Smokingboot

But we see ourselves as being the key unit in society-we do not look out for 'the other' because we are only looking out for our own narrow interests. Some groups are ultimately just aggregates of individuals-each seeing themselves as the pivotal part of the group. Perhaps he saw himself as having a right to be in the group because he was thinking first of himself-that the world should revolve around him. And perhaps the nature and form of the groups he saw was a reflection of himself anyway-his own wants and needs. Killing is ultimately an incredibly selfish act-to be able to do it at all you must first distance your sense of self from any empathy with the victim-self must become all. Suicide is very similar-and he did both. Both are ultimately acts of indulging self over other.

My own take is that society in many countries gives people a sense of rights over obligations, self over other, and that increasing violence and crime is largely a reflection of that process-of people becoming more aware of their own needs and sense of self, but feeling betrayed by the inevitable sense of isolation it brings as communal structures change shape and wither or become increasingly exclusive and limited. Spree killings in particular seem to come often from a sense of isolation, but the groups the isolation is relative to are generally rather shallow and short lived.