such a nice man...

"he was such a nice man."

the rallying cry of the neighbours of psychopaths, sociopaths, and some of my ex-boyfriends. people who, if they're catholic enough, might torture themselves with the idea that they should have known better.

is the fact that serial killers, rapists, bombers are viewed by many of their neighbours as nice:

a testament to how antisocial us social beings have become? oh, we'll nod our good mornings, we'll chitchat about sitcoms and reality tv in those forced moments of social interaction - colleagues in the kitchen, neighbours in the elevator. but there's no depth to any of those exchanges, no furthering of our crucial interconnectedness. in overpopulated cities, in an overpopulated world, should we not learn to respect our neighbours? look out for our neighbours? rely on our neighbours? interact more, more regularly, more meaningfully with our surroundings and with each other?

or

is it a chilling testament to how we treat our weak? our quiet? our "nice people"? dedicatedly ignoring, perhaps even scoffing them, until their exile eventually, inevitably drives to the ultimate antisocial act?

just wonderin...