I was watching a TV program last night on the assassination of John Lennon by the very confused soul that was Mark David Chapman. The program explored many aspects of Chapman's life and mind and shed light on his troubled past, history of depression and other mental illness and his feelings concerning his loneliness and loss of identity. Since the murder Chapman has said that he didn't particularly dislike John Lennon and even enjoyed some Beatles tunes, but he began to despise much of what Lennon stood for after seeing a picture of him in a magazine looking 'happy, together and successful' at a time when Chapman was anything but those things and struggling with mental illness.
For those of us who aren't familiar with the story, John Lennon was shot in the back 5 times as he left his Dakota apartment and walked past a crowd containing Chapman and his revolver.
The part I found most interesting was an interview with Chapman where he discussed the presence of an inner child that lived in his psyche and spoke to him, almost like a devil on his shoulder. The program didn't shed any light of whether this was a form of scizophrenia or another pathology such as a split personality disorder, but what Chapman describes about that day was particularly interesting. He reported his 'adult mind' telling him to "put the revolver away, be happy with the autograph he gave you earlier and walk away." While his 'inner child' encouraged him to shoot, telling him it was unfair how admired Lennon was and that he needed to "Take him out".
Obviously this story is mostly related to the study of Mark Chapman's psychopathology and exploring how his mental ilness led to the horrible shooting of Lennon, however, the program noted that much of his illness stemmed from being a social outcast from a young age. Being alone and without a social identity eventually led to him expressing his anger at initially a photo and then the exposed back of John Lennon.
Just reading over what I've written I realise this blog is a little all over the place, but I think i'll post it anyway as I found the story very interesting and it's led to a few more questions in my mind. Would the shooters in the Columbine and more recently the Virginia Tech mass murders have dealt with an 'inner child' encouraging them to do that they knew was essentially wrong?
Does everyone have an inner child? Are we just more equipped to control it than someone like Mark Chapman? I'm sure Freud would have something to say about this...
maybe next blog...
3 comments:
Interesting blog Dave. I'm a huge believer that there is an inner child in all of us and that there are two sides to everyone's thinking. I'm sure all of us have felt a strong negative emotion towards another at one stage of our lives (e.g., jealousy, rage). However, as you said, some people haven't developed the appropiate mechanisms to deal with these emotions in a positive manner. You also mentioned Freud at the end of your blog and if he was still around im sure that he would have an interesting explanation of the circumstances revolving around John Lennon's death.
Dave: Speaking on behalf of all the other Mark Chapmans in the world, would you mind referring to this murderous bastard by his full name, so as not to tar the rest of us with the same brush? I'm sure we'd all appreciate it.
Mark Terence Chapman
(author of "The Mars Imperative")
Hi Dave
That was an interesting excerpt on Chapman. Apart from the mental illness component the pressure on Chapman to conform to the positive expectations or actions of other people (namely the inner child) may also fall under 'Normative Social Influence'?. Human behaviour can certainly be complex. Thanks for sharing.
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