Understanding Luigi Mangione

0. In order to write this piece, I read through almost all the publicly available information on the life, views, and personality of Luigi Mangione. If there’s anything crucial I’ve missed, I apologize. I lay out my ideas about him below. I’ve tried to clearly indicate where my speculation goes beyond what is known.

1. When I found out that Luigi Manigone was not leftwing, I was relieved, because it meant that the right wouldn’t have anything to pin on us. I disagree with Lenin on many things but broadly agree with his position in What is to be done that it will no avail us if leftists go around involving themselves in assassinations and propaganda of the deed. As I wrote in my previous article on the shooting, I am on the fence about whether or not the deed will result in overall net good- it’s too early to tell- it will probably always be too early to tell.

Yet as I read more about Luigi, I began to suspect that, oddly, the left might have been able to save him, if it were stronger and more coherent

2. I think Mark Harris likely gets the broad outlines right:

3. We need to avoid the biography fallacy- acting as if people existed outside of time. Life is not lived simultaneously, nor even in a neat Act-scene narrative progression. Life is often one damn thing after another. Often when we come to write biographies, we condense various years and phases, treating what does not suit our purpose and narrative as if it were extraneous. This is especially true when the subject is best known for one deed. People are a sprawling mess, and the idea of a temporally coherent and extended self is, to a degree, cope. This is even more true of the kind of person who very much does not want to slot into a pre-prepared narrative-life path, and I suspect Luigi was such a person.

We don’t know enough to “periodize” Luigi’s life. However, I have a strong suspicion that something changed in his thinking around June-July when their Substack and Twitter went dark (I am unable to confirm whether their Goodreads and Facebook likewise “went dark”, he left Instagram in 2021.) Notably, this would fit with word from family and friends purporting that he “disappeared” about six months ago and could not find him. According to others, there may have been a prior, attenuated disappearance about a year and a half before that where he stopped being contactable by some of his friends. Most of the evidence I talk about concerning his ideology refers to material from 2024.

4. Jacobin argues that he was something of an incoherent thinker, pulled in numerous directions. I think this perspective has its truth, but I think his incoherence is probably exaggerated by the biography fallacy- it’s quite likely his thoughts at any given moment in time- were more coherent, though not at all perfectly!

For example, around March and April of this year he looked like a pretty typical Zoomer conservative, though a bit less edgy than some. He was going down a pipeline that could be bastardized as “center-right intellectual to dark enlightenment”- reposting tweets with manosphere themes, references to “the woke mind virus”, demographic crisis, the evils of economic and social equality, etc. This appears to roughly coincide with a trip to Japan. I suspect he moved away from this. It’s hard to imagine that someone who had these themes as a central occupation would have chosen a healthcare CEO as a target and cited pro-single payer sources in his manifesto.

My guess is- though this is complete speculation- that sometime after he went dark, or just before, that is, about six months ago something of a ‘swerve’ took him away from the rightwing ideas he’d been dabbling in and developed a new fixation complex.

5. Mangione grew up in a conservative family (or at least a conservative extended family). His grandfather was the patriarch of a wealthy family. His cousin, who put out a statement on behalf of the family, was a Republican state representative. The family owns “Hayfields Country Club, a nursing home called Lorien Health Services and a conservative radio station.” Combine this with his high openness to experience and political views far from Republican orthodoxy, and one can imagine friction with his family in his early life. Let me indulge in some naked speculation and suggest that his very ideological malleability and openness may have, itself, been a reaction to growing up in a self-confident country club conservative environment. At present though, there is little evidence of a poor relationship with his family- it will be interesting to see how this develops.

6. As already stated, focusing on that tranche of material from about March and April, he seems to have moved in quite a right-wing direction, but I would emphasize- and I say this all the time but it’s worth remembering that most people do not think in terms of political ideologies. Most people see reality as a series of broadly independent questions and aim to get the ‘right’ answer on each, which is seen as broadly separate in its moral principles and factual assumptions to all other such questions. This is one of the main things people who go deeply into politics forget.

