Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [30]
A girl in the third row raised her hand. She was a thin blonde, with a pale, waifish face.
“Are you implying that there’s no difference between a serial predator and a great artist?” Her voice quavered, though Lee couldn’t tell if it was from nerves or anger.
“Not at all,” Nelson replied. “I merely suggest that what drives them springs from the same source. The form of expression couldn’t be more different.”
The girl’s pale face reddened, and her voice shook even more. “So it’s just a question of form?”
“But form is content, on some very profound level. Consider the irreducibility of a poem, for example. It’s like the artificial separation between mind and body, something eastern medicine has recognized for centuries. Is a migraine headache a product of too much red wine, a genetic predisposition, or a fight with one’s husband? Who’s to say? The doctor says it’s the result of an expanded blood vessel in the forehead, the allergist claims it’s an aversion to tannins and nitrate, the reiki healer claims it’s an imbalance of the energies—and maybe they’re all right.”
He settled himself on the front of the desk again, his arms crossed.
“As to the difference between an artist and a criminal, I would maintain that van Gogh, who was actually psychotic, was lucky to have found an expression for his spirit, for his demons, that was socially acceptable. Or take Beethoven, for example, who was a famously eccentric and tortured soul. They were better adapters than your average criminal. On the other hand, there are people who are both criminals and talented creative artists—like the playwright Jean Genet, for example.”
A boy in the second row raised his hand. “You said they spring from the same source—what’s the source?”
“Libido—the life force. Passion. Without passion, there is no creativity—or destruction. Passion in Greek means ‘to suffer,’ as in the passion of Christ. But in our culture it has come to mean the force that drives sex, not creativity. I might remind you,” he continued, “that Adolf Hitler was an aspiring artist before he became a dictator.
“In fact, it’s been argued that had the art critics of Vienna been kinder to young Adolf, World War II might have been avoided. It was partly his frustration as an artist that turned him toward politics. As R. D. Laing points out, it is necessary for a person to feel they have made a difference—that they are being ‘received’ by others. So the ignored artist becomes the politician, and he ensures that he is listened to. Both his art and his political speeches were his attempts to impose his will—his self—upon the world. Like all cult leaders, he preys on his followers’ fears and dreams—”
A dark-haired girl in the front row raised her hand. “The Nazis were a cult?”
Nelson cocked his head to one side. “Of course they were a cult—a very successful one, for a while. All cults eventually self-destruct, of course. But that’s another topic.”
Nelson stood up from his perch on the front of the desk and pulled himself up to his full height of five foot six inches. “The ignored artist, or son, or lover, can also become a serial offender.” He clicked the remote in his hand and the slide of the young woman was replaced by a close-up of a smiling Ted Bundy.
“Most of you recognize this man. Handsome, intelligent, and charming, he was the sort of man your mother might wish you would marry.” Lee wasn’t sure, but he thought Nelson glanced at the blond girl when he said this. “But he was the very icon of the creature society fears most—the monster in its midst. And some deeply antisocial personalities, like Bundy, learn to imitate social behavior very, very well—you might even say they are masquerading as human beings.”
Nelson put down the remote and stood facing his audience.
“But he was a human being, and our job is to understand him, not merely judge him. It is a profoundly more difficult and disturbing task, of course, but it is the one we have chosen.”
A thin boy in the back raised his