Making Sense of the ‘Senselessness’: Critical Reflections on Killing Rampages

Abstract

The essay comments on killing rampages from a Marxist perspective and offers provocative conclusions on the reasons for young people to go on killing sprees. In order to achieve this, the author applies the Marxist psychological theory of the "abstract free will" and analyses how a modern individual's consciousness must be shaped to commit a rampage killing. It turns out that individuals, which deal psychologically with the requirements of the capitalistic society, apply the criterion of successful decency to their material and social efforts. Even though this is common among modern individuals and accompanied by adequate psychological and moral "techniques", some radicalise the ideal they have constructed of themselves and the society they live in.