Charles Manson died at 83 years old on November 19, 2017.

Charles Manson. A person can whisper his name anywhere and it seems as if at least one person hears it and shudders. A cult leader? Nazi? Sociopath? Satanist? These are the words that appear in one’s mind at the mention of Charles Manson. A mentally healthy human being’s mind becomes plagued by the detrimental images that come to mind. Manson was viewed as a devil, the demonic force in the world, and when he was locked away, the people felt some satisfaction. In truth, Manson never did kill any people, he was the leader, who ordered the killing. The whole goal of his slaughters were to shock the American people and he wanted to scare the people in the worst way, and he did. Manson enforced an abstract perspective – hearing of his dead victims compared with the mass killings we see on the television screen nearly every morning now seems minimal at most. The part of Manson’s plan was to be different – Sharon Tate’s murder was so horrific because she was 8 1/2 months pregnant, and they scrawled “pig” across her front door in her blood. The next night, the Manson Family killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, scrawling “Healter Skelter” in their blood on their refrigerator. As a culture, community, and country, we have become desensitized to the point of pure ignorance. Think how America would react if this happened last night instead of nearly 50 years ago. Today, if America woke up to these brutal killings, it would just be another headline in the news, and media.

If Manson was analyzed from a psychological perspective, particularly nature v. nurture, he had no choice – he was raised by criminals, in and out of federal penitentiaries, and tormented by the relatives he lived with. Many people wish to think of him as supernatural, people think someone of this caliber of evil cannot be human, but is it valid? Charles Manson’s aura of evil and cruelty against humanity is no less human, than someone who raids a preschool armed with automatic weapons killing randomly. He is a direct by-product of the stereotypical troubled kid. If anything, Manson’s acts prove him human, he is a representation of the evil that is present throughout our society today, it just wears a different mask.
Manson’s tactic were genius, he was beyond his years, he fooled America into believing this was a race war, when it was so far from it. Manson is an example of the manipulation we as humans can be cast under. A psychopath invites you to be apart of his “family” essentially constructed of strangers, and he teaches the people to be evil, and he then uses them so that he can appear innocent, considering he hasn’t killed a single person. Manson’s plan was crafted of the ideas scraped out of the depths of his brain. These aren’t small-minded ideas. These ideas appear to be world-changing. People also blame Manson as part of a counterculture, however, this stands to be untrue as well. All hippies had their dark sides, but Manson wasn’t necessarily a bad hippie. Manson simply represented the habits that lure hippies in – drugs, sex, long hair, and an obsession with the Beatles, in which he interpreted their songs as coded messages. Manson’s excessive media exposure created him into an icon for those fascinated by his intense apocalyptic visions. Charles Manson would host orgies and “sermons” while on LSD with his “family”. Overall, Manson shocked late 1960’s America so intensely, because it was the first real horror show crime to be committed. While he did orchestrate gruesome killings, he was a human being who served his time in jail. Some people wanted him dead, and would say no jail time is enough for him. Those same individuals wishing him dead, should ask themselves how aware they are of the everyday horrors around the world. Charles Manson’s death is an awakening to those silent among the million of other atrocities happening in third world countries right now.