The Thing About Legitimation

If you weren't paying attention, you might have missed a country-wide anthropological phenomenon that happened right before our eyes—the legitimation of murder.

When the news broke about the assassination of UnitedHealthcare's CEO Brian Thompson, the details were chilling. Yet, what should have been universally condemned was reworked into something plausible. This shift reveals a disturbing truth about our culture that challenges our understanding of morality, justice, and the value we place on human life.

Thompson arrived at the Hilton hotel on 54th Street in New York City in the early morning of December 4th, preparing for a UnitedHealthcare Investors' Day gathering later that day. Just before entering the hotel, Thompson was gunned down from behind. The gunman fired three fatal shots from a silencer-equipped pistol that ended the life of a corporate executive, a husband, and a father.

The story flooded the headlines and our news feeds. Its retelling was as meticulous as the act itself. Yet, despite the heinous nature of this premeditated hit, America engaged in a collective "yeah, but"—a moral rationalization that gave what would normally be considered wrong new, justifiable meaning. Although we acknowledged the act as morally wrong, we simultaneously implied that the context somehow made it defensible, creating new stipulations that seemingly transformed the unacceptable into the understandable.

We've seen glimpses of this before. Remember the 2021 Oscars when Will Smith walked on stage and slapped Chris Rock on prime-time television? Not only was this behavior uncharacteristic of the "Will Smith" we grew to love over the many decades he spent in the spotlight, but it was also uncharacteristic for a fancy, black-tie event like the Oscars. But be that as it may, the public response did not have the kind of uniformity one would typically imagine, considering the situation.

In one breath, people acknowledged the social faux pas of the slap while simultaneously defending why resorting to violence in this case was understandable. Much of this sentiment was supported by the argument that Will simply stood up for his wife. Therefore, what would have commonly been seen as unacceptable became understandable. This mental reworking of the event creates the onramp that normalizes the behavior and creates new expectations of what's socially acceptable—ultimately shaping the new conventions of culture.

This reworking is known as meaning-making, a social process by which we interpret the world around us and assign significance to its dynamism—events, people, objects, ideas, and even brands. It's the way we make sense of everything we encounter throughout our daily lives and fashion what would typically be seen as randomness into something meaningful or full of meaning. Meaning-making is not a matter of understanding facts. Instead, it aims to decipher how the phenomenal world presents itself based on the beliefs and assumptions of people like "us."

For example, say Apple releases a new product. The moment we hear about it or lay eyes on it, the product has yet to be fully formed in our minds. That is, not until we translate it through our meaning-making frames. Is it good or bad? Is it cool or lame? Is this acceptable for people like me? These decisions are not informed by the details as much as they are mediated by the meanings we assign it based on our cultural subscriptions, and the subsequent conventions and expectations associated with them.

Likewise, when the news broke about Thompson's horrific death, the facts were alarming. However, when people learned about his executive position at the healthcare insurer, his death took on new meaning. The calculus by which people assessed the event was now colored with the underlying beliefs people held about the healthcare industry—and that's when the dark and sinister nature of the shooting evolved into something more palatable for many.

The discourse was prolific. Post after post, people expressed frustration with the healthcare industry, its systemic marginalization of the public, and their access to affordable care. This sentiment was compiled by the country’s discontentment with gun violence and the government’s unwillingness to do something about it. One TikToker, @Jessicayellin, put it like so, "Y'all [society] literally raised the "school shooter generation," and now you're asking us [GenZ] for sympathy? You normalized gun violence to the point that we take days to weeks off of school to practice what to do when an armed gunman comes into our building."

She goes on to say, "We grew up in a generation when our lawmakers looked at our dead kids, our dead friends, our dead peers, and they tell us the answer for that—the solution for that—was a bulletproof backpack. And now you're upset; you want us to cry because a man got shot in broad daylight? This happens. Welcome to a regular Tuesday at school in America."

If you scroll through your social media platform of choice, you will likely find more where that came from. In fact, many people are elevating the alleged shooter, Luigi Mangione, as a kind of folk hero. Not a cold-blooded killer, but the guy who fought against the system.

As it appears, the more we learn about Mangione the greater his fandom grows. He comes from a wealthy real estate family; he was the valedictorian of his elite prep school and a two-time graduate from the prestigious University of Pennsylvania. Combine his physical features with his Ivy League education, and you'll get a Tinder profile on which America would swipe right without hesitation.

Why? Because he fits the profile of "us," not that of a deranged killer. Therefore, we apply the meanings we associate with someone like Mangione and combine them with those we assign to the healthcare industry. Collectively, these factors shape the way the events of December 4th were interpreted.

The details surrounding the callous nature of the shooting didn't change, but the context did. As a result, what would generally be considered unacceptable vigilantism was legitimated. The public condemned the act but understood the context, giving the murder new meaning.

The mental calculus of meaning-making is paradoxical. We evaluate something as wrong but legitimate, and it is potentially acceptable because of how we factor in a set of circumstances that are not part and particle of the event in question. But that does not seem entirely rational, and, of course, it wouldn't. We're not rational human beings; we're rationalizing human beings. And our rationalizations are disproportionately influenced by the way we make meaning—things aren't the way they are; they are the way that we are.

Suffice it to say, the meanings we collectively construct in our social brain say less about the act itself and more about us, the meaning-makers. If Thompson were the CEO of a toy company, would the public have been so cavalier about the loss of life? Would that factor differently in the meaning-making calculus?

And what if Mangione weren't attractive? What if he didn't come from privilege? What if he weren't white? Or what if Thompson wasn't a male? All these factors play a role in the creation of context—i.e., the meaning—and reveal something about ourselves. They say something about what we value and what we demonize as a society, which informs how we behave as a society.

That, for me, has been the biggest takeaway from this whole ordeal. We saw the loss of life be justified as retribution for an industry that seemingly undervalues life. We saw the loss of life legitimated because the lives of so many have been lost due to inactive governmental legislation that won't do anything to curb gun violence. We saw the public shrug at the loss of life because we, as a culture, have put so little worth on life, which, ultimately, informs how we make meaning of the world around us.

As we rationalize the tragedy of Thompson’s murder, we must ask ourselves: what part of our humanity are we losing in the process? Our ability to make meaning is a powerful tool for understanding the world, but it can also be a dangerous weapon when it leads us to justify the unjustifiable.

The world, as we know it, is in constant dialogue with itself. Events don't exist in isolation; they are perceived in context with everything else happening around them. When we introduce anything into the world—a product, a campaign, or an idea—it enters this dialogue. Therefore, as marketers, leaders, and citizens, we must be acutely aware of how our actions and messages will be interpreted by the public's cultural lenses.

The rationalization of Thompson’s murder is not just about one man or one industry. It's a mirror reflecting our culture—the alchemy of our collective values, frustrations, and fears. As we grapple with this reflection, we must ask ourselves: Is this the society we want to be? And if not, how do we take steps toward change?