The most obvious things are often the hardest to see: for example, without a mirror it is impossible to see the nose on your face … unless of course you suffer from severe concomitant esotropia, in which case you hardly see anything else but the nose on your face. Much of American political discourse is victim to both mirrorlessness and mental esotropia.

Although the Charleston shooter had no known political affiliation, because a congregation of innocent African Americans were attacked, the massacre is being treated as a political act. In a sense I think it is one, but only for what it reveals about the contradictory pull of the American reality on the American subconscious.

Some might say that, since the perpetrator of the massacre is obviously insane, his act has no meaning in itself, simply the “tale told by an idiot.” This would be missing the point. Insane people’s acts do have meaning, but the meanings are private, dark, obscure and must be read as metaphors, as in the interpretation of dreams. They live in their dream world and perhaps their dream world is not so different from ours, differing mostly in that we only visit that world in our sleep or under the influence of drugs and they spend their tortured lives inhabiting it. Their life is a “daymare,” so to speak. Perhaps we could learn about our own hidden darkness by studying his visible darkness.