
. for Leno LaBianca
. for Rosemary LaBianca
. for Jay Sebring
. for Donald Shea
. for Sharon Tate
posted by RakDaddy at 10:46 PM on November 19, 2017 [134 favorites]
. for Wojciech Frykowski
. for Leno LaBianca
. for Rosemary LaBianca
. for Jay Sebring
. for Donald Shea
. for Sharon Tate
posted by RakDaddy at 10:46 PM on November 19, 2017 [134 favorites]
Okay.
If you haven’t read it, Helter Skelter is a good true crime account of the incident.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:49 PM on November 19, 2017 [12 favorites]
If you haven’t read it, Helter Skelter is a good true crime account of the incident.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:49 PM on November 19, 2017 [12 favorites]
For a good historical background YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS podcast season Charles Manson's Hollywood gives an in depth, contextual and unsensational account of the build up and aftermath of the murders.
posted by The Whelk at 10:53 PM on November 19, 2017 [74 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 10:53 PM on November 19, 2017 [74 favorites]
Well, he completed his life sentence...
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:53 PM on November 19, 2017 [11 favorites]
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:53 PM on November 19, 2017 [11 favorites]
Seconding The Whelk there.
posted by Artw at 10:55 PM on November 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 10:55 PM on November 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
So odd to think he has died. It's not so much that I thought he was immortal, more that for my whole life his name has been a shorthand for pure evil still in existence (unlike, say, Hitler).
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:00 PM on November 19, 2017 [16 favorites]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:00 PM on November 19, 2017 [16 favorites]
One of the first "do evil things just to become famous" creeps. Good Riddance.
posted by Beholder at 11:04 PM on November 19, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Beholder at 11:04 PM on November 19, 2017 [2 favorites]
Charles Manson Talks to Timothy Leary About Death.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 11:11 PM on November 19, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Mr. Yuck at 11:11 PM on November 19, 2017 [3 favorites]
no punctuation in this thread no punctuation in this thread no punctuation in this thread
posted by mazola at 11:11 PM on November 19, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by mazola at 11:11 PM on November 19, 2017 [4 favorites]
Yeah, fuck that evil fucker, he doesn't deserve any recognition whatsoever if you ask me.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:20 PM on November 19, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:20 PM on November 19, 2017 [2 favorites]
I was born in 1971.... he has always been the pinocle of “very scary, bad prisoner guy” throughout my life. It’s really odd that he is now gone. Huh.
posted by pearlybob at 11:22 PM on November 19, 2017
posted by pearlybob at 11:22 PM on November 19, 2017
Well, I’ll give my dot
.
For all those with mental illness who have been abandoned by the system, who’ve died in prison when institutionalization and healthcare would have prevented their crimes. For those marginalized people whose dignity and security we denied when it was needed most. For those who were told you aren’t worthy of compassion and healing, that you deserved the ostracism you received when the one person you loved as a child traded you for a pitcher of beer, and we could do nothing for you. For those who had people who thought your anger at the world was funny or inspiring or heroic instead of a cry for help from a profoundly damaged human.
Mr. Manson’s story is being replayed every single day in America. Fortunately, there are fewer dumb people projecting their need for a savior upon them and fewer rich people without burglar alarms and bodyguards for them to prey upon.
But children who grew up with fucked up parents and untreated mental illness still get locked up at unacceptable rates and die behind bars when a compassionate society could easily prevent this. My only consolation is that the death penalty was temporarily (and correctly) considered barbaric and Mr. Manson was spared the taxpayer-funded ceremonial death that hundreds of society’s other failures endured.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 11:25 PM on November 19, 2017 [133 favorites]
.
For all those with mental illness who have been abandoned by the system, who’ve died in prison when institutionalization and healthcare would have prevented their crimes. For those marginalized people whose dignity and security we denied when it was needed most. For those who were told you aren’t worthy of compassion and healing, that you deserved the ostracism you received when the one person you loved as a child traded you for a pitcher of beer, and we could do nothing for you. For those who had people who thought your anger at the world was funny or inspiring or heroic instead of a cry for help from a profoundly damaged human.
Mr. Manson’s story is being replayed every single day in America. Fortunately, there are fewer dumb people projecting their need for a savior upon them and fewer rich people without burglar alarms and bodyguards for them to prey upon.
But children who grew up with fucked up parents and untreated mental illness still get locked up at unacceptable rates and die behind bars when a compassionate society could easily prevent this. My only consolation is that the death penalty was temporarily (and correctly) considered barbaric and Mr. Manson was spared the taxpayer-funded ceremonial death that hundreds of society’s other failures endured.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 11:25 PM on November 19, 2017 [133 favorites]
. / not .
I am conflicted. Part of me is happy a murderer and manipulator of a frightening calibre is gone from the world. Part of me has learned from where I work at a mental health non-profit, as well as my own mental health issues, that it's just not as easy as that.
posted by Samizdata at 11:30 PM on November 19, 2017 [7 favorites]
I am conflicted. Part of me is happy a murderer and manipulator of a frightening calibre is gone from the world. Part of me has learned from where I work at a mental health non-profit, as well as my own mental health issues, that it's just not as easy as that.
posted by Samizdata at 11:30 PM on November 19, 2017 [7 favorites]
Fun (?) Fact: Manson wanted black people to be blamed for the murders and hoped the slayings would incite a race war.
posted by asteria at 11:30 PM on November 19, 2017 [17 favorites]
posted by asteria at 11:30 PM on November 19, 2017 [17 favorites]
Needs SPITTING ON GRAVE emoji.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:32 PM on November 19, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:32 PM on November 19, 2017 [7 favorites]
well, this may be the first perfect place to use the 💩 (poop) emoji
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:35 PM on November 19, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:35 PM on November 19, 2017 [3 favorites]
Twitter has been being Twitter about the news
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:39 PM on November 19, 2017
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:39 PM on November 19, 2017
Generally I tend to agree with John Donne when he wrote, “Any man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in Mankind.”
Generally.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:39 PM on November 19, 2017 [17 favorites]
Generally.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:39 PM on November 19, 2017 [17 favorites]
For a good historical background YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS podcast
Tried it, and it is a well-made podcast, but the Herostratus rule applies: his name is best forgotten.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 11:54 PM on November 19, 2017 [7 favorites]
Tried it, and it is a well-made podcast, but the Herostratus rule applies: his name is best forgotten.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 11:54 PM on November 19, 2017 [7 favorites]
Is it just me, or does the world seem lighter?
posted by paladin at 11:55 PM on November 19, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by paladin at 11:55 PM on November 19, 2017 [4 favorites]
Mercy and compassion for Manson's victims and their loved ones (except Polanski, screw Polanski).
Mercy, compassion, and justice to mentally ill, impoverished, and incarcerated people of color, who suffer the concentrated trauma of white supremacy—the crushing everyday grind style of white supremacy, more publically sanctioned than the style of a vicious white supremacist serial killer trying to start a "race war," but just as devastating.
posted by nicebookrack at 11:59 PM on November 19, 2017 [18 favorites]
Mercy, compassion, and justice to mentally ill, impoverished, and incarcerated people of color, who suffer the concentrated trauma of white supremacy—the crushing everyday grind style of white supremacy, more publically sanctioned than the style of a vicious white supremacist serial killer trying to start a "race war," but just as devastating.
posted by nicebookrack at 11:59 PM on November 19, 2017 [18 favorites]
And here I thought he was already dead!
Hot takes are crap in general, but I think "weep for Manson and his untreated mental illness" is a giant, fresh, steaming pile of dogshit. There are plenty of untreated mentally ill people who go through incredibly horrible things and yet somehow manage to not start murder cults. Just like there are plenty of untreated mentally ill people who manage to not become mass shooters. Upbringing can fuck you up good but it takes a special kind of sociopathy to go where Manson went. I'll save my sympathy for the people who aren't into stabbing people to death, thanks,
posted by Anonymous at 12:13 AM on November 20, 2017
Hot takes are crap in general, but I think "weep for Manson and his untreated mental illness" is a giant, fresh, steaming pile of dogshit. There are plenty of untreated mentally ill people who go through incredibly horrible things and yet somehow manage to not start murder cults. Just like there are plenty of untreated mentally ill people who manage to not become mass shooters. Upbringing can fuck you up good but it takes a special kind of sociopathy to go where Manson went. I'll save my sympathy for the people who aren't into stabbing people to death, thanks,
posted by Anonymous at 12:13 AM on November 20, 2017
Joan Didion, in The White Album, perfectly nails the ambient sense of dread that hovered in California in the late '60s and was ultimately seen to be justified by the Manson murders. This is a not bad response to Didion, and Manson, and what those murders engendered in our culture.
And yes, compassion to the victims, compassion to the easily manipulated, and rage directed at a system that helps create such things as this great American folk devil and rage at the horror he unleashed.
http://boatagainstthecurrent.blogspot.ca/2009/08/quote-of-day-joan-didion-on-manson.html
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 12:14 AM on November 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
And yes, compassion to the victims, compassion to the easily manipulated, and rage directed at a system that helps create such things as this great American folk devil and rage at the horror he unleashed.
http://boatagainstthecurrent.blogspot.ca/2009/08/quote-of-day-joan-didion-on-manson.html
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 12:14 AM on November 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
He was exactly what Nixon's America wanted, the Evil Hippie. I'm not kidding, underneath the natural sense of horror and revulsion at his crimes, there was an unspoken but palpable sense of, well, relief. I sometimes had a notion that there was real irony in this, in that for all practical purposes, he was pretty much a poster child for capitalism: identify your market, cultivate and exploit.
posted by Chitownfats at 12:17 AM on November 20, 2017 [23 favorites]
posted by Chitownfats at 12:17 AM on November 20, 2017 [23 favorites]
He was exactly what Nixon's America wanted, the Evil Hippie.
I remember him being asked long ago about being a child of the sixties. He scoffed and corrected the interviewer: "I'm a child of the fifties!"
And that was exactly his point. He and the hippies weren't a cause they were a consequence. As usual the ones who most needed to hear it weren't listening.
posted by klanawa at 12:28 AM on November 20, 2017 [14 favorites]
I remember him being asked long ago about being a child of the sixties. He scoffed and corrected the interviewer: "I'm a child of the fifties!"
And that was exactly his point. He and the hippies weren't a cause they were a consequence. As usual the ones who most needed to hear it weren't listening.
posted by klanawa at 12:28 AM on November 20, 2017 [14 favorites]
There are plenty of untreated mentally ill people who go through incredibly horrible things and yet somehow manage to not start murder cults.
Yes, but most of them were so impaired they couldn’t attract followers. Many received mandatory sentences to mental illness facilities where they were medicated and held against their will. When we were lucky, they were incarcerated before their big murder spree. In my stupid naive, bleeding heart world we regocnize Mr. Manson is profoundly impaired at like his second or third conviction and move him into quality mental health treatment with extremely close observation. Or we just accept that random people are evil killers and there’s nothing we can do until the damage is done and then we put them to death or incarcerate them forever.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 12:30 AM on November 20, 2017 [14 favorites]
Yes, but most of them were so impaired they couldn’t attract followers. Many received mandatory sentences to mental illness facilities where they were medicated and held against their will. When we were lucky, they were incarcerated before their big murder spree. In my stupid naive, bleeding heart world we regocnize Mr. Manson is profoundly impaired at like his second or third conviction and move him into quality mental health treatment with extremely close observation. Or we just accept that random people are evil killers and there’s nothing we can do until the damage is done and then we put them to death or incarcerate them forever.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 12:30 AM on November 20, 2017 [14 favorites]
It's about damned time. Now Dog, can you solve that pesky Kissinger issue? Then I could die in peace.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 12:39 AM on November 20, 2017 [11 favorites]
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 12:39 AM on November 20, 2017 [11 favorites]
For various reasons my punk social circle had a fascination for Manson. I wasn't immune - I read Gentry & Bugliosi's book nonstop for a while. This week, a copy turned up at my library's monthly book sale and I took it home. It's a great book if you like true crime, but oh my, the details hurt to read now that I'm no longer an asshole in my teens. I tossed it. Good riddance.
posted by goofyfoot at 12:56 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by goofyfoot at 12:56 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
So odd to think he has died. It's not so much that I thought he was immortal, more that for my whole life his name has been a shorthand for pure evil still in existence (unlike, say, Hitler).
a song for this thought
But children who grew up with fucked up parents and untreated mental illness still get locked up at unacceptable rates and die behind bars when a compassionate society could easily prevent this.
But children who grew up with fucked up parents and untreated mental illness still get locked up at unacceptable rates and die behind bars when a compassionate society could easily prevent this.
I can get behind this take for some of his followers much more than for the guy himself.
posted by atoxyl at 12:57 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
a song for this thought
But children who grew up with fucked up parents and untreated mental illness still get locked up at unacceptable rates and die behind bars when a compassionate society could easily prevent this.
But children who grew up with fucked up parents and untreated mental illness still get locked up at unacceptable rates and die behind bars when a compassionate society could easily prevent this.
I can get behind this take for some of his followers much more than for the guy himself.
posted by atoxyl at 12:57 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
For some reason a lot of people have a fascination with Manson, and that kind of thing. I'm not condemning the interest, I just have never understood it. It was tragic, and now he's gone. I don't really care to know anything more about him.
posted by bongo_x at 1:03 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by bongo_x at 1:03 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
When I read Helter Skelter in the late 70s, I remember thinking that author and Manson prosecutor Bugliosi was far more dangerous and to be feared than Manson could ever be, and I believe the trajectory of this country since then has borne that out.
posted by jamjam at 1:09 AM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by jamjam at 1:09 AM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
Back when killing 7 people was a big deal
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 1:12 AM on November 20, 2017 [82 favorites]
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 1:12 AM on November 20, 2017 [82 favorites]
Ya know with all the horrific mass shootings and stuff going on, lately Manson hasn’t seemed that different. I’ve read “Helter Skelter” and many longform stories about what went down that night.
I read an in-depth book about the Columbine shooting and many stories about Sandy Hook. I listened to my aunt tell me about shooting drills with her preschoolers where they huddled on the floor in a locked bathroom in the dark. I read about Gabby Gifford shot in the face and about Timothy McVeigh and the Charleston murderer and others more than I’ve wanted to.
