"better to burn out, than fade away!"
Click to viewPyromania (an impulse control disorder) Information Sheet: Description, Causation, Treatment, Associated Features, Differential Diagnosis etc.
The pyromaniac sets main deliberate fires and takes enjoyment in watching what others have to do as a result of this. Therefore the pyromaniac is often one of the spectators of the fire he has generated.
More than once, the person has deliberately and purposefully set fires.
Before the fire-setting, the person experiences tension or excited mood.
The person is interested in or attracted to fire and its circumstances and outcomes.
The person experiences gratification, pleasure or relief when setting fires or experiencing their consequences.
These fires are not set:
for profit.
to express a political agenda.
to conceal crimes.
to express anger or revenge.
to improve the patient's living circumstances.
in response to a delusion or hallucination.
as a result of impaired judgment.
The fire-setting is not better explained by Antisocial Personality Disorder, Conduct Disorder or Manic Episode.
Associated Features:
Childhood Enuresis
Learning Disabilities.
Cruelty - to animals
Differential Diagnosis:
Some disorders have similar or even the same symptoms. The clinician, therefore, in his/her diagnostic attempt, has to differentiate against the following disorders which need to be ruled out to establish a precise diagnosis.
Antisocial Personality Disorder
Conduct Disorder.
Manic Episode
Substance Abuse.
Mental Retardation.
Psychosis.
Cause:
Pyromania is a strong need to set things on fire. It is all about the pleasure it gives to see what other people have to do to extinguish the fire and the pyromaniac may enjoy reading about the effects of his/her activities.
Treatment:
Behavioral therapy is used to direct the persons interest away from fire setting activities and have these replace with more socially acceptable forms of tension reduction.
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honestly though, i must say that after considering this most recent failed stunt, i have continued to contemplate the not-so-subtle ironies in the dialogue describing the film that i referenced, "While the City Sleeps"
I could hear these words echoed in many jealous sentiments of people who have unresolved issues with how Burning Man has evolved through the years...
... "While the City Sleeps" depicts a power struggle within in a massive media conglomerate ...
... "criminologist calls lipstick killer, mama's boy!" ...
... "i think he's laughing at the police by leaving clues" ...
... the machinations of the newsmen; and how morally, they seem as ruthless, shallow, & inhuman as the lipstick killer ...
... all men are controlled by the same impulses: lust, greed, vanity ...
... all that separates these top newspaper men from the lipstick killer, that they seek to expose primarily for their own gain, is that they have found an institution that legitimizes their misconduct ...
but just because people use some kind of rebellious rhetoric doesn't make their cause righteous! the legitimization of revolution is a complex issue that takes more than adopting attitudes like characters from V for Vendetta, Fight Club, or your favorite gonzo journalist. and although i certainly even respect the trickster tradition, culture jamming itself often rides the lines between genius, insanity...
and malice (intent or recklessness):
according to wikipedia's entry for criminal recklessness, "Black's Law Dictionary defines recklessness in American law as 'Conduct whereby the actor does not desire harmful consequence but...forsees the possibility and counsciously takes the risk,' or alternatively as 'a state of mind in which a person does not care about the consequences of his or her actions.' Black's Law dictionary 1053 (Bryan A. Garner ed., 8th ed. abr. 2005)."
and considering other recently debated topics of a legal nature.... curiously enough, according to wikipedia's entry for the legal term, malice:
"In the United States, the Malice Standard was set in the Supreme Court case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, allowing free reporting of the civil liberties campaign. The Malice Standard decides whether press reports can be considered defamation or libel."
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but, back to the situation at hand, here's some pertinent lecture notes concerning Arson:
ARSON LAW
"Arson is a crime of general, rather than specific, intent. At common law, the mens rea of arson is 'willfully and maliciously,' but as a crime of general intent, malice can be inferred from the act itself. All that's necessary is proof that the person intentionally (at any MPC level of intent, even recklessly, although that's called RECKLESS BURNING in some states) started the fire. The criminal intent with arson, therefore, is intent or purpose to start a fire, even if there's no intent to burn a structure."
(& if you're still curious about the concept, q.v. UK ARSON TERMINOLOGY)
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i have to admit a certain fondness of the idea that truly creative acts are often initially considered criminal acts (civil disobedience, at the very least); and that the only real criminals are people who remain outlaws, because they have failed to effect a paradigm shift which redefines their actions in a way that society is willing to accept.
although sometimes, this sort of paradigm shift can take waiting for an entire generation of the old guard to die out before such a thing may be possible. but it doesn't seem that we have such a case in this situation, does it?
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On the other hand, I recently saw the play, Accidental Death of an Anarchist at The Vortex. This fictionalized (and quite compelling) piece of theater depicts an absurdly satirical account of the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing in Milan, Italy... an event that was recently brought to some justice after 32 years!
The author of the play, Dario Fo, is a notoriously satirical playwright with legendary mastery of the Commedia dell'Arte and a Nobel Prize in Literature.
His controversial works were denounced by the Vatican and barred from the United States.
In 1984, the United States Department of State initially refused to grant Fo a visa but agreed to issue a six-day visa, after various US writers protested against the ruling.
His play, Elizabeth: Almost by Chance a Woman, opens with an open letter to then President of the United States of America, Ronald Reagan, in which Fo addressed the President as a fellow actor, ironically thanking him for the free publicity afforded to Fo due to the earlier refusal by the State Department to grant him a visa.
For a drama class in 2003, I posted my casting & setting choices with summaries of the scenes from Dario Fo's masterpiece: Analysis/Synthesis of Mistero Buffo (The Comic Mysteries) and the Passion Plays
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nothing to see here... move along!