The life of Charles Manson has come to an end. Putting aside all assumptions of right and wrong, good and evil, and ideological difference, Manson was a huge influence on me as a kid and growing up I listened to Manson's album "Lie" countless times. I still know a lot of the lyrics by heart. I listened and re-listened to his interviews and found him captivating when I was young. The spirit he cultivated in me still resonates in me, of there being no authority but yourself, and the norms of society being ultimately a power game. It's hard to argue with a dishonest man whose philosophies were honest and undeniable. Some may say he was a manipulative man himself; perhaps.
Why doesn't he anger me the same way homophobic Christians anger me? Perhaps because I don't see his philosophy as vacant, and manipulative like I see someone like Mike Pence or Donald Trump. I separate from my judgments about whatever bad deeds he has committed, because his unwritten philosophy can't be denied, for me at least. There has always been a fascination for me, with the so called evil man who contains logic which can't be surpassed. Staring into the abyss, as I sloppily quote from Nietzsche's book I've never read, is what I've always longed to do. That is what real truth is to me; what can't be denied, what can't be argued around; not what ideologies I can most conveniently hold; that there is no authority but yourself, that society is only a power struggle.
I guess I would say I don't believe in judging people at all, at least not absolutely. Whatever I say about human beings out of emotions, ultimately I think that if you want to love and respect nature, you have to love and respect human beings; because all human beings are part of nature, and if you wanted nature to be any other way then it wouldn't be nature anymore. I don't believe there is an objective right or wrong; only a subjective disposition to feel that something is right or wrong. Human beings are simply products of deterministic physical forces, they have no free will. They're no different from a the motion of the planets, or the grass growing, the stars that revolve around the sun and float towards the center of the milky way, or you and I. How could one who doesn't determine their own actions be "wrong"?
Writing this post goes against social expectations; I don't care. There are some who would perhaps not understand my appreciation for a person like Charles Manson, and this is a shame to me, but I would be beside myself to live my life as someone who pretends to conform to the pressures of society.
I'd like to say a few words about charles manson.