Fuck Manson but don’t ever think he’s special or seperate in any way. He was supposedly the first in a long line of killers but he doesn’t deserve any kind of recognition.
I love the trend these days of not saying the killer’s name. We don’t need another MANSON.
posted by bendy at 1:16 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
I read an in-depth book about the Columbine shooting and many stories about Sandy Hook. I listened to my aunt tell me about shooting drills with her preschoolers where they huddled on the floor in a locked bathroom in the dark. I read about Gabby Gifford shot in the face and about Timothy McVeigh and the Charleston murderer and others more than I’ve wanted to.
Fuck Manson but don’t ever think he’s special or seperate in any way. He was supposedly the first in a long line of killers but he doesn’t deserve any kind of recognition.
I love the trend these days of not saying the killer’s name. We don’t need another MANSON.
posted by bendy at 1:16 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
on the mental illness point-- manson knew what he was doing. he understood what society is and his role within it to the point that he wanted to start a race war. he was not hallucinating or delusional in the sense that he thought his victims were demons or ghosts or satans, like a schizophrenic person might. he may have suffered from mental illness as a clinical matter or be fairly called "crazy" in everyday parlance, but i would very much hesitate to classify him as insane for legal, criminal purposes.
of course mental healthcare--and all healthcare-- is badly underprovided in the US. But it is very hard to draw these lines into the criminal law, beyond excluding those who really do not understand what they are doing. if we think manson is mentally ill in a sense we want to have codified into law, then that opens the door to having a whole heck of a lot of people classified that way, and a whole system of criminally insane institutions that could easily be worse than our current prison system in the US, with forced medication and all kinds of other crazy shit. not to say the current system is good, but be careful what you wish for.
posted by wibari at 1:40 AM on November 20, 2017 [18 favorites]
of course mental healthcare--and all healthcare-- is badly underprovided in the US. But it is very hard to draw these lines into the criminal law, beyond excluding those who really do not understand what they are doing. if we think manson is mentally ill in a sense we want to have codified into law, then that opens the door to having a whole heck of a lot of people classified that way, and a whole system of criminally insane institutions that could easily be worse than our current prison system in the US, with forced medication and all kinds of other crazy shit. not to say the current system is good, but be careful what you wish for.
posted by wibari at 1:40 AM on November 20, 2017 [18 favorites]
- There are plenty of untreated mentally ill people who go through incredibly horrible things and yet somehow manage to not start murder cults.
- Yes, but most of them were so impaired they couldn’t attract followers.
- So...the argument is that mental illness deprived him of judgment just enough to make him a victim but just not enough to make him ineffective? May the wave of middle fingers from every sufferer less or more impaired who stopped well short of what Manson did crash loud on this stupid fucking beach of yours.
IIRC Slarty is a mental health professional. And on preview, ditto: Manson is not special or separate.
I would add re: untreated mentally ill people who go through horrible things and don't start murder cults, yes indeed, there are those who manage to do that. There are those who get care and create better lives; there are those who can't get healthcare and still manage to create better lives as well. Then there are those who don't, as well as those who are members of groups wherein no matter how charismatic or manipulative, they'll never be accorded the power we as a society give to white men. When you hear "savior", what's the image that immediately comes to mind? It's a white man, right? It's not a white woman. Hell, it's not a woman at all. A savior is automatically male in our society. I grew up with a mother who sure as hell would have started a cult if society accorded women the unblinking faith that patriarchy assigns to men. (It's the unblinking faith that's the problem; genuine equality would help people see that there's no such thing as saviors.) My mother regularly wished death on me. One of my most poignant childhood memories is when Diane Downs killed one of her daughters and tried to kill her other two children on a bridge near our family home. My mother's reaction on learning the news was to sigh, look at me and say something along the lines of, "if she hadn't been caught, I'd have done the same thing." Over the next few months, wishing she could murder me and not get caught became a regular refrain.
I'm going to do a rare thing here and point at my posting history and ask all of you: have I ever wished a life sentence on my mother? Have I ever wished for her punishment or any harm to come to her? No. Do I wish she'd have been given proper mental health treatment? Not only do I wish it, I tried as hard as my childhood self could to support her when she saw psychiatrists and psychologists. The problem was her self-hatred was so ensconced, she was unable to recognize that the daughter she proclaimed she hated and wanted to die, was a reflection of her own issues with her childhood. She couldn't kill her childhood; she didn't yet have the self-awareness to face it; so she wanted to kill me, the living representative of it. She was never able to see me as a separate human being. That's also why I cut off contact with her. I've never put it in those terms in writing, because usually we're looking at things from a survivor's viewpoint, where it's important to see the surivivor's individuality. But perpetrators are also individuals. My life separate from her, forces her to face the fact that she can't kill the external image of her childhood (me) any more than she can kill the nightmare that she finds so hard to face within herself.
Another was the son of my French teacher, Faith Kinkel. Sweet kid, very shy, prime target for bullying. Bullying was not the problem – having schizophrenia was. His went untreated. He was shy and bullied, see, so he wasn't seen as having mental illness, he was seen as a kid who took out his issues on others. Only his parents pushed for his schizophrenia to be treated. He was a young teen boy.
His parents were the first people he killed. Faith died atrociously, while telling her son she loved him. Kip remembers it; he'll carry that memory throughout his life in prison. He's also well aware people hate him for what he did.
Your feelings towards criminals are your own, but hatred is only too familiar to those who commit these sorts of crimes. Hatred doesn't stop them. Maybe we should try something else, and no, setting criminals free isn't what anyone here is arguing. Better mental healthcare is.
posted by fraula at 1:46 AM on November 20, 2017 [95 favorites]
- Yes, but most of them were so impaired they couldn’t attract followers.
- So...the argument is that mental illness deprived him of judgment just enough to make him a victim but just not enough to make him ineffective? May the wave of middle fingers from every sufferer less or more impaired who stopped well short of what Manson did crash loud on this stupid fucking beach of yours.
IIRC Slarty is a mental health professional. And on preview, ditto: Manson is not special or separate.
I would add re: untreated mentally ill people who go through horrible things and don't start murder cults, yes indeed, there are those who manage to do that. There are those who get care and create better lives; there are those who can't get healthcare and still manage to create better lives as well. Then there are those who don't, as well as those who are members of groups wherein no matter how charismatic or manipulative, they'll never be accorded the power we as a society give to white men. When you hear "savior", what's the image that immediately comes to mind? It's a white man, right? It's not a white woman. Hell, it's not a woman at all. A savior is automatically male in our society. I grew up with a mother who sure as hell would have started a cult if society accorded women the unblinking faith that patriarchy assigns to men. (It's the unblinking faith that's the problem; genuine equality would help people see that there's no such thing as saviors.) My mother regularly wished death on me. One of my most poignant childhood memories is when Diane Downs killed one of her daughters and tried to kill her other two children on a bridge near our family home. My mother's reaction on learning the news was to sigh, look at me and say something along the lines of, "if she hadn't been caught, I'd have done the same thing." Over the next few months, wishing she could murder me and not get caught became a regular refrain.
I'm going to do a rare thing here and point at my posting history and ask all of you: have I ever wished a life sentence on my mother? Have I ever wished for her punishment or any harm to come to her? No. Do I wish she'd have been given proper mental health treatment? Not only do I wish it, I tried as hard as my childhood self could to support her when she saw psychiatrists and psychologists. The problem was her self-hatred was so ensconced, she was unable to recognize that the daughter she proclaimed she hated and wanted to die, was a reflection of her own issues with her childhood. She couldn't kill her childhood; she didn't yet have the self-awareness to face it; so she wanted to kill me, the living representative of it. She was never able to see me as a separate human being. That's also why I cut off contact with her. I've never put it in those terms in writing, because usually we're looking at things from a survivor's viewpoint, where it's important to see the surivivor's individuality. But perpetrators are also individuals. My life separate from her, forces her to face the fact that she can't kill the external image of her childhood (me) any more than she can kill the nightmare that she finds so hard to face within herself.
Another was the son of my French teacher, Faith Kinkel. Sweet kid, very shy, prime target for bullying. Bullying was not the problem – having schizophrenia was. His went untreated. He was shy and bullied, see, so he wasn't seen as having mental illness, he was seen as a kid who took out his issues on others. Only his parents pushed for his schizophrenia to be treated. He was a young teen boy.
His parents were the first people he killed. Faith died atrociously, while telling her son she loved him. Kip remembers it; he'll carry that memory throughout his life in prison. He's also well aware people hate him for what he did.
Your feelings towards criminals are your own, but hatred is only too familiar to those who commit these sorts of crimes. Hatred doesn't stop them. Maybe we should try something else, and no, setting criminals free isn't what anyone here is arguing. Better mental healthcare is.
posted by fraula at 1:46 AM on November 20, 2017 [95 favorites]
He was exactly what Nixon's America wanted, the Evil Hippie.
Good point - many on the right including Nixon himself clearly saw drugs, rock, hippies, anti-war demonstrations, civil rights, etc. as one big ball of anarchy that was leading the country to civil war. With Manson they could go "see, I told you". There was a reason the bad guy in Dirty Harry had long hair and a peace sign belt buckle.
posted by kersplunk at 1:58 AM on November 20, 2017 [8 favorites]
Good point - many on the right including Nixon himself clearly saw drugs, rock, hippies, anti-war demonstrations, civil rights, etc. as one big ball of anarchy that was leading the country to civil war. With Manson they could go "see, I told you". There was a reason the bad guy in Dirty Harry had long hair and a peace sign belt buckle.
posted by kersplunk at 1:58 AM on November 20, 2017 [8 favorites]
I was thinking about the (overacting) bad guy in Dirty Harry this morning too. Though wasn't he based more on the Zodiac killer?
Either way, the point of those guys, and Manson, was pretty obviously "See, this is what happens if you move to San Francisco and put flowers in your hair."
The Today Programme also kept emphasising that Manson was a guitar player, which I thought was kind of weird. "Would-be member of the Monkees" would have been a better tag, in my view.
posted by Mocata at 2:06 AM on November 20, 2017
Either way, the point of those guys, and Manson, was pretty obviously "See, this is what happens if you move to San Francisco and put flowers in your hair."
The Today Programme also kept emphasising that Manson was a guitar player, which I thought was kind of weird. "Would-be member of the Monkees" would have been a better tag, in my view.
posted by Mocata at 2:06 AM on November 20, 2017
For due diligence and to augment RakDaddy’s comment:
- . for Gary Hinman
- . for Steven Parent
- . for the unborn child that Sharon Tate carried
Upbringing can fuck you up good but it takes a special kind of sociopathy to go where Manson went.
I think the lesson of Manson, and the past generation, is that it really doesn't. He wasn't a monster. He was a human being. That's not sympathy. It's just reality. The hippie-cultist image has always been more frightening than the real deal.
The crimes of the man whose name has been a byword for monster for a generation are essentially common place now.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:11 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
I think the lesson of Manson, and the past generation, is that it really doesn't. He wasn't a monster. He was a human being. That's not sympathy. It's just reality. The hippie-cultist image has always been more frightening than the real deal.
The crimes of the man whose name has been a byword for monster for a generation are essentially common place now.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:11 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
So what I didn't know about Manson, because I'd never been much interested in him and his cult, was that they were trying to start a race war with those murders so they could rule in the aftermath.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:17 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by MartinWisse at 3:17 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
A theory: what if the unusual events of the past two years or so were due to a cosmic balance having broken down, with Bowie and Prince originally having counterbalanced Manson's destructive principle in the universe in some mystical sense, and when they died, Manson had free reign? Wouldn't that explain a lot?
posted by acb at 3:22 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by acb at 3:22 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
Phlegmo's Didion quote
“This mystical flirtation with the idea of ‘sin’—this sense that it was possible to go ‘too far,’ and that many people were doing it—was very much with us in Los Angeles in 1968 and 1969…The jitters were setting in. I recall a time when the dogs barked every night and the moon was always full. On August 9, 1969, I was sitting in the shallow end of my sister-in-law’s swimming pool in Beverly Hills when she received a telephone call from a friend who had just heard about the murders at Sharon Tate Polanski’s house on Cielo Drive. The phone rang many times during the next hour. These early reports were garbled and contradictory. One caller would say hoods, the next would say chains. There were twenty dead, no, twelve, ten, eighteen. Black masses were imagined, and bad trips blamed. I remembered all of the day’s misinformation very clearly, and I also remember this, and wish I did not: I remember that no one was surprised.”—Joan Didion, The White Album (1979)
posted by mecran01 at 3:25 AM on November 20, 2017 [10 favorites]
“This mystical flirtation with the idea of ‘sin’—this sense that it was possible to go ‘too far,’ and that many people were doing it—was very much with us in Los Angeles in 1968 and 1969…The jitters were setting in. I recall a time when the dogs barked every night and the moon was always full. On August 9, 1969, I was sitting in the shallow end of my sister-in-law’s swimming pool in Beverly Hills when she received a telephone call from a friend who had just heard about the murders at Sharon Tate Polanski’s house on Cielo Drive. The phone rang many times during the next hour. These early reports were garbled and contradictory. One caller would say hoods, the next would say chains. There were twenty dead, no, twelve, ten, eighteen. Black masses were imagined, and bad trips blamed. I remembered all of the day’s misinformation very clearly, and I also remember this, and wish I did not: I remember that no one was surprised.”—Joan Didion, The White Album (1979)
posted by mecran01 at 3:25 AM on November 20, 2017 [10 favorites]
Good riddance. To him and the most toxic parts of the 60s counterculture and cult of personality he represented. I've known a handful of otherwise intelligent, caring and politically active people over the years who for whatever reason had a perverse fascination with and seemingly a creepy admiration for Manson, despite the fact he was in the final analysis just a bargain basement mindfucker/sociopath/psychopath, and in my opinion, most likely a useful tool of earlier Cold War era KGB operations aimed at poisoning and undermining and perverting the most hopeful impulses in American popular culture and fomenting race/class war in the U.S.
