The Outcast

This man is a drunk.

That woman cheated on her husband.

These kids are delinquents.

We make judgments every day. It’s who we are. We categorize, label, and organize everything and everyone we see. Because that’s how we make order of chaos. Because it’s evolutionary. It’s all about survival. Not necessarily in the primitive, bestial sense of the word. Of course, learning to identify dangerous situations can help us avoid going down that dark alley late at night where the shadows creep. But in everyday life, survival for humanity means learning to interact with other humans, form connections and develop relationships, integrate into society by holding down a job and paying your bills. We have formed a set of norms and impose them on society as a form of gatekeeping.

For those who are incapable of meeting those expectations instantly become fringe members of society. Outcasts. Deviants. Rejects. They are the refuse, discarded byproduct of an inflexible culture intolerant of individuality. They are judged by the rest of humanity as less than, inferior, and subordinate to everyone else. Cast your aspersions, make your assumptions, but be forewarned that in doing so, you are not discouraging such behavior among those that cannot conform to your idealistic requirements. Rather, you impose strict parameters upon them that are impossible to observe. Much like trying to force a square peg into a round hole. And what you get in return is much worse.

Iconoclasts. Recusants. Heretics. Rebels.

Yes, your futile attempts to orderly force people into your neat categories can have such drastic and unintended consequences. A veritable backdraft blowing up in your smug faces. And yet, you wonder where you went wrong, how could this have happened, why did they stray? It was your overbearing, dictatorial confines, the unreasonable conditions you place on people just to be able to interact with society. If you had allowed them to be themselves in the first place, accepted them for who they are, they wouldn’t have strayed so far from the path. Can we not tolerate the occasional oddity, the infrequent weirdness, the few strange encounters?

The strain of being battered and crushed and squeezed so that we fit into your ideal version of society, like the stepsister’s foot trying to fit into the glass slipper, breaks them. And you wonder why they veered from the straight and narrow path? You are to blame. They are what you made them, after all. Jean Valjean was imprisoned for stealing bread to feed his starving nephew. Impoverished from a system that was intended to keep the poor in the gutters, he inevitably and predictably resorted to thievery. It was the tyranny of the system that created Valjean, and then the system blamed him. Gaslighting at its finest.

Can you not see your involvement in these crimes? Can you not see that you are creating Frankenstein’s monster, only to look upon its face in horror and disgust and blame it for how repulsive it is? Come now, reflect on the society you have built, for which you have contributed to the deviancy you have come to despise. Look inside yourselves to find who the real guilty parties are.

My actions were those of a man reduced to desperation. A desperation so wholly complete that I sought relief in any way possible. I wasn’t thinking rationally. No, it is impossible under those conditions to think rationally. Desperation can drive a man to perform outrageous and unthinkable acts. I had no where to turn, for society had rejected me. It was just me and my fractured, senseless thoughts. The solution was flawed. I know that now. But that does not mean that I am any more liable for these acts than those who created the monster I became. A child who was raised to know nothing more than what the parent teaches them cannot be held accountable when the child acts contrary to society’s expectations.

How did I get here? As you are probably already aware, my life is a tragic course of events, not unlike many others who go on to commit crimes. Riddled with abuse and neglect, addictions, and failed relationships, I stood little chance at living a normal life. My parents were strict moralists, who imposed unrealistic ethics upon me and my siblings. They denied me certain pleasures and luxuries that were well within our means, depriving me of a normal childhood. As a result, I lost the opportunity to make friends, to form bonds over the joint activities of virtual gaming simulations and other typical teenage predilections. I grew up awkward, unable to adequately navigate the social conventions of friendship.

I was cruelly rejected by females who I sought to court and form intimate bonds with. Despite my polite, chivalrous advances, my desire to treat them as the queens that they are, I was heartlessly turned away. Yet, I would watch as they pursued men who possessed none of the admirable qualities of a gentleman. Certainly, the males were attractive by societal standards, but were females so shallow as to primarily rely on appearance in selecting a mate? I thought that we, as a human species, had evolved beyond such primitive mating criteria. Having been rejected so many times, I no longer saw any hope in finding companionship.

Are you aware of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs? No, I don’t expect you to be as average lay people. As a voracious reader and avid learner with above average intelligence, I discovered that humans have basic needs that motivate our behaviors, such as the need for love, intimacy, a place to feel we belong. Therefore, if we are lacking in one area, we become motivated, even desperately so, to fill what we are missing. It’s psychological. It’s an innate, inseparable part of who we are. Are we supposed to suppress our natural desires and needs for love and belonging? Such impractical restrictions are suffocating, and in fact contradict our biological impulses.

Is it any wonder that I reacted in such a volatile way? Explosives are much more effective when the powder is compacted into a tight container. The more compressed they are, the greater and more violent the explosion. When you squeeze and squeeze on a pouch of air, eventually the air has no where else to go but through the plastic, and it will pop, forcing a hole just to escape the pressure. The same can be said of humans. Apply enough pressure to us, and we will respond violently, erratically, irrationally. We have been given no other choice, no other way out, and the tighter the compression, the more explosive the reaction.

I can honestly say that because of the manner in which I was treated by society, the way I was discarded because I was different, because I didn’t conform to your social conventions of interests, appearances, personality, or ambition, I was predisposed to perform atrocious, aggressive, and repulsive acts. But if things had been different, if I had not been cast aside, ignored, or treated with contempt, I would never have gone on to commit those crimes.

I am not an evil person.

I am not a bad person.

I am exactly the person society created. And therefore, it is society to blame for my wrongdoings.

You will go on to do exactly as we have evolved to do. You will reach a judgment about who I am and if I should be held accountable for what happened to little Anna Marie Dobbs. But I ask that you take an honest look at society, and if you recognize the truth of my words to you today, and you see a society you do not like, then let’s start to hold it accountable. You can begin to make a difference in changing society by finding that its actions, its attitudes, its unreasonable expectations have led to the culmination of certain events, including the reason we are here today.

I ask that you find me not guilty.