structures
accountable. This may well give rise to a climate of general,
almost arbitrary animosity.
It is an attitude that the lives of others and even one’s
own life are in the end not of any great value, while killing
as a means of dealing with the situation is accepted and maybe
even glorified as heroic – and the same goes for being
killed. The amok incidents in the Western world that have been
analyzed seem to be more or less equally motivated and triggered
by (seemingly) antagonizing, insulting or humiliating conflicts
with authorities (e.g. the amok incident in the cantonal council
of the Swiss Canton of Zug), by relationships, and by interpersonal,
material or ideal situations of loss. Few incidents are evidently
the result of serious psychological disturbance (i.e. the perpetrator
is clearly psychotic or suffers from a mental illness) or are
completely unexplainable and unmotivated.
Joseph Vogl would like to compile a typology of amok. However,
this is not intended to be a typology of the individual perpetrators’
psychological profiles: the diagnoses always branch out in highly
divergent directions. The psychology of the individual is very
soon up against its limits. It cannot explain the act’s
origin, and frequently a gap remains with regard to a clearly
definable motivation. Thus Vogl’s typology does not apply
to the perpetrator. Instead Vogl is much more interested in
what the observer would like to recognize in such incidents.
His theory is that because these murders can neither be categorized
as purely criminal or purely insane acts, one would like to
recognize a certain critical and maybe even catastrophic condition
in our society. All of the commentaries on the subject indicate
that cultural diagnosis is continually being practiced here.
In this respect, the shooting rampage in Erfurt is a typical
case: less on account of the particular individuality of the
perpetrator or the crime, but because the incident was accorded
a representative role from the very beginning. The execution
of the act and the media’s reporting of it complement
one another. Together they represent a certain type of phenomenon
clearly demonstrating that in the midst of peaceful everyday
life a potential threat is lurking at key points in society
– a sudden eruption of war. The amok runner is in motion;
he redefines space. He leaves a psychogeographical trail of
blood. Wherever amok runners act out a total break with normality,
they leave behind sites of devastation that endure for years.