He was less a human being than a kind of social and cultural blackhole, collapsed into and sucking everyone else around him into the void left behind by his own lack of any moral center or respect for reason, decency, or anything besides his own nihilistic pursuit of personal power and short term hedonistic pleasure. I hope we never see another like him again.
posted by saulgoodman at 3:47 AM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
He was less a human being than a kind of social and cultural blackhole, collapsed into and sucking everyone else around him into the void left behind by his own lack of any moral center or respect for reason, decency, or anything besides his own nihilistic pursuit of personal power and short term hedonistic pleasure. I hope we never see another like him again.
posted by saulgoodman at 3:47 AM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
As bad as 2017 has been, no year can all bad.
posted by double block and bleed at 3:59 AM on November 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by double block and bleed at 3:59 AM on November 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
Pretty much every contrarian edgelord I ever met had at some point in their lives a sort of reverence for Charles Manson, which always set my teeth on edge. Not just because of his blatant misogyny, racism, and the murders he orchestrated - only the last point of which any of his admirers acknowledge - but also because he became a vehicle of sorts for shitty media types to get some easy attention by interviewing him. I never understood what was to be gained by interviewing Manson other than to aggrandize the interviewer. Manson never had anything interesting or insightful to say; he just enjoyed the attention, and would use the interview as an opportunity to spout his meaningless drivel at length, usually by playing up to whatever the worst expectations of the interviewer were. This is part of what makes the Geraldo Rivera interview so unwatchable (the other part is Geraldo Rivera). Good fucking riddance to this hateful cracker.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 4:21 AM on November 20, 2017 [23 favorites]
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 4:21 AM on November 20, 2017 [23 favorites]
most famously Sharon Tate (wife of Roman Polanski, the movie director)
I find it a little odd to describe Sharon Tate purely in relation to her husband. She was a famous actor with a career and reputation all of her own. The parenthetical to describe her could’ve also been about her own career and achievements, not just using her husband to describe who she was
posted by andoatnp at 4:39 AM on November 20, 2017 [31 favorites]
I find it a little odd to describe Sharon Tate purely in relation to her husband. She was a famous actor with a career and reputation all of her own. The parenthetical to describe her could’ve also been about her own career and achievements, not just using her husband to describe who she was
posted by andoatnp at 4:39 AM on November 20, 2017 [31 favorites]
Manson was a misogynist and serial rapist who wanted race war. This isn’t untreated mental illness, unless the 70 white nationalists with PUA talking points who popped into my twitter mentions Saturday are likewise ill.
No, the horror of Manson is that he is alarmingly common, and it was merely the confluence of circumstance that made what he did — which was, at its core, domestic violence that escalated to mass killing — seem unusual. It’s a daily event now.
posted by maxsparber at 4:43 AM on November 20, 2017 [25 favorites]
No, the horror of Manson is that he is alarmingly common, and it was merely the confluence of circumstance that made what he did — which was, at its core, domestic violence that escalated to mass killing — seem unusual. It’s a daily event now.
posted by maxsparber at 4:43 AM on November 20, 2017 [25 favorites]
There is evil.
And there is mental illness.
And I get very, very tired of people who conflate the two.
Not just because it gives evil - and its perpetrators - a pass.
But mainly because of the incredible disservice it does to those suffering mental illness. It tars them all. By associating evil and criminal behavior with mental illness, you set the mentally ill apart from the rest of us. You make them persons to be distrusted and feared. After all, look at Manson - what might any of the others do?
Think hard and long before continuing to associate criminal and evil behavior with mental illness.
posted by Lunaloon at 4:54 AM on November 20, 2017 [23 favorites]
And there is mental illness.
And I get very, very tired of people who conflate the two.
Not just because it gives evil - and its perpetrators - a pass.
But mainly because of the incredible disservice it does to those suffering mental illness. It tars them all. By associating evil and criminal behavior with mental illness, you set the mentally ill apart from the rest of us. You make them persons to be distrusted and feared. After all, look at Manson - what might any of the others do?
Think hard and long before continuing to associate criminal and evil behavior with mental illness.
posted by Lunaloon at 4:54 AM on November 20, 2017 [23 favorites]
He was less a human being than a kind of social and cultural blackhole, collapsed into and sucking everyone else around him into the void left behind by his own lack of any moral center or respect for reason, decency, or anything besides his own nihilistic pursuit of personal power and short term hedonistic pleasure. I hope we never see another like him again.
One could probably draw a line from him, through Peter Sotos and Boyd Rice, to VICE Magazine and a stack of coked-up hipcocks in the Brooklyns of the world. And that's to say nothing of the alt-right.
posted by acb at 5:07 AM on November 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
One could probably draw a line from him, through Peter Sotos and Boyd Rice, to VICE Magazine and a stack of coked-up hipcocks in the Brooklyns of the world. And that's to say nothing of the alt-right.
posted by acb at 5:07 AM on November 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
The race war story is probably bogus delusion also, mostly they wanted to steal rich folks stuff, petty. The base perception of society needs to reduce the drama of the crime from "giant horror race war" to "pathetic looser".
posted by sammyo at 5:21 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by sammyo at 5:21 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
more that for my whole life his name has been a shorthand for pure evil still in existence
Evil is a not useful term, to me. He was a man who spent most of his young life being hideously abused, both in and out of prison, and then further had his fragile mind destroyed by heavy drugs. Yes, his instigation of these crimes was horrific, but these things are produced in humans all the time. Doesn't excuse his actions, but for me it's far better to acknowledge this than throwing out the word evil.
posted by agregoli at 5:34 AM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
Evil is a not useful term, to me. He was a man who spent most of his young life being hideously abused, both in and out of prison, and then further had his fragile mind destroyed by heavy drugs. Yes, his instigation of these crimes was horrific, but these things are produced in humans all the time. Doesn't excuse his actions, but for me it's far better to acknowledge this than throwing out the word evil.
posted by agregoli at 5:34 AM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
There is evil.My family members with mental illness have helped me understand that. It's a cultural shortcut that I abhor. The mentally ill are generally not violent. The violent are generally not mentally ill. Manson was a manipulative, arrogant, unfeeling, power-hungry monster, but I don't think he was mentally ill.
And there is mental illness.
And I get very, very tired of people who conflate the two.
I've known a few others like him in my time, and I steer very clear of them. He didn't even have the excuse of toxic male rage for his acts.
posted by Peach at 5:35 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
*sees thread URL*
https://www.metafilter.com/170666/Charles-Manson-is-dead-at-83
Even MetaFilter knows when someone is evil
posted by deezil at 5:35 AM on November 20, 2017 [21 favorites]
https://www.metafilter.com/170666/Charles-Manson-is-dead-at-83
Even MetaFilter knows when someone is evil
posted by deezil at 5:35 AM on November 20, 2017 [21 favorites]
I was thinking about the (overacting) bad guy in Dirty Harry this morning too. Though wasn't he based more on the Zodiac killer?
Right. Bobby Maxwell and his followers in the The Enforcer were more like Manson in spirit if not motive.
I can't emphasize enough how frightening the whole Manson Family thing was to a kid back in the 70s, especially after the TV movie.
posted by lagomorphius at 5:36 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Right. Bobby Maxwell and his followers in the The Enforcer were more like Manson in spirit if not motive.
I can't emphasize enough how frightening the whole Manson Family thing was to a kid back in the 70s, especially after the TV movie.
posted by lagomorphius at 5:36 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Manson was a manipulative, arrogant, unfeeling, power-hungry monster, but I don't think he was mentally ill.
Okay, but he was mentally ill.
posted by agregoli at 5:46 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
Okay, but he was mentally ill.
posted by agregoli at 5:46 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
dead but not forgotten
when can we forget
not the acts or the lessons
but him
can we stop razing him up as a martyr for murderers and maintaining him as a pop icon
natural born killers was satire and parody on murder and the media worship of sensationalism
born itself out of a post manson society and a fledgling 24 hour news cycle
couldnt we have ended it with that commentary
instead of even footnoting his death
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:49 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
when can we forget
not the acts or the lessons
but him
can we stop razing him up as a martyr for murderers and maintaining him as a pop icon
natural born killers was satire and parody on murder and the media worship of sensationalism
born itself out of a post manson society and a fledgling 24 hour news cycle
couldnt we have ended it with that commentary
instead of even footnoting his death
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:49 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Manson was diagnosed with schizophrenia and paranoid delusional disorder. Most people with either end up being the victims of criminal violence, rather than the perpetrators.
Any discussion of Manson's illness should be separate from discussion of his crime, in the same way wee would not say, oh, he was a murderer and also had kidney stones.
He used the common tactics of a pimp to bully a group of people into doing what he wanted, and he is distinct because it played out in an especially florid fashion that seemed somehow to reflect and comment on the era. It is, however, not a comment or reflection on mental illness.
posted by maxsparber at 5:52 AM on November 20, 2017 [12 favorites]
Any discussion of Manson's illness should be separate from discussion of his crime, in the same way wee would not say, oh, he was a murderer and also had kidney stones.
He used the common tactics of a pimp to bully a group of people into doing what he wanted, and he is distinct because it played out in an especially florid fashion that seemed somehow to reflect and comment on the era. It is, however, not a comment or reflection on mental illness.
posted by maxsparber at 5:52 AM on November 20, 2017 [12 favorites]
This is a song Charles Manson stole from the Beatles. We're stealing it back.
posted by bassomatic at 5:54 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by bassomatic at 5:54 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Norm Macdonald: "My heart goes out to the family of Mr. Manson at this time."
posted by Capt. Renault at 5:58 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by Capt. Renault at 5:58 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
Good riddance.
~Awaits Fox News reports of liberals nationwide mourning the loss of an idol.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:00 AM on November 20, 2017
~Awaits Fox News reports of liberals nationwide mourning the loss of an idol.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:00 AM on November 20, 2017
Awaits Fox News reports of liberals nationwide mourning the loss of an idol.
Surely there must be a non-zero number of self-proclaimed libertarians who would proclaim Manson to be, to some extent, a hero? Between that early Ayn Rand essay that proclaimed a child sex killer as an exemplar of free will in a world of slavish sheep, the “Dark Triad” of psychology, and the perennial libidinal drive to be an edgier-than-the-rest bête noire, there must be some.
posted by acb at 6:07 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Surely there must be a non-zero number of self-proclaimed libertarians who would proclaim Manson to be, to some extent, a hero? Between that early Ayn Rand essay that proclaimed a child sex killer as an exemplar of free will in a world of slavish sheep, the “Dark Triad” of psychology, and the perennial libidinal drive to be an edgier-than-the-rest bête noire, there must be some.
posted by acb at 6:07 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
When I heard Manson was back in the hospital, I listened to the Last Podcast on the Left episodes covering his crimes again. I think they make a good argument that Manson was more a conman who got in way, way over his head who kept needing to go bigger and bigger to retain control over his group. What he really wanted was to fuck and play music and do drugs - but to do that he needed his group. In order to keep them isolated, he told stories of the coming race war to get them to move to the desert, self aggrandized his petty crimes into some larger mythology, and kept pushing things until there was nowhere to go but madness and murder. He had great interpersonal control skills and could read a room pretty well, but he could not plan ahead farther than a day - all tactics, no strategy - and that lead to a sort of dark improv of "yes and" that pushed things to the breaking point in just a few years.
The weird part of it was that if Manson was not Manson, he might have made it. Though he was too late for the hippie movement, there was still a chance for him to get what he wanted (sex/music/drugs). He actually had record producers working with him to create a demo, but again, he was in over his head and blew up his own chance. He did have one of his songs stolen by the Beach Boys, but given the havoc he and the family wreaked on Dennis Wilson's home, that's probably a fair trade.
Dude was still a monster, though, just not the ultimate evil that popular culture has built him up to be.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:11 AM on November 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
The weird part of it was that if Manson was not Manson, he might have made it. Though he was too late for the hippie movement, there was still a chance for him to get what he wanted (sex/music/drugs). He actually had record producers working with him to create a demo, but again, he was in over his head and blew up his own chance. He did have one of his songs stolen by the Beach Boys, but given the havoc he and the family wreaked on Dennis Wilson's home, that's probably a fair trade.
Dude was still a monster, though, just not the ultimate evil that popular culture has built him up to be.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:11 AM on November 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
So, it's like a Coen Brothers film, only really fucking dark?
posted by acb at 6:14 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by acb at 6:14 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
For some reason a lot of people have a fascination with Manson, and that kind of thing. I'm not condemning the interest, I just have never understood it.
Ghoulish fascination is definitely a thing. People have mentioned mass shooters, but the average mass shooting case does't have the same lurid sex and drugs subplots, or the celebrity angle (the Beach Boys as well as Polanksi and Tate) or the cult thing or the kind of fairy tale archetype of the innocent girl leaving home and being lured into a life of depravity.
When I was a teenager my mam worked in a newsagent and I used to get all the newspapers the day after they were published - the returns procedure for unsold newspapers was to just send the mastheads back. I used to read them all before I went to school and got an early lesson in editorial policy and media bias. I noticed that the Daily Mail in particular used to go into lurid details of things like sex crimes, such a the Fred West murders that were being investigated at the time. Or they'd have a campaign to "ban this sick filth" with plenty of pictures and salacious writeups of said sick filth.
Another thing is people like to frighten themselves with bogeymen - people I've known who were into true crime were also into horror films. It's about primal fears rather than statistical risk - as far as I know there are no horror films based on heart disease or road deaths or skin cancer.
posted by kersplunk at 6:17 AM on November 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
Ghoulish fascination is definitely a thing. People have mentioned mass shooters, but the average mass shooting case does't have the same lurid sex and drugs subplots, or the celebrity angle (the Beach Boys as well as Polanksi and Tate) or the cult thing or the kind of fairy tale archetype of the innocent girl leaving home and being lured into a life of depravity.
When I was a teenager my mam worked in a newsagent and I used to get all the newspapers the day after they were published - the returns procedure for unsold newspapers was to just send the mastheads back. I used to read them all before I went to school and got an early lesson in editorial policy and media bias. I noticed that the Daily Mail in particular used to go into lurid details of things like sex crimes, such a the Fred West murders that were being investigated at the time. Or they'd have a campaign to "ban this sick filth" with plenty of pictures and salacious writeups of said sick filth.
Another thing is people like to frighten themselves with bogeymen - people I've known who were into true crime were also into horror films. It's about primal fears rather than statistical risk - as far as I know there are no horror films based on heart disease or road deaths or skin cancer.
posted by kersplunk at 6:17 AM on November 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
He had great interpersonal control skills and could read a room pretty well, but he could not plan ahead farther than a day - all tactics, no strategy - and that lead to a sort of dark improv of "yes and" that pushed things to the breaking point in just a few years.
