The Mind of a Serial Killer

In my Communication and Culture class, we briefly discussed Kierkegaard’s theory of the self. Kierkegaard focused on the idea of the self as being understood in regards to relationships. In Kierkegaard’s Sickness Unto Death, he says that “the self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation [which accounts for it] that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but [consists in the fact] that the relation relates itself to its own self,” and he also says that “such a relation which relates itself to its own self (that is to say, a self) must either have constituted itself or have been constituted by another.” (Kierkegaard) If you have not studied Kierkegaard’s theory of the self before, I highly suggest reading his words slowly to properly digest them.

In class, we expanded this idea of the self and related it to the mind of a serial killer. One, as a sane individual, may not be able to grasp an understanding of why a serial killer would commit such violent acts towards another human being. However, not only can one may not be able to grasp this understanding, one does not desire to grasp this understanding because one is afraid to have this relational connection with this serial killer, in which one is able to say, “I can understand why this person murdered these people.”