Ah, Jack the Ripper. What a nice man. Looks like there will be a lot of interesting stuff to think about for the presentation. While we still don't really know what specifically the presentation will be about, I do hope we can mention, at least in passing, From Hell (the graphic novel, not the silly film). I know it's only a ripple in the Atlantic Ocean that is Ripper fiction, but it does have a lot of thought provoking cultural aspects to it, with which you can really see how, not just Jack the Ripper, but everything that was going on at that time helped shape the world we live in today. And it's by the lovely Alan Moore.
But I digress.
One thing that got me thinking in last week's lecture was Mark's rhetorical question of why we're so fascinated by Jack the Ripper. And I think I may have an answer. (Not the answer, just an answer.) The Ripper murders were so shocking, even by today's torture porn standards (yeah, I'm talking to you, Eli Roth), that they've come to represent the facet in all of us that we'd rather not acknowledge, what Carl Jung dubbed the Shadow. And if we can just work out why it happened, what drove a person (or persons) to commit such an atrocity, then maybe it'll be the first step to eradicating our Shadows. It's the same reason why we're fascinated by Hitler, by Stalin, and by a myriad others.
Of course, eradicating your Shadow wouldn't be a very healthy thing to do. But this isn't a psychology blog, so I'll leave it at.
Just something to think about.
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