precisely because they are horrific, these cases become the subjects of extensive media coverage, coverage that transforms them from terrible tragedies - remarkable "incidents" - into typical examples - or "instances" - of carjacking, drive-bys, or the larger problem of random violence. these horror stories make powerful examples precisely because they make no sense: "random violence provides no such mark of intelligibility and moves with a heightened ambiguity. as explanations contest one another, the status of random crime increases to the level of general societal threat" (acland 1995: 49). because horror stories capture moments of seemingly random violence, they exemplify what the media claim is an epidemic of random violence bedeviling the larger society. some people die in terrible, apparently pointless ways. if, instead of viewing those deaths as extraordinary tragedies, we turn them into typifying examples, then we've given shape to the larger problem of random violence. whether violence makes sense, of course, depends upon who is making the evaluation. people who commit violent acts have their reasons. when asked, they may say they attacked their victims because they were angry or because they wanted to maintain their reputation for toughness or because they wanted to intimidate the victim into compliance. of course, we usually reject the reasons offenders give; we say they are not good reasons, not valid or sensible, that they are senseless from the larger society's perspective. thus, claims about senseless violence discount offenders' explanations as irrelevant.
DEUS VULT