The Truth is Always Simple (APPLIED EPISTEMOLOGY)

[Mick Harper]

Even if the why of the Manson murders turns out to be relatively banal the same cannot be said for the 'how come?' How come there was a hippy commune in California that regarded group murder as a moderately routine way of bonding/ earning a living/ just hanging out? (It is difficult to tell because of the nature of the evidence.)

I can offer some personal testimony on this since I was living in a West Coast hippy commune around the same time and all these things do kinda merge together.

* You do need to raise money (preferably without working)
* You do need a reason for being there.
* You do need a basis for bonding.

The USP of hippy communes was they had no guiding principle. No rules, no membership requirements, no precedents. They weren't religious or political or philosophical. They were not refuges in the normal sense, though they were always slightly embattled against The Man, whoever he was. And he was real enough even if not quite as interested in hippy communes as we feared.

[Pete Jones]

This whole story is, as you would say about Casanova, not particularly important on its own. But there's a way that it is HUGELY important: think about the bushy-tailed kid who comes across this book at age 17 and has his eyes opened to the way in which the following can happen:

1. The Man can control unsavory characters' lives for reasons that directly contradict the propaganda the Man wants all 17 year olds to believe

2. The most infamous American of the post-war era can lives in our lives as the prototypical serial killer (though he was nothing of the sort). Existential terror of the boogeymanson engrained in America's kids.

3. The face of The Demon '60s with his forehead swastika can be trotted out every time a TV news show need to have a debut episode. Interview Manson, record a bunch of crazy dialogue, and everyone is happy. Manson launched a million 20/20s.

4. A bestseller (Helter Skelter) can make an author extremely rich and famous, based on nonsense. The 17 year old has his eyes opened to what prosecutors and publicity hounds can get away with.

5. The story can even be competently debunked (by the book you're reading) and it will have no impact on public perception. The importance of the Manson story is nil, so clarifying it has nil effect. But the importance of The Manson Story is huge, because it has taken on mythical proportions.

The Manson Story is a Flood Myth. The Hippie 60s was a Golden Age, but then the horror of Manson washed it all away. As a myth, it's too important to be debunked.

[Mick Harper]

You may be taking the words out of my mouth. I'm only halfway through.

[Mick Harper]

I'm trying to make this Applied Epistemological so (or but) here's a question for you all

[Mick Harper]

Follow-up question:

[Mick Harper]

* A mildly embarrassing academic paper might not be included in an anthology of papers covering the same general subject area.
* It would require it to be a bit more than 'mildly embarrassing' if it was excluded from a collection of all papers covering the same general subject area.
* It would require a high-level cover-up to remove all references to the paper from all papers covering the same general subject area.

Such was the fate of an academic paper that described how The Manson Family got involved in a research project (later discovered to have been funded by the CIA). Precisely how you would go about removing references from existing academic papers is slightly mind-boggling.

Though apposite since the general subject area was how minds get boggled when experimental subjects are subjected to various drug regimes.

[Mick Harper]

There is a 'world record' aspect to the Manson killings. It is true they stand out in our minds as being particularly dreadful but that is not what makes them world records. They are, if you really think about them, sui generis.

We are so mesmerised by their dreadfulness that we put them in the category of 'dreadful murders'. Or maybe other sub-categories--ritual murders, drug-crazed murders, celebrity murders, home invasion murders.

In the popular mind they are 'those hippy murders'. Go on, name another one. Hippies may have gone out of style big time but it wasn't because they had a tendency to violence. The truth is the Manson murders were the first and last of their kind and that has two inescapable corollaries...