Germanwings Andreas Lubitz: it Takes a Special Kind of Evil

     I try not to use the world 'evil' too much but it's tough to come up with another way to describe this pilot who not only did he want to kill himself-which is already in my opinion, a special kind of selfish-but wanted to take as many other people with him as possible. I had tried to avoid the 'E word' but finally gave up:

     "The co-pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 purposely crashed the plane into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board, officials said Thursday."

    "We at Lufthansa are speechless that this aircraft has been deliberately crashed by the co-pilot," said Carsten Spohr, CEO of Lufthansa, which owns Germanwings.

     "Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said the co-pilot, 27-year-old German national Andreas Lubitz, apparently "wanted to destroy the aircraft."

     "It's unknown whether Lubitz planned his actions, Robin said. But he "took advantage" of a moment in which the pilot left the cockpit and "activated the descent," which can only be done deliberately"

    New details released Thursday appeared to support the startling revelation that someone set the plane on a crash course.

    http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/26/europe/france-germanwings-plane-crash-main/

    I mean you hear of pilots flying drunk or on drugs and crashing or pilots taking a selfie; all of this is criminal, homicidal negligence, but you can imagine it. For someone to be this angry at humanity though-it takes a special person to have this much pain and resentment. 

    Though be careful in ever saying that something marks a new low. As much as you might say or want to say that no human has ever fallen to this, there is always precedent that shows this is not so. 

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/27/world/europe/few-precedents-are-seen-as-germanwings-investigation-points-to-deliberate-crash.html?_r=0

    The question that begs is: what could the motive possibly be? How could a young pilot feel this was his only way out?

    "Police searched Lubitz's apartment in Dusseldorf on Thursday, looking for clues about his possible motive."

     "A search is underway for the plane's second "black box," the flight data recorder, which could shed more light on the plane's final minutes."

     "And the French government has asked the FBI to help investigate the crash, a law enforcement official said."

     "Investigators so far say they're baffled about why Lubitz would have crashed the plane."

    "Lufthansa does "not have any clues," Spohr said.

     Well, obviously, one would have to start with his family or friends-or if he had any mental illness. If he does have mental illness does that mean it's wrong to call him evil? I'm not so sure. 

      You know me-I've had some go arounds with Scott Sumner and his commentators at the Money Illusion, but nothing made me madder than when someone there dismissed a comment I made about how my friend who is mentally ill told me his food stamps have been cut by 40% over the last 6 years. 

     This Market Monetarist genius was trying to claim that food stamps had increased since 2009-a widely used GOP talking point; if only a lie repeated again and again became more true-in truth it becomes an even greater lie as it leads to disinformation and spreads ignorance. 

     When I pointed out that my friend's food stamps have been cut, he sneered that I was using a useless anecdote all the more useless as it was offered by a crazy person-the commentator's words. Man, that was the maddest I ever got at Money Illusion-saying a lot, as those of you who know my history there realize. 

     I let this guy know in no certain terms he had no business sniggering at my friend-he may be mentally ill but he understands basic math-and believe me, no one understands better than him when he loses money-he's about as frugal as it gets. 

     Point I'm making is that as someone with more than one friend who is mentally ill, I know that ,most of them certainly have more than a basic sense of right and wrong. My friend in question on food stamps, certainly would realize that what Lubitz did was evil; he is actually a very sweet guy-though quite neurotic-but it makes him who he is. I've met some other folks who are MI as well and discovered that they aren't so nice; so my take is that moral norms apply to the MI as well. 

    So I don't see anyway else to describe him-but evil. 

     P.S. I have to disagree with the 19th century German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer regarding suicide: he had waged a campaign to get the Catholic Church to change it's moral valuation of suicide-the Church taught that anyone who committed suicide had committed 'the unpardonable sin'-and couldn't go to Heaven. 

     I'm not a Catholic-or religious at all-but I don't hold suicides in a very high estimation. Assuming you have anyone who cares about you at all, it's just a very selfish-'fuck you'-kind of an action.