Anyone else tired of the constant parade of stories and social-media posts celebrating evil? University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds appears to have had enough of it too. In a recent article, Reynolds observed a disturbing trend: people who once kept their darker impulses hidden are increasingly taking the masks off. They’re no longer embarrassed by the horrid things they believe or support.
In fact, they seem eager to announce it publicly and sometimes revel in it. When UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered, Luigi Mangione acquired adoring fans who openly celebrate and idolize him. Didn’t you know that murder’s OK for guys like Thompson?
When 32-year-old Bank of America Vice President Erin Placenti was stabbed in Times Square by a whackadoodle, filmmaker Lexi Alexander argued that Placenti encountered karma because of the bank's investment position regarding Israeli financial institutions.
Then came the dark celebrations surrounding Charlie Kirk's assassination anniversary, including people on college campuses posting things such as “Happy Kirkiversary” and “Merry Kirkmas.” For years, pro-life supporters were mocked when they warned that once a society decides certain human beings can legitimately be killed before birth, the moral reasoning used to justify that killing can eventually be extended to children after birth under certain conditions.
Philosophers such as Peter Singer and Michael Tooley helped advance arguments along those lines, although such views were considered highly controversial when first presented. Yet we now find ourselves in a cultural moment in which the boundaries surrounding the value of human life seem increasingly negotiable. In the Lindsay Clancy trial, only one juror maintained that infanticide could not be justified by appeals to mental or emotional circumstances.
There was a time when people were ashamed to be caught celebrating things that were obviously wicked. Shame itself functioned as a kind of social