'Loughner Acted, from His Perspective, in a Moral Fashion'Quote:
SPIEGEL: Mr. Schneider, on Jan. 8 in Arizona, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the head at close range and killed six people. While the world searches for explanations, you write, in your recent book "Das Attentat" ("The Assassination"), that an assassin like Loughner is not crazy but the product of hyper-rationality. What does this mean?
Schneider: Every assassin is a perceptive observer and interpreter of signs and events. For him, nothing happens by accident. He scrutinizes the world in search of hostile intentions, and he imagines conspiracies everywhere. To us, the outcome seems insane. Yet logic and rationality are key components in the paranoid suppositions arrived at by the assassin. Paranoia is not irrationality but hyper-rationality.
Letter to the EditorQuote:
You Germans are the victims of a practical joke.
The concept of "super-sanity" was coined by Grant Morrison to refer to The Joker, the main antagonist of the eponymous comic book character Batman. The Joker, according to Grant Morrison, only appears to be insane, he only appears to be an agent of indiscriminate and senseless crime. In reality, he has a transcendental understanding of the world that he lives in and his actions are defined by the role that he plays. The Joker, Morrison claims, is the only character in the DC Comics universe aware that he is, in fact, only a comic book super-villain.
In a few Batman comics, some bit characters make allegations of the Joker's "super-sanity" and are laughed off by the protagonists.
This Schneider you interviewed - whether knowingly or otherwise, he is relating a concept that originated in a classic American comic book series, which is particularly telling given that the individual to whom he is attributing the same concept is also American.
All the best,
Ethan
