By Seamus McGraw
(Continued)
But it is as least equally likely that Underwood, if the allegations are true, simply lost interest and that he discovered that truly monstrous evil makes monstrous demands on its perpetrators. And as a self-involved loner, he wasn't up to the task.
In their way, the iconographic killers of the past, the cannibals like Dahmer and Sappington, the sex killers like Rader, held up a dark mirror to the culture in which they lived. In their fevered fantasies and savage acts they reflected grotesquely distorted images of the values we all hold. Ramirez, with his devotion to Satanism, turned the power of religion on its head. In his sexual violence, Rader fed on the cultural dreams of power and the value we place on intellect. In their own ways, they each cruelly parodied the culture. That is one of the principal reasons that we, as a culture, are so fascinated by such villains. It's not just that they touch on some primal fear, which of course they do, that they touch that deepest part of our psyche where the ghosts of ancient predators still stalk us. It is also that, in a way, their evil, though a mutation, in someway acknowledges our most cherished values.
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| Dennis Rader |
Underwood may represent another cruel parody. His pathology may be a reflection of our own retail culture, where we buy our identities off the rack, and return them a week later when we find they don't quite fit. And if authorities are right, the fact that Underwood lacked even the determination to carry out his depraved crime may make him the perfect perverse reflection of our culture.
And if he is found guilty, he will have become the perfect evil icon for our time, the Slacker Killer.
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