That description reminds me of someone currently in office, just can't put my finger on.......
posted by bootlegpop at 6:18 AM on November 20, 2017 [13 favorites]
That description reminds me of someone currently in office, just can't put my finger on.......
posted by bootlegpop at 6:18 AM on November 20, 2017 [13 favorites]
For some reason a lot of people have a fascination with Manson, and that kind of thing. I'm not condemning the interest, I just have never understood it.
When I was a young stoner, a bunch of my idiot stoner buddies all read Helter Skelter and their takeaway was that Manson was fucking awesome. I haven't seen those guys in about 30 years so I assume most of them grew out of it, but I suspect one or two haven't.
posted by bondcliff at 6:20 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
When I was a young stoner, a bunch of my idiot stoner buddies all read Helter Skelter and their takeaway was that Manson was fucking awesome. I haven't seen those guys in about 30 years so I assume most of them grew out of it, but I suspect one or two haven't.
posted by bondcliff at 6:20 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Maybe some free speech absolutist will pipe up for him? After all, all he ever did was express himself.
posted by Artw at 6:20 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 6:20 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
"The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones."
I think it's safe to say, in this case, no good will be interred.
posted by Splunge at 6:20 AM on November 20, 2017
I think it's safe to say, in this case, no good will be interred.
posted by Splunge at 6:20 AM on November 20, 2017
Twitter has been being Twitter about the news.
Ha! Yep.
posted by brundlefly at 6:22 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Ha! Yep.
posted by brundlefly at 6:22 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
I read all the excoriations and denunciations, as if to somehow make his darkness and chaos separate from us, and I just don’t think that is true.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 6:25 AM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by Big Al 8000 at 6:25 AM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
For some reason a lot of people have a fascination with Manson, and that kind of thing. I'm not condemning the interest, I just have never understood it.
That's one of the reasons why the You Must Remember This account stands out. It tells the story and demystifies him a little without being creepily obsessed with him, and you learn stuff like his Dale Carnegie obsession and how his entire cult was based on fusing that shit with hippy misogyny.
And honestly the stuff that happened around him is the interesting stuff, he himself is a boring little raspy turd with a talent for bullying people. These days he'd be Roy Moore.
posted by Artw at 6:25 AM on November 20, 2017 [13 favorites]
That's one of the reasons why the You Must Remember This account stands out. It tells the story and demystifies him a little without being creepily obsessed with him, and you learn stuff like his Dale Carnegie obsession and how his entire cult was based on fusing that shit with hippy misogyny.
And honestly the stuff that happened around him is the interesting stuff, he himself is a boring little raspy turd with a talent for bullying people. These days he'd be Roy Moore.
posted by Artw at 6:25 AM on November 20, 2017 [13 favorites]
💩
posted by Cookiebastard at 6:28 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Cookiebastard at 6:28 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
I read all the excoriations and denunciations, as if to somehow make his darkness and chaos separate from us, and I just don’t think that is true.
I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. That we all possess dark impulses? I mean, sure, though I'm not sure how meaningful that acknowledgement is if you don't act on them because you know better. But I do think most people on this site can safely say they do not possess the impulse to manipulate others into performing evil for the sheer entertainment of being able to pull it off, let alone act on those impulses. That's the distinction that actually matters, I should think.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 6:37 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. That we all possess dark impulses? I mean, sure, though I'm not sure how meaningful that acknowledgement is if you don't act on them because you know better. But I do think most people on this site can safely say they do not possess the impulse to manipulate others into performing evil for the sheer entertainment of being able to pull it off, let alone act on those impulses. That's the distinction that actually matters, I should think.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 6:37 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
he became a vehicle of sorts for shitty media types to get some easy attention by interviewing him.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:37 AM on November 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
Newly launched Bohemia Group Originals is developing a movie about the 1981 jailhouse interview of mass murderer Charles Manson by “Tomorrow” host Tom Snyder ...I'm generally anti-capital punishment, but had Manson been executed after his conviction—even if it had taken a decade or two—he'd probably be largely forgotten today.
Based on actual events, the story finds Snyder on a downward trajectory in his career, and in need of a major break. With the help of his new executive producer, Roger Ailes, Snyder lands the first-ever sit down with Manson, setting in motion a series of events that would change late night television forever.
— Movie About Charles Manson, Tom Snyder, Roger Ailes in the Works at Bohemia (12 April 2017)
posted by octobersurprise at 6:37 AM on November 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
A tragic episode from the 1960's comes to an end. Somehow it seems fitting that one of the major figures of the apocalyptic 60's in America should die during the apocalyptic 2000-teens in America.
posted by bluesky43 at 6:40 AM on November 20, 2017
posted by bluesky43 at 6:40 AM on November 20, 2017
Ya'll get down with your mental illness discussion. Just came in here to drop this:
🎉
Some people just need to not exist. Manson was one of them. Good riddance.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 6:47 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
🎉
Some people just need to not exist. Manson was one of them. Good riddance.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 6:47 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Manson can also be seen as another failure of our prison system. He was in prison at a very young age (17), and repeatedly. He claims he was sexually abused the first time at 13 at the Indiana Boys School, an attempt at a correctional facility. I see tons of information about his prison sentences, but nothing about any programs he participated in while in prison (surprise, surprise). We will have many more Mansons if we don't care enough to work on that rehabilitation notion and only dole out punishment. I dislike that even pointing this out angers people.
posted by agregoli at 6:50 AM on November 20, 2017 [24 favorites]
posted by agregoli at 6:50 AM on November 20, 2017 [24 favorites]
And I think the "Yay he's dead" comments are more performative than anything.
posted by agregoli at 6:50 AM on November 20, 2017 [15 favorites]
posted by agregoli at 6:50 AM on November 20, 2017 [15 favorites]
There is evil.
And there is mental illness.
And I get very, very tired of people who conflate the two.
Not just because it gives evil - and its perpetrators - a pass.
But mainly because of the incredible disservice it does to those suffering mental illness. It tars them all. By associating evil and criminal behavior with mental illness, you set the mentally ill apart from the rest of us. You make them persons to be distrusted and feared. After all, look at Manson - what might any of the others do?
Think hard and long before continuing to associate criminal and evil behavior with mental illness.
Ya'll get down with your mental illness discussion. Just came in here to drop this:
🎉
Some people just need to not exist. Manson was one of them. Good riddance.
Wow. Just can NOT win. Keep getting told to get woke, get more empathic around this joint, and then when you do, you get told you're wrong. I do believe in evil, too, but all I can operate on is the limited amount of information given to me personally, and, at this point, he seemed more a narcissitic fool loving the attention he got from manipulating people to do his dirty work as anything else.
Howsa about you point me to the right chapter of the rulebook this time?
posted by Samizdata at 6:53 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
And there is mental illness.
And I get very, very tired of people who conflate the two.
Not just because it gives evil - and its perpetrators - a pass.
But mainly because of the incredible disservice it does to those suffering mental illness. It tars them all. By associating evil and criminal behavior with mental illness, you set the mentally ill apart from the rest of us. You make them persons to be distrusted and feared. After all, look at Manson - what might any of the others do?
Think hard and long before continuing to associate criminal and evil behavior with mental illness.
Ya'll get down with your mental illness discussion. Just came in here to drop this:
🎉
Some people just need to not exist. Manson was one of them. Good riddance.
Wow. Just can NOT win. Keep getting told to get woke, get more empathic around this joint, and then when you do, you get told you're wrong. I do believe in evil, too, but all I can operate on is the limited amount of information given to me personally, and, at this point, he seemed more a narcissitic fool loving the attention he got from manipulating people to do his dirty work as anything else.
Howsa about you point me to the right chapter of the rulebook this time?
posted by Samizdata at 6:53 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
This image of his followers disturbs me, as the parent of two teen girls. They look so normal, and could be anyone's daughters.
posted by mecran01 at 7:00 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by mecran01 at 7:00 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Boing Boing has a side-by-side gif that is... discomforting, to say the least.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:00 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:00 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
I've never understood the way some people lay blame on "evil". What a weird thing to do. Here's a guy with a HORRIBLE childhood full of abuse and neglect, with documented very serious mental health problems... but no, it's definitely supernatural forces that caused him to be this way. Suuuuuure. I mean... it's just such a cop-out. It's a nice tidy way to exonerate oneself from the task of looking at how this person got so fucked up, an easy way to avoid thinking about the reality of the multiple interlocking systems within our society that failed this person and continue to fail millions daily. It makes me think of Isaiah Kalebu (you can google him): people call him evil, but when you actually bother to dig into his background it's very clear that he's a broken person in a broken system. He did terrible things because he's mentally ill, not because evil compelled him. Insisting that evil is a component absolves us as a society from ever having to do better, from ever having to make changes to a corrupt and abusive penal system, from ever having to confront the humanity of a killer. For some people it's just easier not to do any of that, I guess?
posted by palomar at 7:06 AM on November 20, 2017 [32 favorites]
posted by palomar at 7:06 AM on November 20, 2017 [32 favorites]
"The pure products of America go crazy."
- WCW
posted by Bob Regular at 7:06 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
- WCW
posted by Bob Regular at 7:06 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
And now I'm thinking of this fucker and how now he's basically living on in a million YouTube MRAs.
posted by Artw at 7:08 AM on November 20, 2017
posted by Artw at 7:08 AM on November 20, 2017
Even the thread when Thatcher died had less outright celebration (and more mod notes to not do that). Like Manson, she didn't personally l anyone, but she caused many more to die than Manson did. All this vitriol and celebration is unseemly.
posted by Dysk at 7:12 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 7:12 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
What a weird thing to do. Here's a guy with a HORRIBLE childhood full of abuse and neglect, with documented very serious mental health problems... but no, it's definitely supernatural forces that caused him to be this way.
I think both are a cop-out. Manson was smart and sane enough to understand that his actions had consequences and that he could could choose other actions. He chose to kill anyway.
I was born in 72, and frankly have never understood the fascination with Manson throughout my life. I guess it's because he killed rich white people who are usually immune to the shit the rest of us have to live with.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:15 AM on November 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
I think both are a cop-out. Manson was smart and sane enough to understand that his actions had consequences and that he could could choose other actions. He chose to kill anyway.
I was born in 72, and frankly have never understood the fascination with Manson throughout my life. I guess it's because he killed rich white people who are usually immune to the shit the rest of us have to live with.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:15 AM on November 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
Boing Boing has a side-by-side gif that is ...
They missed a trick there. I'd have matched this gif with this one.
He did terrible things because he's mentally ill, not because evil compelled him.
¿Porque no los dos?
posted by octobersurprise at 7:17 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
They missed a trick there. I'd have matched this gif with this one.
He did terrible things because he's mentally ill, not because evil compelled him.
¿Porque no los dos?
posted by octobersurprise at 7:17 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
He was a rapist and a racist whose cult committed grisly murders in order to prompt race war.
Some people are glad he's gone. That should be entirely unremarkable.
posted by maxsparber at 7:17 AM on November 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
Some people are glad he's gone. That should be entirely unremarkable.
posted by maxsparber at 7:17 AM on November 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
I have repeatedly said that mental illness is not an excuse for bad behavior, by which I mean you don't get to call someone crazy or insane just because they did something inexcusable. Louis CK is not mentally ill. Harvey Weinstein is not mentally ill. Richard Spencer is not mentally ill.
Charles Manson was mentally ill. However, his actions were not necessarily a result of his illness but rather the failure of our social service, health care, and criminal justice systems. He was abused and abandoned by so many people at the start of life, and chewed up and spit out by the rest of the world. That doesn't excuse what he did, which was utterly horrific, but it might explain some of the empathy from those of us who have experienced abuse and mental illness.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:23 AM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
Charles Manson was mentally ill. However, his actions were not necessarily a result of his illness but rather the failure of our social service, health care, and criminal justice systems. He was abused and abandoned by so many people at the start of life, and chewed up and spit out by the rest of the world. That doesn't excuse what he did, which was utterly horrific, but it might explain some of the empathy from those of us who have experienced abuse and mental illness.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:23 AM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
*
We agreed on the asterisk to mark the passage of an asshole, didn't we?
posted by sotonohito at 7:24 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
We agreed on the asterisk to mark the passage of an asshole, didn't we?
posted by sotonohito at 7:24 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
It's not a question of Was he profoundly mentally ill? or Was he evil? He can be both. He was apparently diagnosed with schizophrenia. His racism and violence reflect the culture he was raised in. Some years ago, I read an article about mass murderers/ psychopaths whose brains had been studied after death. They all showed brain damage. I hope his brain will be studied.
President Obama tried to launch an initiative to study the human brain; it wasn't funded bt the Conservative Congress, of course. It's not weak liberal feelgood nonsense to try to understand what makes people commit atrocities. It's imperative that we try to apply science instead of finger-pointing.
I have an awfully hard time feeling compassion for Manson. The Wikipedia article made me wonder what happened to his son; can you imagine the burden that must be? I hope his chapter is closed, but assholes will likely fetishize him.
posted by theora55 at 7:26 AM on November 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
President Obama tried to launch an initiative to study the human brain; it wasn't funded bt the Conservative Congress, of course. It's not weak liberal feelgood nonsense to try to understand what makes people commit atrocities. It's imperative that we try to apply science instead of finger-pointing.
I have an awfully hard time feeling compassion for Manson. The Wikipedia article made me wonder what happened to his son; can you imagine the burden that must be? I hope his chapter is closed, but assholes will likely fetishize him.
posted by theora55 at 7:26 AM on November 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
Mod note: Manson was a hugely famous and hugely unliked figure. I'll echo the sentiment that people being glad he's gone should be pretty expected; if there's a question here it's mostly of whether we need a thread specifically about the passing of an awful dude who has been locked away for decades, but it's a normal part of the mix on MeFi and so here we are. If we can work in here to split the difference between folks thinking he did terrible things and folks not thoughtlessly conflating mental illness with evil/badness, that's probably about the best we're gonna get here.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:28 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:28 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
But no, it's definitely supernatural forces that caused him to be this way.
