There is a Batman cartoon wherein the Joker is taken under the wing of a popular psychologist who goes to great lengths to explain that the Joker is not evil, r

There is a Batman cartoon wherein the Joker is taken under the wing of a popular psychologist who goes to great lengths to explain that the Joker is not evil, rather he is merely trying to express himself under the pressure exerted upon him by society personified by an aging purist known as the Batman. On live TV he executes the good doctor with a shattered coffee cup before murdering the audience with poison gas. It is always dangerous to use entertainment fiction as an analog to reality. Nonetheless, I cannot help but feel revulsion when a pampered, armchair sociologist tries to handwave the destructive tendencies of a poorly informed autocrat as some kind of grandiose, suicidal tendency. The latest round of intercontinental saber rattling is not a product of rampant psychopathy; it is iteration of a proven methodology.