The Luigi Effect
A few words about satisfaction
You probably have an opinion about Luigi Mangione. It’s hard not to. On December 4, the 26-year-old (allegedly) walked up to UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and shot him down in broad daylight outside the New York Hilton Midtown in Manhattan. Even before he was found and arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, before anyone knew his identity, the killer was already on his way to becoming a folk hero. All the qualifiers in the world—killed is wrong, we do not support his actions, etc—couldn’t change something fundamental: what the killer did was a clear expression of rage at the a system that oppresses, and often literally kills everyday people.
I sympathize with the Luigis of the world.
How could I not? Just yesterday, after over a year of trying to get a severance out of my former employer, a process that included a lawsuit and unending stress, I finally got what was mine. I did it by waltzing into their coporate headquarters, planting myself on a bench in the lobby, and calmy but seriously demanding to speak with someone who could either put the cheque I had owed me in my hand, or at the very least show me solid proof I’d finally be getting it. Told that they would be in touch, again, with my lawyer and that I would have to leave the building, I was firm. They could arrest me, I said, but I would not move until I got what I was there for. About an hour later, I walked out of the building, the cheque in hand, and a wave of satisfaction washing over me, the likes of which I hadn’t experienced in eons.
A combination of uncaring corporate bureaucracy and brazen incompetence made my life hell for over a year, starting with being let go right before I was set to go into surgery related to my cancer diagnosis. What I was put through is nothing compared to what those in America often have to deal with in the healthcare sector. I woke up yesterday morning from another letter from my lawyer about the company’s lack of response on the status of my overdue payment, sending me into a mild panic attack, and I just knew I needed to take action. In my case it was a productive action, and was really only a personal concern. Still, images of the (very good looking, we all agree) Luigi Mangione crossed my mind while I was hyperventilating in the shower. These are the ends we’re pushed to by the monstrosity of corporate control we all live under. A few thousand dollars was all I wanted, all I was owed. And for that I had gone through months of torment and financial strain, all while the lackies at the company carried on their business, pushing me to my limit over what to them would be a rounding error on the balance sheet.
It’s an upsetting reality materially, but not just. The experience, to me, was dehumanizing, and I don’t doubt that’s what Luigi felt as well, dealing with what’s been reported as crippling back pain following a surgery. In the end, I was helped by a lovely woman at the company who heard my situation and reacted with actual feeling. She looked at me and saw my humanity and did what she could to treat me with humanity in kind. The first at the company to do that, and of course when she came back out with my cheque, I asked for a hug. Nothing was stopping anybody at my former employer from treating my like a human being thirteen months ago, but that wouldn’t have fit with the prevailing logic of their corporate reality. Corporations, contrary to Mitt Romney’s claims, are not people. They are anti-people. Anti-human. They are organizations premised on the idea of limiting individual liability in the pursuit of investor profit. Corporations are comprised of people, but people placed in a situation that expressly removes personhood and all connection to humanity. Decisions that affect actual people, often life-or-death decisions, are made with no due appeal to human interest or safety, let alone flourishing.
The deck is stacked, and there’s little hope, but there is occasional satisfaction to be had, as I’ve learned. But I worry that satisfaction is too hard to come by. That people in our deeply unequal society, pushed to their limits, will seek that satisfaction in violent ways, like Luigi did. This may be unavoidable. I fear we will see more Luigis emerge in the coming years. It will have been predictable. Which makes it that much more of a crime that the systems that led Luigi to resort to murder are allowed to continue apace. I have no solution to this other than the usual. Organize, unionize, demand a just economy for real people.
Earlier today, I saw footage from outside the prison where Mangione is being held, in which fellow inmates shouted to NewsNation reporters outside that his “conditions suck.” They could be heard shouting, “Free Luigi!” Those prisoners, just like most others I’ve spoken to about all of this in the last week, know what’s what. Mangione should go to prison for his crime, but that doesn’t mean we can’t acknowledge the righteousness of his act. Or the intention behind it at least. Enough is enough.