READER FEEDBACK - O. J. SIMPSON

 

from aaro@rogers.com
Robert Lewis makes interesting connections between O.J.’s fall from grace (a modern-day morality tale that has taken on mythic proportions) and the crashing and burning of a number of literary characters who seemed to have it made. He also makes a convincing case for the purgative power of confession, both in literature and real life.

However, I think he's being too simplistic when he says "If during Happy Hour the world’s great truths get spoken, the world’s great lies are told in funeral parlours and cemeteries". People are complex and sometimes contradictory, and it might be better to say that to get atrue idea of a person we must both listen to the loose tongues of Happy Hour as well as to pious, reflective eulogies. I also don't think that we can claim either moral or immoral behaviour as exclusively "authentic".

It could be that O.J.’s recent botched kidnapping and robbery was motivated by a subconscious desire to be caught -- a "cry for help", to use one of the major clichés of this decade. Or it could be the product of confused thinking and the desire for revenge, both of which O.J. seems to have demonstrated in the past.

from steven.lewis@shaw.ca
I think you give OJ far too much credit - it strikes me that the evidence overwhelmingly supports the notion that he is a narcissistic, immature man whose boundless hubris led him to yet another mindless act. The way he has conducted his life since the travesty of the trial suggests no repentance - he could have tried to rehabilitate himself as a citizen without confessing. So contrarianism may be interesting but your whole case rests on the inanity of the second crime. Criminals are often stupid, and OJ is stupid (he never said an interesting thing on Monday Night Football).

 

O. J. SIMPSON

by
ROBERT J. LEWIS