7. Luigi has a trait that I find fascinating- a concern that other people lack sufficient agency. A common idea these days, what with the NPC memes. Here he presents it as a concern uniquely about Japan (h/t to

Gurwinder

for usefully making this DM public):

The reality here is complex. We can acknowledge that the world suppresses agency and makes people follow scripts and mores instead of authentically and systematically pursuing goals, that this is often, though certainly not always, a bad thing, etc. Yet we should also be very wary of narratives that make out that we are qualitatively different from them and we have broken free of the scripts entirely. It’s one of those areas where you need to keep a sense of balance. I wonder if an obsession with agency and seizing agency wasn’t part of what led to the killing.

8. Luigi probably has mild narcissistic tendencies. A number of things suggest this. The act itself, several of his posts (e.g. the above post calling Japan “NPC central”), and the somewhat grandiose claim in his manifesto that “Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”. On the other hand, these narcissistic tendencies are probably not full-blown- he expresses real humility in the manifesto as well, and his posts seem more like someone exploring ideas than confidently pronouncing on them. It is often remarked that politicians are inherently narcissistic because you have to be to want to go into the business, yet the truth is bigger than that. People who make history, in general, likely have narcissistic traits, because you have to think you have a special contribution to make, in order to make a special contribution. From politicians to entrepreneurs, to assassins, to political organizers, to public intellectuals. Even the scientist is much more likely to make a big contribution if they harbor the belief they are special and have a big contribution to make.

9. His medical history is quite complex. Luigi felt he suffered from brain fog related to Lyme disease, and got tested for irritable bowel syndrome. Vis a vis brain fog related to Lyme disease, there is some suspicion that this may be a psychogenic illness among experts, though I am not qualified to say. There is no strong evidence of depression or anxiety at this stage, beyond that related to his back pain. This is by no means to rule it out!

10. He was widely liked. Often people will remark that a criminal “seemed nice”. However, this seems to go beyond that. A lot of people loved him. Most people who knew him or met him describe him positively- kind, charming and smart the whole gamut of complimentary terms. He was the Valedictorian of his high school, and went to UPenn. Perhaps the lesson here is that nothing- not wealth, nor good looks, nor popularity, nor superficial health will protect you from chronic disease. This is why health is such a powerful unifier, and why Kamala was mad not to talk about it- like death, disease comes for all, as does a hatred of bureaucratic bullshit, forms and arbitrary rules not concerned with! Healthcare, and hatred of its present state, is the greatest point of unity avaliable.

Incidentally, here’s Matt Bruenig arguing that, despite the counterarguments of Noah Smith, Matthew Yglesias, etc., insurance in America really does constitute a money-fire.

11. He lived in a somewhat hippish co-living community in Hawaii and did psychedelics at some point to try to deal with his situation. The hippeism and psychedelics are wildcards that could mean a great deal or could mean almost nothing at all- woo-woo wellness obsessions and drug-induced mental illness are just two possibilities that present themselves. If he did go a bit woo-woo natural-health magic it’s not obvious from his output, and it seems extremely odd he did not mention it in his manifesto. If he went a bit crazy, properly crazy, it was likely after he stopped posting online.

12. It is wholly possible, even likely, that Mangione has done something fucked up at some point. We know some of the barriers within him to such acts- e.g. fear, and conformity- do not function. There are strong incentives for any misdeed to come to light. Any story about him is likely to garner attention, and journalists view themselves as the defenders of public order and thus will likely want to “rectify” the positive attention Mangione has gotten. I wouldn’t be surprised if some discrediting thing comes out in the next few weeks- e.g. some act of deep racism, sexual impropriety or scamminess, etc. It may be trumped up, but it may be quite real. People, especially people who make news, are faceted. We seem uniquely unable to understand that point these days- people are large enough to contain multitudes. The NYT editors have ordered fewer mugshots of Luigi be included in articles, and numerous publications are refusing to post his manifesto, despite its short length. There’s real fear among elites that the public is not having the “proper” reaction to Mangione, and journalists, not to mention cops and prosecutors, will try to rectify this.

