The shooting of an insurance executive, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has dominated the news, with much of the coverage condemning the actions of the alleged killer, Luigi Mangione. There has also been critical remarks of those who see the young man in an attractive or romantic light. Arguments have fallen along associated with arguments about vigilantism, the evils of the healthcare industry, the glamorization of crime, or the motif of corporate greed meeting its comeuppance. Not much of the discussion is nuanced.
One strand of commentary is from a Robin Hood or Marxist perspective--maybe along the lines, inadvertently of Eric Hobsbawm's Primitive Rebel. The idea is that a wrong has been symbolically revenged. From the most basic view, however, this tragic event offers little redeeming value: a young man's life is ruined, his family forever scarred, and a promising CEO's life—marked by family and community involvement—is ended. This fellow was not the architect of an infernal healthcare system, but only an opportunistic participant. The Mangione family also will forever be altered by its Raskolnikof-like junior member.
Regarding Mangione, I have no personal knowledge beyond the curated information provided by the press. Reports indicate he suffered from chronic pain, specifically spondylolisthesis—a condition where a vertebra slips out of alignment, causing significant discomfort. Pain can distort personality Chronic pain is hard to manage, is a constant stress, and may have been, with whatever the killer brought to the situation with his own temparement, part of a spiraling anger. Misaligned idealism is a danger to young men, smart or systematized in their knowledge.. The frustration of navigating healthcare authorizations can exacerbate these challenges for those with limited frustration tolerance. Plus, the people likely to get injured tend more often to be an active bunch who are not suited to the patient role, disliking the constraints of aftercare, and generally bad patients trying to hurry their cure. Many distanced, intellectualized, or ideological males—sometimes with technical backgrounds—comprise the ranks of suicide bombers, assassins, self-destructive iconoclasts, and terrorists. If more patriotically inclined, these idealistic you men are bamboozled into joing the military, much to the rest of the country's benefit.
For individuals from active, engaged, or highly accomplished families, their inherited skills, energy, and gifts can make it easier to commit crimes they perceive as justified. It is hard to imagine the healthcare system being anything but the financially oriented, monetarized business every other part of our culture is, and likely some wholesale personality change in people would be prerequisite for change, or else some exceptional group of planners able to override common public sentiment and incentives.