Evil isn't supernatural. People can be it. Count yourself lucky if you haven't encountered it.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:31 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
Evil isn't supernatural. People can be it. Count yourself lucky if you haven't encountered it.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:31 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
Ugh, evil is so useless and lazy as a term. I wish I never had to hear it used to describe a human being ever again.
posted by agregoli at 7:37 AM on November 20, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by agregoli at 7:37 AM on November 20, 2017 [9 favorites]
more that for my whole life his name has been a shorthand for pure evil still in existence
Evil is a not useful term, to me. He was a man who spent most of his young life being hideously abused, both in and out of prison, and then further had his fragile mind destroyed by heavy drugs. Yes, his instigation of these crimes was horrific, but these things are produced in humans all the time. Doesn't excuse his actions, but for me it's far better to acknowledge this than throwing out the word evil.
I think we are actually in agreement, agregoli. My comment was not meant to say "I think he was evil" but rather "for my whole life, his name has been a shorthand for evil." And I think the comments in this thread bear out that observation.
I don't find the word "evil" that useful either, though I understand why people use it. The same reason I don't think it's useful is the very same reason why people do use it, though: if we can identify someone who commits atrocities as evil, we can say, there's nothing that can be done about evil but destroy it, because it's borne of something innate and inexplicable.
Except I don't think Manson was inexplicable. As others have pointed out, he suffered a childhood of abuse and an adulthood of crime and untreated mental illness including delusions that were encouraged by others.
Does that mean everyone with mental illness will kill someone? Of course not. That's not what anyone is saying. But when we look at Manson's background, it is the more likely explanation for why he was a murderer than that he was "evil." That knowledge doesn't make what he did less horrific.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 7:37 AM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
Evil is a not useful term, to me. He was a man who spent most of his young life being hideously abused, both in and out of prison, and then further had his fragile mind destroyed by heavy drugs. Yes, his instigation of these crimes was horrific, but these things are produced in humans all the time. Doesn't excuse his actions, but for me it's far better to acknowledge this than throwing out the word evil.
I think we are actually in agreement, agregoli. My comment was not meant to say "I think he was evil" but rather "for my whole life, his name has been a shorthand for evil." And I think the comments in this thread bear out that observation.
I don't find the word "evil" that useful either, though I understand why people use it. The same reason I don't think it's useful is the very same reason why people do use it, though: if we can identify someone who commits atrocities as evil, we can say, there's nothing that can be done about evil but destroy it, because it's borne of something innate and inexplicable.
Except I don't think Manson was inexplicable. As others have pointed out, he suffered a childhood of abuse and an adulthood of crime and untreated mental illness including delusions that were encouraged by others.
Does that mean everyone with mental illness will kill someone? Of course not. That's not what anyone is saying. But when we look at Manson's background, it is the more likely explanation for why he was a murderer than that he was "evil." That knowledge doesn't make what he did less horrific.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 7:37 AM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
*
God dwells in the detail.
--Leonardo Da Vinci
The devil's in the details.
--Anonymous
The devil's in the architecture.
I'm not sure, a line in an incomplete song.
The personification of evil is one reason literature canons resist King, but I think King's appeal will outrun academia. But to defend that resistance, its personification only distorts the comprehension of suffering. maxsparber's distinctions are as clear as a bell and I thank you. Where there is no explanation are mysteries necessary and shattering.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 7:40 AM on November 20, 2017
God dwells in the detail.
--Leonardo Da Vinci
The devil's in the details.
--Anonymous
The devil's in the architecture.
I'm not sure, a line in an incomplete song.
The personification of evil is one reason literature canons resist King, but I think King's appeal will outrun academia. But to defend that resistance, its personification only distorts the comprehension of suffering. maxsparber's distinctions are as clear as a bell and I thank you. Where there is no explanation are mysteries necessary and shattering.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 7:40 AM on November 20, 2017
It is difficult to discuss what caused Manson, because he was a compulsive liar. We don't have that much documentation about his early life, and he has told wildly different stories about them.
There is documentation of him entering institutions. He was in the Gibault School for Boys, a boarding school run by priests and started by the Knights of Columbus. The school has a good reputation and I am not seeing any documentation of abuse at the school. Manson ran away after 10 months.
After a string of burglaries, Manson was sent to a juvenile center in Indiana. He then was sent to Boys Town and was there for four days, committing a string of armed robberies after his escape. That's when he wound up in the Indiana Boys School, where Manson alleges he was sexually abused. He repeatedly tried to escape, and finally succeeded, committing another string of crimes on his way out. He then went to the National Training School for Boys.
I know that institutionalization can have a profound affect on a young person, but at least three of these organizations, Gibault, Boys Town, and the National Training School for Boys, had a strong focus on rehabilitation.
I'm pretty familiar with the history of Boys Town, having been the research specialist at the Douglas County Historical Society, and Manson was an anomaly there — there isn't really that much of a history of kids taking off from the organization to commit crime sprees, which was his MO wherever he was sent.
No doubt Manson was a toxic mix of horrible childhood, institutionalization, and whatever sociopathology was in him. But I have met people who have come through Boys Town from a far more terrible childhood who somehow managed to not engage in crime sprees culminating in mass murder, and so, while we certainly can have compassion for the young Manson who suffered terribly (to what extent, it is impossible to determine), we can also realize that the adult Manson had a hand in the direction his life went, and was actually quite unusual in repeatedly fleeing organizations established expressedly to help kids like him, and immediately engaging in crime sprees.
posted by maxsparber at 7:40 AM on November 20, 2017 [26 favorites]
There is documentation of him entering institutions. He was in the Gibault School for Boys, a boarding school run by priests and started by the Knights of Columbus. The school has a good reputation and I am not seeing any documentation of abuse at the school. Manson ran away after 10 months.
After a string of burglaries, Manson was sent to a juvenile center in Indiana. He then was sent to Boys Town and was there for four days, committing a string of armed robberies after his escape. That's when he wound up in the Indiana Boys School, where Manson alleges he was sexually abused. He repeatedly tried to escape, and finally succeeded, committing another string of crimes on his way out. He then went to the National Training School for Boys.
I know that institutionalization can have a profound affect on a young person, but at least three of these organizations, Gibault, Boys Town, and the National Training School for Boys, had a strong focus on rehabilitation.
I'm pretty familiar with the history of Boys Town, having been the research specialist at the Douglas County Historical Society, and Manson was an anomaly there — there isn't really that much of a history of kids taking off from the organization to commit crime sprees, which was his MO wherever he was sent.
No doubt Manson was a toxic mix of horrible childhood, institutionalization, and whatever sociopathology was in him. But I have met people who have come through Boys Town from a far more terrible childhood who somehow managed to not engage in crime sprees culminating in mass murder, and so, while we certainly can have compassion for the young Manson who suffered terribly (to what extent, it is impossible to determine), we can also realize that the adult Manson had a hand in the direction his life went, and was actually quite unusual in repeatedly fleeing organizations established expressedly to help kids like him, and immediately engaging in crime sprees.
posted by maxsparber at 7:40 AM on November 20, 2017 [26 favorites]
Meant to add: And understanding doesn't preclude having a visceral reaction of revulsion.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 7:40 AM on November 20, 2017
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 7:40 AM on November 20, 2017
I agree with palomar:
Insisting that evil is a component absolves us as a society from ever having to do better, from ever having to make changes to a corrupt and abusive penal system, from ever having to confront the humanity of a killer.
"Evil" lets us separate ourselves from another human - when ANY human is potentially capable of horrible acts.
posted by agregoli at 7:41 AM on November 20, 2017 [9 favorites]
Insisting that evil is a component absolves us as a society from ever having to do better, from ever having to make changes to a corrupt and abusive penal system, from ever having to confront the humanity of a killer.
"Evil" lets us separate ourselves from another human - when ANY human is potentially capable of horrible acts.
posted by agregoli at 7:41 AM on November 20, 2017 [9 favorites]
I hope his brain will be studied.
What could be more 2017?
posted by octobersurprise at 7:43 AM on November 20, 2017
What could be more 2017?
posted by octobersurprise at 7:43 AM on November 20, 2017
But I have met people who have come through Boys Town from a far more terrible childhood who somehow managed to not engage in crime sprees culminating in mass murder...
This odd formulation is frequently put up too, in these discussions - well, other people had the same experiences and THEY didn't do this. Yeah, um? People are very different from one another, and we know that. My main point is his most notorious crimes may have been able to be prevented. But as a society, we didn't care enough about his potential for further crimes to do that. Easier to label him as evil and be done with it.
posted by agregoli at 7:44 AM on November 20, 2017 [8 favorites]
This odd formulation is frequently put up too, in these discussions - well, other people had the same experiences and THEY didn't do this. Yeah, um? People are very different from one another, and we know that. My main point is his most notorious crimes may have been able to be prevented. But as a society, we didn't care enough about his potential for further crimes to do that. Easier to label him as evil and be done with it.
posted by agregoli at 7:44 AM on November 20, 2017 [8 favorites]
There's always a fascination with cults. I think the fascination isn't so much with Manson but how he got people to follow him. He had meetings with record producers who took him seriously, but also had a crazy racist death cult going on at the same time.
Some of his followers in more recent interviews come across as sane, thoughtful people, yet they murdered on command.
He was a conman who got, for lack of a better term, lucky.
posted by readery at 7:45 AM on November 20, 2017
Some of his followers in more recent interviews come across as sane, thoughtful people, yet they murdered on command.
He was a conman who got, for lack of a better term, lucky.
posted by readery at 7:45 AM on November 20, 2017
I'll be honest, I didn't really know much about Manson. I was aware of the fact he was famous and a killer and still alive, But here in the UK we've had our own celebrity murderers so he's not been so prominent.
Reading up on his background today paints a pretty shitty upbringing. Regardless of the extent of his crimes, and the degree to which mental illness played a part in those crimes, I think we could probably all agree that he was disadvantaged early and often, and that this must have affected his behaviour in later life to some extent.
If you feel the need to use the word evil, then OK, Manson's actions were evil. What made him act in an evil fashion? What could have been done to prevent him from taking those actions? What can we do to prevent someone else repeating these actions?
posted by trif at 7:47 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Reading up on his background today paints a pretty shitty upbringing. Regardless of the extent of his crimes, and the degree to which mental illness played a part in those crimes, I think we could probably all agree that he was disadvantaged early and often, and that this must have affected his behaviour in later life to some extent.
If you feel the need to use the word evil, then OK, Manson's actions were evil. What made him act in an evil fashion? What could have been done to prevent him from taking those actions? What can we do to prevent someone else repeating these actions?
posted by trif at 7:47 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Yeah, um? People are very different from one another, and we know that.
Yes. Some go on to become violent rapists, and can be held responsible for that, and we don't need to demand compassion for them when they die of old age.
posted by maxsparber at 7:49 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
Yes. Some go on to become violent rapists, and can be held responsible for that, and we don't need to demand compassion for them when they die of old age.
posted by maxsparber at 7:49 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
is his most notorious crimes may have been able to be prevented
I'm curious about this part, though, since we still have men with radicalized misogyny committing racist mass murder.
How, specifically? Because I would love to prevent this sort of thing.
posted by maxsparber at 7:51 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
I'm curious about this part, though, since we still have men with radicalized misogyny committing racist mass murder.
How, specifically? Because I would love to prevent this sort of thing.
posted by maxsparber at 7:51 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
Who the fuck has been demanding compassion for him? Not acting like he's a bizarre aberration of a demon instead of a human being who was CREATED to be how he was is all I'm after.
The pushback against anything but scorn for people like him is a huge blind spot of society to the fact that we didn't do enough to stop someone like him from his most horrific crimes.
posted by agregoli at 7:54 AM on November 20, 2017 [8 favorites]
The pushback against anything but scorn for people like him is a huge blind spot of society to the fact that we didn't do enough to stop someone like him from his most horrific crimes.
posted by agregoli at 7:54 AM on November 20, 2017 [8 favorites]
How, specifically? Because I would love to prevent this sort of thing.
posted by maxsparber
It doesn't appear you really want to discuss it, so no thanks.
posted by agregoli at 7:55 AM on November 20, 2017
posted by maxsparber
It doesn't appear you really want to discuss it, so no thanks.
posted by agregoli at 7:55 AM on November 20, 2017
A weird side note is the deluge of people tweeting how sad they are that Manson died because they're confusing Charles Manson with Marilyn Manson.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:56 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:56 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
Yes, but most of them were so impaired they couldn’t attract followers . . . Or we just accept that random people are evil killers and there’s nothing we can do until the damage is done and then we put them to death or incarcerate them forever.
I think the lesson of Manson, and the past generation, is that it really doesn't. He wasn't a monster. He was a human being. That's not sympathy. It's just reality.
So, first: can we remember that Manson delighted in manipulating people, and this last trait went beyond forming a murder cult? Nobody disagrees his childhood was crap. But the veracity of any event for which there's no evidence besides his word--like the "sold for a pitcher of beer" story--should be taken with a grain of salt; we know he often made things up in order to fuck with journalists, police, doctors, mental health professionals, etc and incur sympathy.
Second: my point is that the vast majority of untreated mentally ill people who go through horrible childhoods do not even manifest the narcissism and sociopathy required to want to form a murder cult, whether or not they're high-functioning enough to do so. I hope to God nobody is arguing against that, because wow, that is some shit.
Third, related to the above: murder cults are pretty fucking extreme. Robert Rhoades's crimes are pretty fucking extreme. Amon Göth was pretty fucking extreme. I am a fervent proponent of acknowledging the banality of evil, remaining self-aware of the normal, universal, human capacity for justifying and doing terrible things, and pointing out at every opportunity that every member of a lynch mob would describe themselves as ~A Decent Person~. But I am not really sure what good it does to pretend like there weren't some pretty fucking extreme brain problems or something involved that drove Manson, Rhoades, Göth, etc to practice and revel in sadism to the degree that they did.
If you are going to argue that we are all a step away from independently forming murder cults or locking hitchhikers in homemade torture chambers you're going to have to provide some evidence for that. Shit, you want to talk about the difference between the normal human capacity for evil and Murder Cult-level Brain Problems, keep in mind Amon Göth operated in Nazi Germany and was still considered so fucking extreme that his fellow Nazis put him in a mental institution as a result.
You want to talk being realistic, I think it's more realistic to say that these guys are humans, yes, but they're multiple standard deviations away from the norm and whatever drove them to do what they did is wholly different than what's happening inside the minds of the vast majority of people with mental illnesses. Even the most treatment-resistant mental illnesses combined with even the worst childhoods does not mean someone will inevitably plan and delight in the suffering of others the way Manson did. It doesn't predestine someone to become Adam Lanza, Elliot Rodger, or Dylann Roof. If a better mental health system would've caught them before they executed their crimes, their victims are the victims of the system--not them.
posted by Anonymous at 7:58 AM on November 20, 2017
I think the lesson of Manson, and the past generation, is that it really doesn't. He wasn't a monster. He was a human being. That's not sympathy. It's just reality.