13. His background in computer science is well compatible with radicalization. It reminds me a great deal of the widely known fact that engineers are more likely to become terrorists compared to other majors. Why? A lot of the reasons are probably material, but let me propose one reason at the level of thought. Engineers are smart enough to understand abstract ideas about human beings but do not have the training to shield themselves from taking these ideas too seriously behind a layer of irony, nor the uncertainty of having seen so many ‘clever’ ideas about people come to nothing.

I think that most people in this world either don’t engage much with ideas in the humanities, ethics, or social sciences or have developed defenses that prevent them from being swept along with ideas. Engineers are sometimes caught without the protection of either. Here I speculate, but in all the reading I’ve done of what Luigi’s written he strikes me as a fundamentally honest person in the most profound sense. He acts and speaks in straightforward response to the world as he perceives it.

15. Luigi, it seemed to me, genuinely wanted a better world. That unites his reading from The Lorax to Elon Musk’s biography to the Unabomber’s manifesto. All of these books are about the desire for a better world, and, as A.O. Scott pointed out- quite a few of them are bestsellers. He liked to read stuff about how to make the world a better place, and he grabbed whatever was put in front of him without much discernment. This wasn’t necessarily based on a normie-ish preference for what was already popular- when online he enthusiastically engaged with thinkers and ideas both already popular and fairly obscure. He was grabbing out for insights- particularly insights about how to improve things- in a not especially sophisticated way. The himbo intellectual.

16. One often hears talk of the midwit. Luigi is illustrative here. Reading his writings, reviews, etc. Luigi was, I think, a midwit, but not for lack of intelligence- he was a midwit because he was applying his (real) intelligence to an area in which he was an autodidact- the humanities and social sciences (granted, I understand he had a minor in philosophy). Most midwittery I see is people who have broad intelligence but are working on an area they lack the chops for, in and can’t seem to use their general intelligence to figure out when they’ve gone in over their neck- the history major ranting about economics, the engineer trying to talk political science. Nothing wrong with engaging with big ideas outside your area- little innovation would happen if people didn’t- but it’s like strong drink. Some people know when they’re drunk and stop making big decisions, and some people seem wholly unaware they’re no longer sober.

17. This is nearly pure speculation, but I want to air it. There’s a certain type of person who is obsessed with the idea that their role in this world is to find the silver bullet- the one weird trick- that will make things better. I suspect Luigi exhibited this mode of thinking. He had the habit of DMing online thinkers- at least three of them- whom he admired, and even effectively funded one a little because he thought his work was important- subscribing him to services that he thought would improve his writing. These people he contacted were generally not celebrities, or otherwise glamorous- he really just wanted to talk about ideas with various writers.

I think he loved ideas both because he loved them for their own sake and because he put a lot of weight on their power (which is not wrong, exactly). I think at some point, almost certainly under pressure immense psychic pressure, he became convinced that he could, through a spectacular moment, change the world for the better by enacting a special idea. His ‘special idea’ idea was using the propaganda of the deed to make a point about the healthcare system.

18. As for the pressure- as others noted Luigi seems to have had severe back pain- severe enough that he made it part of his Twitter banner. Severe enough that he read four books on it. Severe enough that his landlord claimed it prevented him from having sex.

A word on that if I may, I often think about pain in the medical system. My mother suffers chronic pain, and I worked for a chronic pain-related clinic. My overwhelming impression is that the medical system does not regard pain as an emergency, but morally speaking, severe pain- psychic or physical is an emergency. So long as the capacity to work is present, you can leave the house, and there is no risk of death by suicide or otherwise, pain- mental or physical- is seen as a matter of secondary importance. “There’s no way to measure it!” medical professionals (falsely) assert. “We can’t just give out painkillers- people get addicted and die!” (yet without them, many more people live in a state worse than death).

