One of the reasons this website has been 'dark' for weeks now is I have started a new project in my professional life related to psychiatric institutions and the policies and practices that animate them. As a result of this new challenge I have returned to the writings of Foucault, Bourdieu and Loic Wacquant, but also to media and more popular writings on madness, abnormality and so-called psychotic individuals. I find my best work is done when it is informed by my indirect curiosities. Right now I'm trying to think the relations between flesh, fantasy, deviance, desire, compulsion, moral schema and social influence - and how these mix with institutional efforts to control and regulate the affairs of human life.
Below is an interview with Ted Bundy (born Theodore Robert Cowell, 1946-1989) the day before his execution on the electric chair, January 23, 1989, for the multiple kidnappings, rapes and murders of young women in the 1970s. Bundy was interviewed by (the self-righteous) Christian apologetic Dr. James Dobson from Raiford Prison in Starke, Florida.
Here Bundy talks at length of the influence of pornography, violent media and images on the evolution of his most deviant desires and murderous behaviours. It is a fascinating confession of a man who came to self-interprete his life through the lens of what seems to be a heightened moral sensibility.
I'm not so sure about the heightened part. By that point it was pretty well-established that Bundy was a hyper-compulsive liar. In fact his 'skill' in luring victims rested entirely on this side of his personality i.e. to generate plausible reasons for his claims depending on what the other person needed to hear.
In this case he spins a moral yarn for a Christian. In other explanations he changes tactics depending on who is sitting opposite him. I literally wouldn't believe a *single* word he says.
Which is not to say that serial killers can never reach a point of moral reflection on how they ended up the way they are (many do, Ramirez is a good example), but Bundy was too willing to alter his story depending on the audience to be trusted here.
Agreed. I get the sense that Dobson was just fishing for Bundy to theologically validate christian moral systems viz. the spectacle of confession and supposed redemption. But, as Paul notes, Bundy was a pathological liar and most likely using Dobson to attempt to ward off his own imminent execution.
The whole scene comes off as some kind of christian theo-porn...
For the most part I agree with your assessment. Notice I wrote: "seems to be" a heightened moral sensibility. I have no doubt that Bundy was just using the situation as a means of appealing to those who might intervene on his behalf.
What fascinated me, and what I am most interested in with regards to my work, is not Bundy's own interpretation as such, but all the background conditions that necessarily pertain to the kind of spectacle we see in this interview.
For instance, as you point out, the presence and co-creation of the moral stories the participants are willing to tell and validate for each other, the implicit values that underpin those stories and confessions. I am also interested in thinking the possible role porn, culturally affected images and desires might have played in the Bundy situation - as suggested by his own references to pornographic images, social responsibility and media.
This video and Bundy's case more generally helps me to think the background conditions of his behaviours, in terms of affective cognitions, cultural/media influences, but also the institutional context in which he lived and died. I want to, in some sense, be able to see through Bundy's bullshit and speculate on the concrete ambient forces that precipitated and accompanied his crimes, incarceration, confessions and execution.
His subjective authenticity is, then, almost irrelevant.
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Yuck, one of the few people that can make Ted Bundy look like a decent human being by comparison it's James Dobson.
It's also pretty ridiculous interpretation.
I'm not so sure about the heightened part. By that point it was pretty well-established that Bundy was a hyper-compulsive liar. In fact his 'skill' in luring victims rested entirely on this side of his personality i.e. to generate plausible reasons for his claims depending on what the other person needed to hear.
In this case he spins a moral yarn for a Christian. In other explanations he changes tactics depending on who is sitting opposite him. I literally wouldn't believe a *single* word he says.
Which is not to say that serial killers can never reach a point of moral reflection on how they ended up the way they are (many do, Ramirez is a good example), but Bundy was too willing to alter his story depending on the audience to be trusted here.
Thomas,
Agreed. I get the sense that Dobson was just fishing for Bundy to theologically validate christian moral systems viz. the spectacle of confession and supposed redemption. But, as Paul notes, Bundy was a pathological liar and most likely using Dobson to attempt to ward off his own imminent execution.
The whole scene comes off as some kind of christian theo-porn...
Paul,
For the most part I agree with your assessment. Notice I wrote: "seems to be" a heightened moral sensibility. I have no doubt that Bundy was just using the situation as a means of appealing to those who might intervene on his behalf.
What fascinated me, and what I am most interested in with regards to my work, is not Bundy's own interpretation as such, but all the background conditions that necessarily pertain to the kind of spectacle we see in this interview.
For instance, as you point out, the presence and co-creation of the moral stories the participants are willing to tell and validate for each other, the implicit values that underpin those stories and confessions. I am also interested in thinking the possible role porn, culturally affected images and desires might have played in the Bundy situation - as suggested by his own references to pornographic images, social responsibility and media.
This video and Bundy's case more generally helps me to think the background conditions of his behaviours, in terms of affective cognitions, cultural/media influences, but also the institutional context in which he lived and died. I want to, in some sense, be able to see through Bundy's bullshit and speculate on the concrete ambient forces that precipitated and accompanied his crimes, incarceration, confessions and execution.
His subjective authenticity is, then, almost irrelevant.
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