HNN: Loughner’s Terrible Violence and His Misunderstanding of Nietzsche

"'God is dead. God remains dead. And we are the ones who killed him.'

The name Friedrich Nietzsche, the author of this oft-quoted (and oft-misunderstood) assertion, has recently continued to surface in major currents of American media, particularly in the coverage of recent acts of abominable violence and the nihilistic philosophical underpinnings that their perpetrators were supposed to have personally invoked to justify them.

Most recently, the New York Times featured an article on Jared Loughner—the 22 year-old Arizona assassin—which repeatedly referenced the gunman’s philosophical propensity for nihilism, and quoted Zane Gutierrez, a contemporary of Loughner’s, as describing the shooter as 'a nihilist' who, moreover, 'loves causing chaos, and that is probably why he did the shooting, along with the fact he was sick in the head.'"

URL: http://www.hnn.us/articles/135404.html