“Supernormality” blamed for Germanwings murder-suicide

GERMANY — Psychologist Dr. Angstrom H. Troubador of the Lebal Drocer Institute for community health came forward with a counter-intuitive explanation for the murder-suicide committed by Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz.

Dr. Troubador explained that mental illness is deviation from social norms, whereas the Germanwings atrocity was an ultimate confirmation of norms, saying, “Always in the case of mass murder-suicides, there is great confusion over perpetrators who are, on the one hand committing unreasonable and horrendously violent acts supposedly because of mental illness, but on the other often seem to show no signs of very abnormal sickness on close professional psychological examination. I am of the opinion that Andreas Lubitz and many others inhabit a supernormal identity as they commit the atrocities, which is the very opposite of a mental illness. It appears Lubitz was a closeted gay man, and that a recent trauma and breakup with a cover girlfriend spoiled his great efforts towards normality. This, and certainly other normal social pressures in the workplace, triggered the supernormal state in which many school shootings and other murder-suicide plots unfold — a psychological terrain that most contemporary psychology cannot distinguish from so-called sanity until the violence is already done.”

Dr. Troubador’s remarks caused uproar across a spectrum of health sciences, who read many implications into the theory. Dr. Cecilia Darwin explained, “Dr. Troubador diagnoses a sick society, a collective mind that violently detests itself and thinks sickness is a sign of wellness. It is clever, but what can we do with that? How does it help doctors save lives? Are there signs we should be looking for, or is it as undetectable as Dr. Troubador says? What is so controversial is how unhelpful it is.”