So, first: can we remember that Manson delighted in manipulating people, and this last trait went beyond forming a murder cult? Nobody disagrees his childhood was crap. But the veracity of any event for which there's no evidence besides his word--like the "sold for a pitcher of beer" story--should be taken with a grain of salt; we know he often made things up in order to fuck with journalists, police, doctors, mental health professionals, etc and incur sympathy.
Second: my point is that the vast majority of untreated mentally ill people who go through horrible childhoods do not even manifest the narcissism and sociopathy required to want to form a murder cult, whether or not they're high-functioning enough to do so. I hope to God nobody is arguing against that, because wow, that is some shit.
Third, related to the above: murder cults are pretty fucking extreme. Robert Rhoades's crimes are pretty fucking extreme. Amon Göth was pretty fucking extreme. I am a fervent proponent of acknowledging the banality of evil, remaining self-aware of the normal, universal, human capacity for justifying and doing terrible things, and pointing out at every opportunity that every member of a lynch mob would describe themselves as ~A Decent Person~. But I am not really sure what good it does to pretend like there weren't some pretty fucking extreme brain problems or something involved that drove Manson, Rhoades, Göth, etc to practice and revel in sadism to the degree that they did.
If you are going to argue that we are all a step away from independently forming murder cults or locking hitchhikers in homemade torture chambers you're going to have to provide some evidence for that. Shit, you want to talk about the difference between the normal human capacity for evil and Murder Cult-level Brain Problems, keep in mind Amon Göth operated in Nazi Germany and was still considered so fucking extreme that his fellow Nazis put him in a mental institution as a result.
You want to talk being realistic, I think it's more realistic to say that these guys are humans, yes, but they're multiple standard deviations away from the norm and whatever drove them to do what they did is wholly different than what's happening inside the minds of the vast majority of people with mental illnesses. Even the most treatment-resistant mental illnesses combined with even the worst childhoods does not mean someone will inevitably plan and delight in the suffering of others the way Manson did. It doesn't predestine someone to become Adam Lanza, Elliot Rodger, or Dylann Roof. If a better mental health system would've caught them before they executed their crimes, their victims are the victims of the system--not them.
posted by Anonymous at 7:58 AM on November 20, 2017
maxsparber, it requires a lot more intervention, at a younger age than society is willing to provide. It could be done, but too many people are ideologically opposed to this degree of state intervention.
posted by trif at 7:58 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by trif at 7:58 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
It doesn't appear you really want to discuss it, so no thanks.
If you have suggestions for what can be done to prevent this sort of thing, I really do want to hear it. My feeling is, however, that you are not taking into account just how much of what Manson did was done because that's what Manson wanted to do, and I myself don't know of a solution that works in spite of a person wanting to hurt people.
posted by maxsparber at 7:59 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
If you have suggestions for what can be done to prevent this sort of thing, I really do want to hear it. My feeling is, however, that you are not taking into account just how much of what Manson did was done because that's what Manson wanted to do, and I myself don't know of a solution that works in spite of a person wanting to hurt people.
posted by maxsparber at 7:59 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
The pushback against anything but scorn for people like him is a huge blind spot of society to the fact that we didn't do enough to stop someone like him from his most horrific crimes.
QFMFT.
Upthread someone said I'm lucky that I've never seen evil. I guess... I mean, I'm a survivor of childhood abuse and I've been sexually assaulted a couple of times, and maybe a lot of you would call the perpetrators of those acts evil. I wouldn't, because labeling people and things as evil is, again, a total cop-out that serves only to let people pretend that these problems are mysterious, unknowable, unsolvable, and perpetrated by things that aren't even human, so why bother thinking about what caused them to be that way? Just slap a religiously-influenced label on it and call it good, I guess, because if applying religion and walking away isn't the most American solution of all time, I don't know what is.
posted by palomar at 8:00 AM on November 20, 2017 [15 favorites]
we didn't do enough to stop someone like him from his most horrific crimes.
In our defense, he didn't try too hard, either.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:00 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
In our defense, he didn't try too hard, either.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:00 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Yes, of course, schroedinger. I am really disliking how extreme this discussion is, and I don't feel like there's anything more I could say without being attacked so I give up.
Octobersurprise, we had tons of opportunities! Yet he was always released. Without, that I'm aware, any kind of clinical treatment.
You're wrong, maxparber. I never said anything about that, and of course Manson chose his actions. It's assuming I'm ignoring that while making other points, that I didn't caveat it enough, is what irritates me about this stuff. If you say anything at all besides, "fuck him," you're a sympathizer, you are too kind, you absolve him of crimes, you are saying mental illness caused all of it, etc. It's not surprsing a nuanced discussion can't be had about one of the most notorious American murderers of all time. But I hate being jumped on for anything but the easy "fuck him he's evil" comments. Enjoy the rest of the thread.
posted by agregoli at 8:06 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Octobersurprise, we had tons of opportunities! Yet he was always released. Without, that I'm aware, any kind of clinical treatment.
You're wrong, maxparber. I never said anything about that, and of course Manson chose his actions. It's assuming I'm ignoring that while making other points, that I didn't caveat it enough, is what irritates me about this stuff. If you say anything at all besides, "fuck him," you're a sympathizer, you are too kind, you absolve him of crimes, you are saying mental illness caused all of it, etc. It's not surprsing a nuanced discussion can't be had about one of the most notorious American murderers of all time. But I hate being jumped on for anything but the easy "fuck him he's evil" comments. Enjoy the rest of the thread.
posted by agregoli at 8:06 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
I literally said it is possible to have compassion for the young Manson, and that I am curious about what else might have been done, but okay.
posted by maxsparber at 8:09 AM on November 20, 2017
posted by maxsparber at 8:09 AM on November 20, 2017
One of the things that I find most interesting about Manson is the discussion around him and how the focus is so much on him killing people and not the people who did the actual killings. Over the years I've know numerous people who think that he performed the killings himself. I just double checked myself that I wasn't remembering wrong.
My thoughts is that while it's may be important to look at factors that led to Manson himself being so horrible it's just if not more important from a total society POV to look at why so many people were willing to brutally kill people on his orders.How does that happen.
Manson is only 'Manson the crazy killer' because he managed to convince enough other people to do his bidding not just because he was messed up himself.
posted by Jalliah at 8:13 AM on November 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
People have mentioned mass shooters, but the average mass shooting case does't have the same lurid sex and drugs subplots, or the celebrity angle (the Beach Boys as well as Polanksi and Tate) or the cult thing or the kind of fairy tale archetype of the innocent girl leaving home and being lured into a life of depravity.
No celebrity angle? Mass shooters (at least the ones who survived or left behind any evidence of their thinking) clearly indicate they're mass shooters because they want attention. They want to send a message to the world. They want to leave their mark. Do you think an angry, cruel asshole who wants to prove something doesn't notice the national obsession with analyzing people like Stephen Paddock? They're absolutely interested in celebrity, attention, and control--contemporary circumstances means it simply manifests differently. During the '60s the national attention was all on forming counter-culture communities, drug use, "elevated consciousness", people proclaiming themselves as revolutionary thinkers. The modern fame-hungry sociopath looks at our fascination with body counts, the psychology of the "lone wolf", the shock over the secrecy and failure to predict their plans, and our attempts to divine their "message" and reads the room on what will get them the most time on the news. Warren Jeffs did some monstrous shit and the crimes of him and his ilk aren't attracting masses of conspiracy theorists and amateur and professional forensic psychologists.
posted by Anonymous at 8:13 AM on November 20, 2017
No celebrity angle? Mass shooters (at least the ones who survived or left behind any evidence of their thinking) clearly indicate they're mass shooters because they want attention. They want to send a message to the world. They want to leave their mark. Do you think an angry, cruel asshole who wants to prove something doesn't notice the national obsession with analyzing people like Stephen Paddock? They're absolutely interested in celebrity, attention, and control--contemporary circumstances means it simply manifests differently. During the '60s the national attention was all on forming counter-culture communities, drug use, "elevated consciousness", people proclaiming themselves as revolutionary thinkers. The modern fame-hungry sociopath looks at our fascination with body counts, the psychology of the "lone wolf", the shock over the secrecy and failure to predict their plans, and our attempts to divine their "message" and reads the room on what will get them the most time on the news. Warren Jeffs did some monstrous shit and the crimes of him and his ilk aren't attracting masses of conspiracy theorists and amateur and professional forensic psychologists.
posted by Anonymous at 8:13 AM on November 20, 2017
Burhanistan, I'd agree, but aside from childhood trauma, a problematic childhood doesn't provide the stability and support that can help to mitigate other destructive tendencies which could arise from later trauma.
posted by trif at 8:21 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by trif at 8:21 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
It feels to me entirely right to say that Manson was an element that needed to be removed from society, and that I don't feel bad for him, principally because he didn't feel bad for anybody else. But I can at the same time say that we need to do more for early intervention to prevent bad things from happening--and that as a society we have and that this matters. We're still imperfect but many of the elements that created that situation have changed a lot. There are a lot more support out there for girls who get pregnant as teenagers and out of wedlock--not in a perfect way, but in a way that is a huge change from when Manson was born or the point where, for example, Leslie Van Houten was forced to get an abortion as a teenager by her own mother. Not that this never happens now, but--I think the level of outrageous we'd consider such a thing to be in 2017 is a good sign. There's a much better system for CPS and foster care--with a lot of problems, but night and day compared to Manson's childhood. As a society, I think we tend to just think of stuff like this as a sort of status quo without remembering much how stuff like divorce and teen pregnancy alone used to routinely destroy lives. The resources we devote to family services really do make the world better. Tolerance to different family structures really does make the world better. Better mental health services do make the world better.
But Manson himself? We're better off without him and what-ifs don't change that, so I'm okay with people who need to vent about that.
posted by Sequence at 8:22 AM on November 20, 2017 [9 favorites]
But Manson himself? We're better off without him and what-ifs don't change that, so I'm okay with people who need to vent about that.
posted by Sequence at 8:22 AM on November 20, 2017 [9 favorites]
What bothers me is how people just want to write him off as “evil” and pat themselves on the back for not being a monster like him.
The reality is Charles Manson was banal. He was a manipulative sociopath who didn’t do or say anything particularly revolutionary. He was motivated by pretty standard motivations (vanity, ego, desire to be important). There are lots of people and examples we can point to of this very same behavior.
The difference between him and the rest of the world is one of degrees, not absolutes. The reminder that he was human should be seen as a warning to ourselves, not a plea for compassion for him.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:27 AM on November 20, 2017 [22 favorites]
The reality is Charles Manson was banal. He was a manipulative sociopath who didn’t do or say anything particularly revolutionary. He was motivated by pretty standard motivations (vanity, ego, desire to be important). There are lots of people and examples we can point to of this very same behavior.
The difference between him and the rest of the world is one of degrees, not absolutes. The reminder that he was human should be seen as a warning to ourselves, not a plea for compassion for him.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:27 AM on November 20, 2017 [22 favorites]
Yeah, there's a broader discussion to be had about how to keep people from becoming Charlie Mansons that is valuable. As far as Charlie Manson goes, tho, my only regret is that this man who not only never evinced a moment's remorse for directing a murderous death cult and scheming to kill many more, but spent decades milking it for all the infamy he could get, lived as long as he did.
What bothers me is how people just want to write him off as “evil” and pat themselves on the back for not being a monster like him.
I mean, YMMV, but I say that anyone who's managed to avoid being Charlie Manson can give themselves a little pat on the back. Sure, good job, people!
posted by octobersurprise at 8:31 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
What bothers me is how people just want to write him off as “evil” and pat themselves on the back for not being a monster like him.
I mean, YMMV, but I say that anyone who's managed to avoid being Charlie Manson can give themselves a little pat on the back. Sure, good job, people!
posted by octobersurprise at 8:31 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
I am not clear on this presumption that calling something "evil" makes him somehow unique and not like the rest of us.
Myself, I think evil is embedded in humanity, and, as a species, we can be extraordinarily evil motherfuckers.
Calling him evil doesn't distant him for me. He was evil. He was an expression of the evil humans are capable of.
posted by maxsparber at 8:32 AM on November 20, 2017 [11 favorites]
Myself, I think evil is embedded in humanity, and, as a species, we can be extraordinarily evil motherfuckers.
Calling him evil doesn't distant him for me. He was evil. He was an expression of the evil humans are capable of.
posted by maxsparber at 8:32 AM on November 20, 2017 [11 favorites]
Calling him evil doesn't distant him for me. He was evil. He was an expression of the evil humans are capable of.
Fair enough. Put that way, I think you and I are in agreement.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:37 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Fair enough. Put that way, I think you and I are in agreement.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:37 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
I would love to live in a world where Charles Manson was the scariest motherfucker on the planet, but he's not even close. In the end, he was America's goofiest boogeyman.
His 1970 debut studio album, LIE: The Love and Terror Cult, is worth a listen.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 8:42 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
His 1970 debut studio album, LIE: The Love and Terror Cult, is worth a listen.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 8:42 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Will WFMU have to take down the bulletin board now?
posted by whuppy at 8:52 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by whuppy at 8:52 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
while we certainly can have compassion for the young Manson who suffered terribly (to what extent, it is impossible to determine), we can also realize that the adult Manson had a hand in the direction his life went
Yes. At the point he was caught and sentenced to death, he appeared deserved it from what I’ve read (not just Helter Skelter). He was aware he had crossed moral and legal boundaries and the criminal justice system did its job.
I guess my only point is that my experience is that if you take someone with a history of trauma, abuse, mental illness, and drug abuse and subject them to the criminal justice system without any other investment, they will end up 100% of the time, first homeless, then in prison. I will go to work tomorrow, and I will see people with that explosive mixture of circumstances. Sometimes I myself have to call the police. But I can predict with nearly perfect accuracy what their life trajectory will be and when I see a guy being hauled off by the police in front of my clinic and I think about the kid I used to know who needed an alternative high school and an antipsychotic and some drug treatment that just weren’t available — well like everyone else, a part of me sees him as evil and I want to be protected from him — but I also have more useful and compassionate emotions.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:55 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
Yes. At the point he was caught and sentenced to death, he appeared deserved it from what I’ve read (not just Helter Skelter). He was aware he had crossed moral and legal boundaries and the criminal justice system did its job.
