Questing for some understanding of delusion, I am reading Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote, having just finished two personal accounts (Salman Rushdie’s Knife and Philip Lançon’s Disturbance, by survivors of attacks by deluded killers). I’m thinking about delusion, the destruction of a body politic and a body itself. Here’s Don Quixote, responding to Sancho’s questioning of the knight-errant’s claim to being “enchanted,” and thus unable to resist imprisonment:
“I know and believe that I am enchanted, and that suffices to make my conscience easy, for it would weigh heavily on me if I thought I was not enchanted, and in sloth and cowardice had allowed myself to be imprisoned in this cage, depriving the helpless and weak of the assistance I could provide, for at this very moment there must be many in urgent need of my succor and protection.” [Don Quixote (Edith Grossman trans) Part One, Chapter XLIX]
Is it enchantment imprisoning Americans, venerating the illusions of another Don, the Trump, a dim knight of endless errancy? Have a majority of voting Americans become Sancho Panza, eager to believe, for personal gain, visions rooted in fanaticism and fantasy? Such delusions present as reality for their man and thus for those who would serve him, eager for their island and an exalted position to be granted by the enchanted one. Yet Don T is not deluded but deceitful, any derangement serving only him and his. The “helpless and weak” are of no concern, as his reductive and vengeful chivalry (greed and chauvinism) provide not even the exalted glow of the Knight of the Sorrowful Face; our Trump will protect damsels “whether they like it or not.” America’s knight is a knave, riding a hobby horse trampling truth, his quest a blinkered, self-centered attack upon truth, justice and basic humanity. The fictional character Don Quixote and his beloved books of medieval chivalry and derring-do are reduced from the lyric fantasies of fiction to the brutality of Mein Kampf and the Old Testament, excised of Song of Solomon, Psalms, or any such beauty and grace.
But then a true knight errant, Luigi Mangione, young and handsome, riding an e-bike and armed with bullets inscribed DELAY, DEPOSE, DEFEND on their outer armor, fires into the body of corporate monster United Healthcare’s CEO Brian Thompson, bringing him down. The killing, and the ignoble elevation of killer to hero status, parallels the resurgence of Trumpism; frustrated with a system that fails the commons and, forcing our participation, works assiduously against us, we elevate those who promise to aim a bomb (or a bullet) into the works. And when our Healthcare Hitman does so and is captured, social media posts salute him, his act manifesting a Futurist manifesto, shattering moderation and deliberative process.
Can an heroic outcome be distilled from this act of premeditated murder? Could fear and even a wee bit of regret and shame cause those holding control over our lives to reconsider their denials, depositions, delaying? Systemic change, deep radical reform, has receded so far in the distance that a single act of insanity appears as rational and defensible. People who would never pick up a gun (such as myself) are both upset and uplifted by this shooting, a plot point we helped craft.
The shock of the kill awakens us from fantasy; though we watch the perp walk from afar, we are implicated. Medical staff professing distance from the specifics of insurance burdens on patients parallels the siloing of many of us college professors, losing track of the economic realities of the industry we work in. How many of us who teach know the current tuition for our institutions, and the vagaries of financial aid (if we don’t ourselves have children or close family in school)? During my many years as a university professor, I had to remind myself to ask my students, “what are you paying for this?” We are locked-into capitalist cost-shifting systems through 401K plans and pensions that elevate our own eventual income while lowering the fortunes of those behind us. These systems are circular, a “win” on one end leading to a loss on the other. Luigi Mangione came from a wealthy family who profited from the “healthcare” industry, yet cheated that same family when their fortunes changed. So he wrote a manifesto, trained as an assassin, carefully tracked a target, a particular windmill on the move, and launched his quest. We live in a squalid den of thieves, watching as victims charge an enchanted castle in an impossible dream.
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