Since his arrest at an Altoona, Pennsylvania, McDonald’s on Monday, the background, writings, and social media activity of the man suspected of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson have been under intense scrutiny.
Luigi Mangione is a 26-year-old from a prominent Maryland family who graduated top of his class at a private all-boys high school and earned two computer science degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. The recollections of former classmates and friends paint the suspect as a smart, affable guy – until he reportedly went dark about a year ago. That change in behavior was believed to coincide with a back surgery.
There is still much to learn about what may have precipitated Mangione’s downward spiral and what may have motivated him to kill, but the crime may speak to a larger issue in society today. On Wednesday’s show, Megyn was joined by Dr. Leonard Sax, author of The Collapse of Parenting, to talk about the cultural issues at the core of what is wrong with young men in America.
Hero Complex
As a family medicine physician and psychologist with over 30 years of experience, Dr. Sax said he has noticed a pattern among young men. “So many boys want to be heroes,” he noted. “They want to be seen as heroes. They want to see themselves as heroes in their own eyes.”
He referenced a panel discussion he once attended with Judge John Romero, the chief of juvenile judges in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who explained the hero complex. “He told us, ‘The school doesn’t understand that, but the gang understands that,'” he recalled. “The gang says, ‘Here’s a gun, go and shoot the rival gang leader. If you succeed, you’re a hero. If you get killed trying, you’re a hero. If you get thrown in jail, you’re a hero. If you chicken out, you’re a wuss.”
As the judge explained, that proclivity is inherent to men, though it may manifest in different ways. While some end up in the juvenile justice system after breaking the law, others are at home playing violent video games.
“The difference between [those boys] and the boys in [Romero’s] chambers is [one] is playing with pretend guns… and being a pretend hero in his Call of Duty and his Grand Theft Auto games,” Dr. Sax said. “In both cases, though, your son has left the real world and is in his fantasy world wanting to be a hero in his own mind.”
That concept extends to this assassination. “That is the same thing that is going on here. We have failed as a society to capture these boys, to give them better models, better ways to become a hero,” Dr. Sax said. “We are failing at the job of inspiring boys to be the right kind of hero.”
Human Nature
Megyn asked Dr. Sax how we can figure out whether the suspect in this case was sane or suffering from some kind of “psychotic break.” Based on what we currently know, he was inclined to believe the former. “There are people who truly have psychotic disorders and they hear voices telling them that this person is a lion who is going to eat them and they have to shoot them,” he explained. “That is not what is going on here… Some inventive lawyers try to make that case, but it is unpersuasive.”
He said men have a basic instinct that is not insanity but a “variation of human nature” that is as old as time. As a society, he said, we must learn how to “capture” it. The game of football is one such example.
“There have always been boys who enjoy inflicting pain. Have them play the line,” Dr. Sax said. “I was doing a talk at the University of Wisconsin Madison, and it happened that my host used to play the line for University of Wisconsin Madison. I called out to him and said, ‘Do you have any comments about that?’ And he said, ‘A good hit is better than sex.'”
“Healthy cultures know how to capture boys and channel those instincts into healthy channels,” he continued. “We are not talking here about psychotic disorders and schizophrenics. We are talking about boys who have evil impulses. There is nothing new about this. This is as old as Genesis 4:7, which says, ‘Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must master it.'”
Culture Wars
As he explained, however, popular culture in America no longer supports raising healthy men. “[Research shows] that by 2007, American culture had flipped upside down and the most important thing in the shows that teenagers were watching – American Idol, Survivor – was not to do the right thing. It was to win,” Dr. Sax noted. “American culture is now a post-Christian culture. It is no longer a culture in which doing the right thing is taught.”
He believes we are seeing the results of that today. “Thirty years ago, it wasn’t so important to go to a school that taught Judaism or Christianity. Now it is… I think it is more important that you enroll your kid in the school that has a firm moral foundation,” Dr. Sax said. “You go to a secular… school, they are not teaching the Ten Commandments, they are not teaching ‘do unto others as you have them do unto you,’ and boys are adrift.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Dr. Sax by tuning in to episode 962 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.