I guess my only point is that my experience is that if you take someone with a history of trauma, abuse, mental illness, and drug abuse and subject them to the criminal justice system without any other investment, they will end up 100% of the time, first homeless, then in prison. I will go to work tomorrow, and I will see people with that explosive mixture of circumstances. Sometimes I myself have to call the police. But I can predict with nearly perfect accuracy what their life trajectory will be and when I see a guy being hauled off by the police in front of my clinic and I think about the kid I used to know who needed an alternative high school and an antipsychotic and some drug treatment that just weren’t available — well like everyone else, a part of me sees him as evil and I want to be protected from him — but I also have more useful and compassionate emotions.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:55 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
I also think Manson knew the role he was playing and knew that it pointed out something shameful about society. For that manipulation, I’ll grant you, he is a special type of evil.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:05 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:05 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
I don't see why it makes a difference to society that he's dead rather than in prison for life, and I'm especially curious if anyone can explain this without arguing for the death penalty.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 9:26 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by the agents of KAOS at 9:26 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
Growing up in Houston, we had the specter of Dean Corll and the serial killing of boys around our age. Manson along with Corll, Henley and Brown shocked our generation and their personalities and deeds have long been chronicled and studied.
Now we have a nondescript gunman who can spread death in a heartbeat from his hotel room and then fade into obscurity. I agree that it’s unfair to label those with mental health problems as monsters, but it seems America now treats all this with a collective shrug.
posted by jabo at 9:32 AM on November 20, 2017
Now we have a nondescript gunman who can spread death in a heartbeat from his hotel room and then fade into obscurity. I agree that it’s unfair to label those with mental health problems as monsters, but it seems America now treats all this with a collective shrug.
posted by jabo at 9:32 AM on November 20, 2017
finally
posted by SonInLawOfSam at 9:41 AM on November 20, 2017
posted by SonInLawOfSam at 9:41 AM on November 20, 2017
Brandie Posey [via Twitter]: All I know is that Charles Manson kept a hot air balloon catalogue in his prison cell & that's a level of optimism I will never achieve
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:48 AM on November 20, 2017 [10 favorites]
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:48 AM on November 20, 2017 [10 favorites]
I don't see why it makes a difference to society that he's dead rather than in prison for life
No more interviews with TV celebrities, for one.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:53 AM on November 20, 2017
No more interviews with TV celebrities, for one.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:53 AM on November 20, 2017
Charlie was a dupe of Watson , - Mae Brussell
posted by hortense at 10:29 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by hortense at 10:29 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Listening to that Mae Brussell radio program now hortense. Really interesting. Thanks!
posted by ian1977 at 10:44 AM on November 20, 2017
posted by ian1977 at 10:44 AM on November 20, 2017
Ah. The "jet fuel can't melt steel beams" of its day. Lovely.
posted by octobersurprise at 10:44 AM on November 20, 2017
posted by octobersurprise at 10:44 AM on November 20, 2017
Here is a transcript of the Mae Brussell radio show above. Wacky conspiracy theories aside, she seems like a fascinating person.
posted by ian1977 at 10:56 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by ian1977 at 10:56 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
@bryancranston: Hearing Charles Manson is dead, I shuddered. I was within his grasp just one year before he committed brutal murder in 1969. Luck was with me when a cousin and I went horseback riding at the Span Ranch, and saw the little man with crazy eyes whom the other hippies called Charlie.
posted by Artw at 11:01 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Artw at 11:01 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
I read the transcript. It wouldn't be any less nuts if it came out of Alex Jones' mouth. (I've learned that there was an Alex Jones before Alex Jones, so there's that, I guess.)
posted by octobersurprise at 11:03 AM on November 20, 2017
posted by octobersurprise at 11:03 AM on November 20, 2017
I was disappointed not to see the phrase "false flag" in there.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:24 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by octobersurprise at 11:24 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
I just want to make it known now that when Donald Trump slithers off this mortal coil, I will celebrate like it's Christmas and none of y'all can stop me.
posted by asteria at 11:36 AM on November 20, 2017 [11 favorites]
posted by asteria at 11:36 AM on November 20, 2017 [11 favorites]
Grindhouse movie trailer from 1971 for The Manson Massacre
posted by jonp72 at 11:41 AM on November 20, 2017
posted by jonp72 at 11:41 AM on November 20, 2017
For a good historical background YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS podcast season Charles Manson's Hollywood gives an in depth, contextual and unsensational account of the build up and aftermath of the murders.
I absolutely concur with this recommendation for the You Must Remember This series on Manson's murders. It is a great introduction to understanding the murders for people who do not usually like sensationalism or true crime stories. It also has a subtle feminist tilt that both highlights the casual sexism of the 1960s and how Manson's skills as a cult leader were mostly skills he learned as a common pimp.
posted by jonp72 at 11:45 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
I absolutely concur with this recommendation for the You Must Remember This series on Manson's murders. It is a great introduction to understanding the murders for people who do not usually like sensationalism or true crime stories. It also has a subtle feminist tilt that both highlights the casual sexism of the 1960s and how Manson's skills as a cult leader were mostly skills he learned as a common pimp.
posted by jonp72 at 11:45 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
I just want to make it known now that when Donald Trump slithers off this mortal coil, I will celebrate like it's Christmas and none of y'all can stop me.
Will no one consider the woeful plight of children of racist millionaire slumlords?
posted by ian1977 at 11:57 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
Will no one consider the woeful plight of children of racist millionaire slumlords?
posted by ian1977 at 11:57 AM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
Manson: Dark Triad.
People who get super into Manson: Dork Triad.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:12 PM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
People who get super into Manson: Dork Triad.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:12 PM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
I think about the kid I used to know who needed an alternative high school and an antipsychotic and some drug treatment that just weren’t available — well like everyone else, a part of me sees him as evil and I want to be protected from him — but I also have more useful and compassionate emotions.
I agree; you can have both. You can see the disease for the danger that it is and still want to prevent the cause.
Way back, on Manson's mental illness and whether or not he knew what he was doing, this is pure speculation based on varying accounts I've read, and there are so many (the lurid "Will You Die for Me?" by Tex Watson), but I get the feeling that Manson in the beginning was an aware and pretty shrewd manipulator with a bottomless pit of rage at society for the damage he experienced (I've also read that he was raped a lot as a youth in jail). He could be seen as any other guru then, just someone who wanted adoration, sex and money from others, and therefore totally culpable for his actions as he was fully cognizant.
But I think that he really did go fully delusional (listen to him talk!$!#!) and did believe in an apocalyptic scenario. There have been conflicting theories (drug murders/revenge for a failed recording contract and framing the Black Panthers) that frame Manson as being in control of his senses, but according to some of his followers, he really did believe finding refuge in Death Valley and finding the underground lakes that would provide refuge in a coming race war (which he was actually trying to start!). I believe that he believed, and that it was more than a ruse to persuade his followers to get revenge on Terry Melcher for not signing him as a musician, or for any sour drug deals. It's hard to say how much of that was from huge amounts of LSD comingled with severe emotional disturbance (that's my theory) or if it was an actual pre-existing illness like schizophrenia.
There is a complicated philosophical discussion to be had about moral responsibility /free will within mental illness, but he was clearly severely ill and should've had better treatment sooner and lives could've been saved.
He was a complete monster, he created awful tragedy. His life was 83 years of tragedy, starting with his own.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 12:19 PM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
I agree; you can have both. You can see the disease for the danger that it is and still want to prevent the cause.
Way back, on Manson's mental illness and whether or not he knew what he was doing, this is pure speculation based on varying accounts I've read, and there are so many (the lurid "Will You Die for Me?" by Tex Watson), but I get the feeling that Manson in the beginning was an aware and pretty shrewd manipulator with a bottomless pit of rage at society for the damage he experienced (I've also read that he was raped a lot as a youth in jail). He could be seen as any other guru then, just someone who wanted adoration, sex and money from others, and therefore totally culpable for his actions as he was fully cognizant.
But I think that he really did go fully delusional (listen to him talk!$!#!) and did believe in an apocalyptic scenario. There have been conflicting theories (drug murders/revenge for a failed recording contract and framing the Black Panthers) that frame Manson as being in control of his senses, but according to some of his followers, he really did believe finding refuge in Death Valley and finding the underground lakes that would provide refuge in a coming race war (which he was actually trying to start!). I believe that he believed, and that it was more than a ruse to persuade his followers to get revenge on Terry Melcher for not signing him as a musician, or for any sour drug deals. It's hard to say how much of that was from huge amounts of LSD comingled with severe emotional disturbance (that's my theory) or if it was an actual pre-existing illness like schizophrenia.
There is a complicated philosophical discussion to be had about moral responsibility /free will within mental illness, but he was clearly severely ill and should've had better treatment sooner and lives could've been saved.
He was a complete monster, he created awful tragedy. His life was 83 years of tragedy, starting with his own.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 12:19 PM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
I think we can all agree we'd be better off if the fucker had never existed.
posted by Artw at 12:23 PM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 12:23 PM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Press "F" to pay respects? :/
posted by theorique at 12:30 PM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by theorique at 12:30 PM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
On second thought, I wonder if proper treatment didn't happen in part because he probably wasn't as crazy in his younger days as he was in his days of Crazy Manson, Media Personality, when it was basically it was his job and life calling to go on shows like Geraldo and act nuts. It could've been theatrics to get attention and press (yep) but it did seem like he got crazier as time progressed, therefore, what we come to know as Manson the Lunatic was probably not the same person as Manson the Scheming Cult Leader back in 66.
Maybe back in the day when some good could've been done, he was just another young car thief/pimp who talked a bunch of pseudophilosophy to draw people to him. I've read some comments in the past that in the 60s, spouting nonsense philosophy was often considered the height of profundity, so in that context, Manson fit right in.
Oh, and there's this, I had completely forgotten about the intervention in Boys' Town that actually did happen but Manson ran away and never said why.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 1:17 PM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Maybe back in the day when some good could've been done, he was just another young car thief/pimp who talked a bunch of pseudophilosophy to draw people to him. I've read some comments in the past that in the 60s, spouting nonsense philosophy was often considered the height of profundity, so in that context, Manson fit right in.
Oh, and there's this, I had completely forgotten about the intervention in Boys' Town that actually did happen but Manson ran away and never said why.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 1:17 PM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
I think we can all agree we'd be better off if the fucker had never existed.
He helped me win a high school debate arguing pro-capital punishment, so I guess I should thank him for part of that A+.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 1:26 PM on November 20, 2017
He helped me win a high school debate arguing pro-capital punishment, so I guess I should thank him for part of that A+.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 1:26 PM on November 20, 2017
I don't hope for people's death, so I don't hope that Trump dies. I just hope that when it happens, like Manson, he is in prison.
posted by maxsparber at 1:34 PM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by maxsparber at 1:34 PM on November 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
> The Wikipedia article made me wonder what happened to his son; can you imagine the burden that must be?
Manson's son was adopted, eventually learned about his biological parents.
posted by theora55 at 2:40 PM on November 20, 2017
Manson's son was adopted, eventually learned about his biological parents.
posted by theora55 at 2:40 PM on November 20, 2017
One of the things that I think makes Manson equally frightening and fascinating is that he didn’t carry out these murders himself - he convinced others to do it for him. That’s terrifying.
posted by double bubble at 3:06 PM on November 20, 2017
posted by double bubble at 3:06 PM on November 20, 2017
Not mentioned yet, but I quite liked Aquarius (actually, I seem to have been the only person here that did).
posted by unliteral at 3:08 PM on November 20, 2017
posted by unliteral at 3:08 PM on November 20, 2017
And...a lot of his followers remained devoted to him.
posted by double bubble at 3:09 PM on November 20, 2017
posted by double bubble at 3:09 PM on November 20, 2017
I think if I learned I was Manson’s son, I’d ditch the beard and long hair pronto. They look strikingly alike.
I always get frustrated and angry in the face of evil, when I can’t create or don’t know the narrative that helps me have empathy. The bully who seems needlessly cruel. The capitalist who seems is so ruthlessly greedy. The gleeful rapist. The Charlie Manson.
And I don’t think that anger is the wrong emotion. It is my first emotion, usually, in the face of such things, and I make sure to reflect and consider the story that brought them to evil— the bully has a backstory for example, but it’s okay if I end up back on “angry.
So in anger, that there are and will be, bad mean people in the world: Fuck that guy.
posted by Grandysaur at 3:09 PM on November 20, 2017
I always get frustrated and angry in the face of evil, when I can’t create or don’t know the narrative that helps me have empathy. The bully who seems needlessly cruel. The capitalist who seems is so ruthlessly greedy. The gleeful rapist. The Charlie Manson.
And I don’t think that anger is the wrong emotion. It is my first emotion, usually, in the face of such things, and I make sure to reflect and consider the story that brought them to evil— the bully has a backstory for example, but it’s okay if I end up back on “angry.
So in anger, that there are and will be, bad mean people in the world: Fuck that guy.
posted by Grandysaur at 3:09 PM on November 20, 2017
Las Vegas nude model tour of the Barker Ranch Manson memorabilia.
posted by hortense at 4:01 PM on November 20, 2017
posted by hortense at 4:01 PM on November 20, 2017
And...a lot of his followers remained devoted to him.
What’s difficult to realize is that Manson, in the end, pretty much got what he wanted out of life. All his various efforts - pimping, fame-whoring, sex-cult-founding - were devised with the goal of making him King Shit of Turd Mountain. He loved lording it over a crapsack world. And in his final prison stint, he pretty much got that. He was famous, sought after by the press and even by women, and he never had to miss a meal. It wasn’t Hollywood, but I suspect he knew it was as good a thing as he ever had going.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:27 PM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
What’s difficult to realize is that Manson, in the end, pretty much got what he wanted out of life. All his various efforts - pimping, fame-whoring, sex-cult-founding - were devised with the goal of making him King Shit of Turd Mountain. He loved lording it over a crapsack world. And in his final prison stint, he pretty much got that. He was famous, sought after by the press and even by women, and he never had to miss a meal. It wasn’t Hollywood, but I suspect he knew it was as good a thing as he ever had going.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:27 PM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
He said as much in 1986 in a prison interview with the television journalist Charlie Rose.