I remember during COVID in an osteoarthritis clinic I had to administer a survey to determine whether cases were urgent enough to be seen. “Agonising” pain was worth one point, and “I feel like I might lose my capacity to hold my job” was worth seven points. I remember feeling this embodied human depravity. The theory seems to be that so long as the pain is safely in your head and not anywhere were it might cost the economy, or make me feel sad because you’ve died, we can largely ignore it. Put on a brave face now, my welfare depends on it. I find it notable that even Mangione’s considerable income couldn’t protect him.

19. Luigi was concerned with AI risk. This fits with my impression that the kind of person who is concerned with AI risk is someone who wants to be helpful and isn’t necessarily tied to specific ideas- these people come from all over the ideological spectrum- looking for opportunities to improve the future of humanity.

20. Luigi is part of a broad class of people who I am fascinated by. He is the kind of person who, in a broad sense, yearns for a better world and genuinely cares but for whatever reason, doesn’t end up on the left. Obviously you’re never going to get 100% of people, especially not 100% of people born to a family like Luigi’s. Yet the left should have been a natural place for a guy like Luigi who wants to improve things to to gravitate. In past generations, he quite probably would have (his status as a child of the rich would have, in the past, been a far from decisive barrier). The number of such people is a tally of our failure. I think a lot of people in Luigi’s situation see the left as a club to which they are not invited. At some point this sense of not being invited soured into bitterness, eventually sharing stuff like this:

This sense of not belonging to the left is far from inexplicable, consider this response to the Mark Harris Bluesky tweet I shared near the start of the article:

The answer, of course, is that we should have sympathy for both the white and black version of Luigi. As a response to Mark’s tweet, “I see you’re being sympathetic to a white guy, driven by pain and a sense of injustice to strike out, however, I can imagine in my mind you not being likewise sympathetic about a man of color and your imagined hypocrisy distresses me!”

Is nuts.

At the moment I’m working on a piece about heroism, moral community, and the left. In that piece, I argue the following points which I think are relevant here:

1. Moral community- a situation where a community 1. shares certain goals, 2. jointly regard these goals as morally valuable, and 3. confers on each other a kind of moral and social recognition for their pursuit of these shared goals is central to any social movement, but is missing from the contemporary left.

2. The left has developed a narrative according to which society is riven by various discrete but interacting oppressions, and on each side of each of those divides, there are winners and losers. This contrasts with an older, and I think better, narrative according to which the liberation of everyone depends on the liberation of all, and it is in all our interests to overthrow all forms of oppression. On the contemporary approach, a logic of multiple zero-sum questions about justice, instead of a shared proposition that we can do better by essentially everyone, develops.

3. Moral community depends on trust. Trust is very hard to come by under current conditions. Since everyone is suspect, and almost everyone benefits from some form of oppression, a logic of policing develops- or if you like, moralism over morale. If half of leftists will be better off if sexism persists, most leftists in the first world will be better off if racism persists etc then trust, and hence moral community, is hard to come by. This explains the wrong idea many dudes that the left is not “for them”. Addressing this requires no compromise with oppression, just making it clear that the left and its policy goals are a project for a better world for all.

4. What a lot of people want is the opportunity to be the hero of the story (just look at Mr Mangione). Moral community is the precondition for that since heroism is a kind of heightened moral recognition. It is good and right that we should try to meet this need. Heroism is not absent from the leftwing view of things, indeed the idea of the hero is a leftwing one in a way I think is often missed. The left provides a constructive use for the urge to moral achievement and heroism (an alternative that might have saved Luigi from his fate.)

Luigi, I think, embodies both the (sometimes misguided) craving for heroism, and, more speculatively, the strategic urgency of seeing the craving for a moral community everywhere and reaching out to it reciprocally.

21. As I think about the sick and dying- whether denied healthcare or not, as I think about Luigi spending the best part of his life in prison with crippling pain, as I think of Thompson’s children without a father, I reflect none of us- not Luigi Mangione, not Brian Thompson, not me, not you- none of us deserve this. Luigi was right in his sense that we need to change the world, and we need big ideas to make things better- he was just wrong on the specifics. Suffering understood as pain without purpose or value, must be abolished. We will go the other way, Luigi.

Short bleg (please read)

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