And two simultaneous front-page news stories find an unlikely point of intersection.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:02 PM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
And two simultaneous front-page news stories find an unlikely point of intersection.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:02 PM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
Coming very late to the conversation, but just to put this is historical context:
I was 8 months pregnant and living in the Haight Ashbury when Sharon Tate and her friends were murdered. We were already heartbroken by the slaughters of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April and Bobby Kennedy in June. Vietnam continued and the Chicago Democratic Convention was just ahead. Honestly, Manson didn't stand out as much then as he seems to now.
posted by kestralwing at 10:31 PM on November 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
I was 8 months pregnant and living in the Haight Ashbury when Sharon Tate and her friends were murdered. We were already heartbroken by the slaughters of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April and Bobby Kennedy in June. Vietnam continued and the Chicago Democratic Convention was just ahead. Honestly, Manson didn't stand out as much then as he seems to now.
posted by kestralwing at 10:31 PM on November 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
I'm especially curious if anyone can explain this without arguing for the death penalty.
Funny, I was coming here to say the exact opposite. When I was younger, I expected the death of Manson would be a media circus, but this has been underwhelming. It seems prison took the only thing from Manson that he really cared about, his notoriety. Few know, few care.
Maybe now the families of his victims can be at peace.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 3:59 AM on November 21, 2017
Funny, I was coming here to say the exact opposite. When I was younger, I expected the death of Manson would be a media circus, but this has been underwhelming. It seems prison took the only thing from Manson that he really cared about, his notoriety. Few know, few care.
Maybe now the families of his victims can be at peace.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 3:59 AM on November 21, 2017
Manson's family of killers:
Susan Atkins: died in prison in 2009, age 61
Patricia Krenwinkel: still in prison, age 69
Leslie Van Houten: granted parole in September 2017, age 68
Charles Watson: still in prison, age 71
Linda Kasbian: star witness and granted immunity, age 68
Source: NYT
posted by Mister Bijou at 5:17 AM on November 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
Susan Atkins: died in prison in 2009, age 61
Patricia Krenwinkel: still in prison, age 69
Leslie Van Houten: granted parole in September 2017, age 68
Charles Watson: still in prison, age 71
Linda Kasbian: star witness and granted immunity, age 68
Source: NYT
posted by Mister Bijou at 5:17 AM on November 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
The sad thing is that anyone could be the next Manson, just as anyone could be one of his followers. It can be difficult to manipulate one person, especially if they aren't isolated, but once you've got a group, it's dead simple, since the underlying traits are deep within our evolutionary biology.
It's precisely the same way the right wingers are manipulating society, just on a smaller scale. As a wannabe Charlie Manson all you gotta do is cheats a crisis in the minds of the group and then be the loudest person in the room. When a group feels danger, they tend to surrender all higher thought to whoever happens to be barking orders and do what they are told.
More productively and ethically, it's also how flight attendants are trained to get your ass off the plane in an emergency. Clear, very loud, very simple commands cause the vast majority of people to obey.
posted by wierdo at 7:05 AM on November 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
It's precisely the same way the right wingers are manipulating society, just on a smaller scale. As a wannabe Charlie Manson all you gotta do is cheats a crisis in the minds of the group and then be the loudest person in the room. When a group feels danger, they tend to surrender all higher thought to whoever happens to be barking orders and do what they are told.
More productively and ethically, it's also how flight attendants are trained to get your ass off the plane in an emergency. Clear, very loud, very simple commands cause the vast majority of people to obey.
posted by wierdo at 7:05 AM on November 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
Matthew Roberts is not Charles Manson's son.
Leslie Van Houten has been granted parole but is still in prison. Governor Brown has 120 days to overturn the decision and he likely will, considering that's what he did when she was granted parole last year.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:23 AM on November 21, 2017
Leslie Van Houten has been granted parole but is still in prison. Governor Brown has 120 days to overturn the decision and he likely will, considering that's what he did when she was granted parole last year.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:23 AM on November 21, 2017
Little is known about Valentine Michael, the third child acknowledged as Manson’s son.Worst. fan. ever.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:37 AM on November 21, 2017
I don't see why it makes a difference to society that he's dead
The death itself doesn't need to have an effect on society as a whole for it to be big news. The news is an opportunity to reflect on or learn about events of the past.
posted by John Cohen at 12:04 PM on November 21, 2017
The death itself doesn't need to have an effect on society as a whole for it to be big news. The news is an opportunity to reflect on or learn about events of the past.
posted by John Cohen at 12:04 PM on November 21, 2017
The Maniac Neo-Nazis Keeping Charles Manson’s Race War Alive
posted by octobersurprise at 1:50 PM on November 21, 2017
posted by octobersurprise at 1:50 PM on November 21, 2017
Okay so until I listened to that You Must Remember This podcast this afternoon (podcasts + stacking firewood = winning?) I had no idea that Angela Lansbury's daughter was an early follower of Manson.
So not only is the podcast informative and fascinating, you can write Jessica Fletcher/Charles Manson RPF crossover fanfic?
posted by elsietheeel at 3:43 PM on November 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
So not only is the podcast informative and fascinating, you can write Jessica Fletcher/Charles Manson RPF crossover fanfic?
posted by elsietheeel at 3:43 PM on November 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
You Must Remember This always delivers. My fave bits are the suprise Howard Hughes connections.
posted by Artw at 3:46 PM on November 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 3:46 PM on November 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm having too many feelings over YMRT in re: my parents (both turned 18 in the summer of 1967) and their shared love of the Moody Blues' album Knights in White Satin and the Beach Boys.
I was aware of maybe half of the stuff relating to Dennis Wilson and the rest is seriously breaking my heart, especially given my father's early death due to substance abuse.
Anyway...it's a really good podcast. Highly recommended by me (not that my recommendation is worth a damn).
posted by elsietheeel at 4:26 PM on November 21, 2017
I was aware of maybe half of the stuff relating to Dennis Wilson and the rest is seriously breaking my heart, especially given my father's early death due to substance abuse.
Anyway...it's a really good podcast. Highly recommended by me (not that my recommendation is worth a damn).
posted by elsietheeel at 4:26 PM on November 21, 2017
I can't say I agree with the folks that say we all have the potential, given the right circumstances, to be a Manson. We all have, or most of us have, the potential for murder under the right circumstances, but making other people kill requires a certain sort of warped Messiah complex. I was thinking today that his cult was like an inversion of a suicide cult, a cult where the leader's compulsion to control his victims spirals to a final end in which complete control of money, sex and socialization is no longer enough; it has to be absolute power over life and death in order for the leader's ego to sustain its confidence that he is all-powerful. It requires malignant narcissism* but also the ability to sway people to the ultimate act of violence. I don't believe that we all have that dormant within us, just like I thought it was a little ridiculous when after 9/11 I once heard "we all have a little Bin Laden in all of us" (WTF?? Really?)
I don't believe in evil as a force but I do believe in psychopathy, and I do believe it's probably a combination of nature and nurture. I do believe some folks can be innately more violent than others, just as some can be innately more shy (or any other quality) than others. That's not to say that environmental influences aren't huge and we should aim to improve them, but I don't believe it's some universal dark side that we all have, that under the right circumstances, any one of us could start up a murderous cult.
I also believe that some forms of mental illness can induce violence (but not all the time- for example the cases I've read about involve paranoia and voices, but many people hear voices and experience paranoia and are not violent) but that doesn't mean I paint everyone with the same brush. I have a mental illness and don't want to be stigmatized, but I'm not going to deny some tragic realities just because I fear people making simplistic generalities. It's a complex interlocking of factors that determines behavior, but brain chemistry is definitely one of them. It's also true that trauma can rewire the brain in certain ways, so you get to chicken-or-the-egg discussions.
Also, I have to walk back my earlier sentiment that he was mentally ill before the cult formed; it seems he was more of a sociopath, who as Maxsperber pointed out, did have opportunities to take a different path in his youth. While I don't believe it exonerates him, I do believe he was psychotic around the time of the murders due to massive acid consumption disintegrating his already disturbed mind. Therefore I don't think it's so much of a failure of the mental health system (which has failed a lot throughout history) as much as variables we may never fully know; we don't know why he left Boys Town (although it's a reasonable assumption that he just went to get out of jail and then blew it off) Whether you want to call it his free will or his innate evil or psychopathy is a huge discussion we can't resolve here.
I also agree with the person way up thread who said people would've had to have intervened when he was 5 or 6. From Max Sperber's description of failed interventions in his teen years, his pathology had already taken root. But he was not yet a murderer, and there have been child murderers. Beyond acid psychosis and rage against society, I don't think we can say at this point what made him who he became. But I definitely agree that it's worth examining and it doesn't mean anyone is trying to vindicate him or make excuses for him.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 7:44 PM on November 21, 2017 [4 favorites]
I don't believe in evil as a force but I do believe in psychopathy, and I do believe it's probably a combination of nature and nurture. I do believe some folks can be innately more violent than others, just as some can be innately more shy (or any other quality) than others. That's not to say that environmental influences aren't huge and we should aim to improve them, but I don't believe it's some universal dark side that we all have, that under the right circumstances, any one of us could start up a murderous cult.
I also believe that some forms of mental illness can induce violence (but not all the time- for example the cases I've read about involve paranoia and voices, but many people hear voices and experience paranoia and are not violent) but that doesn't mean I paint everyone with the same brush. I have a mental illness and don't want to be stigmatized, but I'm not going to deny some tragic realities just because I fear people making simplistic generalities. It's a complex interlocking of factors that determines behavior, but brain chemistry is definitely one of them. It's also true that trauma can rewire the brain in certain ways, so you get to chicken-or-the-egg discussions.
Also, I have to walk back my earlier sentiment that he was mentally ill before the cult formed; it seems he was more of a sociopath, who as Maxsperber pointed out, did have opportunities to take a different path in his youth. While I don't believe it exonerates him, I do believe he was psychotic around the time of the murders due to massive acid consumption disintegrating his already disturbed mind. Therefore I don't think it's so much of a failure of the mental health system (which has failed a lot throughout history) as much as variables we may never fully know; we don't know why he left Boys Town (although it's a reasonable assumption that he just went to get out of jail and then blew it off) Whether you want to call it his free will or his innate evil or psychopathy is a huge discussion we can't resolve here.
I also agree with the person way up thread who said people would've had to have intervened when he was 5 or 6. From Max Sperber's description of failed interventions in his teen years, his pathology had already taken root. But he was not yet a murderer, and there have been child murderers. Beyond acid psychosis and rage against society, I don't think we can say at this point what made him who he became. But I definitely agree that it's worth examining and it doesn't mean anyone is trying to vindicate him or make excuses for him.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 7:44 PM on November 21, 2017 [4 favorites]
You Must Remember This always delivers. My fave bits are the suprise Howard Hughes connections.
There are some small details that are off:
posted by Going To Maine at 9:11 PM on November 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
There are some small details that are off:
- A “helter-skelter” isn’t a roller-coaster; it’s a kind of slide.
- Kenneth Anger didn’t live at a former Russian embassy; he lived at a mansion informally known as “the Russian Embassy”. (This particularly grated since the house was in San Francisco, which is obviously the wrong side of the country for an embasssy.)
posted by Going To Maine at 9:11 PM on November 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
GospelofWesleyWillis, what I'm saying is that his supposedly excellent persuasive ability is something we all have if we simply set the situation up to our advantage. Anyone who convinces themselves that manipulating people that way is the right thing for them to do will have little trouble executing that plan given some time.
The same technique has been in nearly constant use since 2001, so it's faded into the background noise. Create a crisis, be the loudest voice in the room, and the majority will go along with whatever you say. Both sides of the coin are hardwired into our biology, which is what makes it so difficult to combat disaster capitalism as some call it and so easy for people to do in the first place.
posted by wierdo at 12:26 PM on November 22, 2017
The same technique has been in nearly constant use since 2001, so it's faded into the background noise. Create a crisis, be the loudest voice in the room, and the majority will go along with whatever you say. Both sides of the coin are hardwired into our biology, which is what makes it so difficult to combat disaster capitalism as some call it and so easy for people to do in the first place.
posted by wierdo at 12:26 PM on November 22, 2017
And just to not be so depressing, it's actually very helpful in actual disaster situations. I'm sure everyone here has seen videos immediately after some explosion or whatever where people are milling about somewhat uselessly until one person finally speaks up and tells others to take specific action and then suddenly people are being rescued, whatever.
If ever you find yourself in a situation after a crash or whatever where you think to yourself "why isn't anyone helping?" that's a good indication you could do some good by wading in and providing direction until the actual authorities arrive, assuming nobody's life is being put in danger. (Something like looking directly at people and saying "You do [productive thing]" like call 911 or put pressure on that wound)
posted by wierdo at 12:39 PM on November 22, 2017
If ever you find yourself in a situation after a crash or whatever where you think to yourself "why isn't anyone helping?" that's a good indication you could do some good by wading in and providing direction until the actual authorities arrive, assuming nobody's life is being put in danger. (Something like looking directly at people and saying "You do [productive thing]" like call 911 or put pressure on that wound)
posted by wierdo at 12:39 PM on November 22, 2017
Weirdo (it feels odd addressing someone like that) I wasn't speaking to your comment about the ability to manipulate and control, I was speaking to other comments way upthread. I can't recall who said it. But basically I was disputing the idea that we all have that level of sadism and violence buried within us, and that includes his malignant narcissistic messiah of a death cult kind of sadism. I was disputing the idea that the right conditions could make us all leaders of a mass murder plot. We might want to control people, but we might do it for money or sex or whatever. He did seek those things for awhile, but ultimately he wanted revenge because he couldn't be a Jesus Rockstar King of Hollywood Guy that he wanted to be. He wanted people eviscerated, literally, for that.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 9:31 PM on November 22, 2017
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 9:31 PM on November 22, 2017
BTW the You Must Remember this is really good but I too found errors that make me wonder about its accuracy for detail. It said Paul McCartney famously visited Haight Ashbury; it was George Harrison and he hated it. He thought it was like the Bowery, full of seedy addicts.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 9:32 PM on November 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 9:32 PM on November 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
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