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Leopold and Loeb
Or, the Consequences of Ideas
A Frenchman’s thought-experiments
Argued by Englishmen until
A German stripped pure thought from sense;
A second then conceived the will;
And last, a third who said God died,
Made will his god and from it sought
The superman he prophesied—
Three hundred years of Western thought.
But in the land ideas shaped,
Across the ocean, thought escaped
The realm of scholarly dispute.
A life snuffed out that scarce began
By youths who would be superman
Proved disputation’s poisoned fruit.
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Poet’s Note: On May 21, 1924, two University of Chicago students, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, abducted and murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks solely to prove themselves “supermen,” or superior beings, capable of committing the “perfect crime.” Franks’ body was found on May 31, 1924. Both were convicted of the murder. The “Frenchman” referenced is Descartes; the “Englishmen” are Locke and Berkeley; and the three Germans are Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, whose idea of the “superman” inspired Leopold and Loeb.
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Adam Sedia (b. 1984) lives in his native Northwest Indiana and practices law as a civil and appellate litigator. In addition to the Society’s publications, his poems and prose works have appeared in The Chained Muse Review, Indiana Voice Journal, and other literary journals. He is also a composer, and his musical works may be heard on his YouTube channel.
It amazes me sometimes what people can be convinced to believe and how easily manipulated a vulnerable mind can be.
A timely reminder, Adam.
Demonic ideas destroy, as you perfectly pointed out. This is a sad story and inherent warning to beware of our own thoughts and to use reason and logic tempered by considering all alternatives to the thoughts of others and even of ourselves.
Adam, your sonnet is perfect and sobering.
The study of philosophy should not be undertaken until the age of twenty, when the student has acquired at least a modicum of life experience and maturity.
Not a bad idea — except twenty is still somewhat stunted in this age of extended childhood.
Very powerfully and concisely expressed. One of the three epigraphs to my HellWard epic is: ‘I suspect that intellectual error is at the root of most evil’ – Theodore Dalrymple. This is so true, as your poem demonstrates, but then and today people seem reckless about the stupidity of their ideas and the evil that these lead them into. Great work.
Thank you! Theodore Dalrymple is one of my favorite authors.
Richard Weaver wrote a brilliant book in 1948, titled “Ideas Have Consequences.” He traced the problem ever further back, to the nominalism of the 14th century.
This is really well-expressed. One “conceived the will”; another “who said God died made will his god”. True and needed understanding of the profound consequences of ideas.
This chilling and great poem reminds me of Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”, where the novel’s protagonist, Rodion Raskolnikov, does the exact same thing: murders someone to prove to himself that he a “superior being” or in his thoughts, that he was a “Napoleon” among average men.
It is interesting how some people can read the same texts, and interpret them completely differently. Nietzsche has been one of the most influential writers for myself and his “Übermensch” is the guide that I use to live my own life by.
Superior beings don’t murder. They lead nations. They lead revolutions. They create art. They uplift humanity. They exemplify the impossibility of our position, evolved from single celled life forms into what we are now.
“Crime and Punishment” is a fantastic novel — one of the few I “couldn’t put down” when I read it.
Nietzsche is one of the most misunderstood philosophers. I believe it is wrong to attempt to understand him without first understanding the genealogy of his ideas, going back to Descartes — and even before that. He was massively popular in the years around World War I, and was unfortunately bound to have his words taken beyond their meaning.
My intent here was not to indict Nietzsche specifically as much to illustrate what happens when an idea is translated into action — misconstrued or not.
I agree that he is one of the most misunderstood philosophers. And I think you’re correct, my understanding of Nietzsche grew after reading his “On the Genealogy of Morality” and “Beyond Good and Evil”. It gets into the nitty, gritty of how morality developed and gives deep insight into Nietzsche’s ideals. Many people skip these works and solely focus on “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, which makes sense as that was his magnum opus and most profound book but ignoring his other works isn’t wise.
And all of what you’ve said is true about Nietzsche but I’m glad you recognise it’s not the writer’s fault if his words get misconstrued. It’s clear that Nietzsche was always a rebel at heart, going against the “slave morality” and “well-trodden paths” and was a champion of individual will and for the will to power, the actualising of one’s will into the real world results. I can see how these ideas can be hijacked by disingenous characters.
Nietzsche may have been misunderstood in some respects, but his contempt for slave-morality and the ways in which it has crushed and suppressed the heroic energy of the West is very clearly and unmistakably expressed in his late work, The Antichrist. (There is an excellent translation of this small book by H.L. Mencken, done in the early 20th century.)
The original German edition was published in 1895, after Nietzsche’s death, and his embarrassed sister tried her best to downplay the book’s importance and its ferocious anti-Christianity (she was a daughter of a Lutheran pastor). But as Mencken writes, The Antichrist “is as necessary to the completeness of the whole of Nietzsche’s system as the keystone is to the arch.”
Joe, I’ve been debating which of Nietzsche’s works to read next and your comment has steered me towards the Antichrist. That’s probably my next read of his.
Nietzsche has always had an interesting relationship with religion, as you mentioned his father was a Christian pastor. During his early and teenage years, he was religious and even planned to become a pastor himself but during his late teenage years, he had a change of mind and became a philologist. I can understand where he comes from as I was a muslim in my earlier years (by birth) and later became an atheist, though I do believe in a form of God, it’s quite abstract and easier for me to say I’m an atheist.
A fascinating and consumately well-written poem on what strikes me as a loathsome and fearsome subject. I’m reminded of the proverb “Be carful about what you think. Your thoughts run your life.”
Thank you! I thought it was a century-old lesson well worth remembering in these days. When theory gets translated into practice, things tend to fly off the rails.
I should also expand on my footnote: Leopold and Loeb both pled guilty. What was dubbed as a “trial of the century” was actually their prolonged sentencing hearing. Both were spared the death penalty, but were sentenced to life plus 99 years. Loeb was killed in prison and Leopold was released on parole in 1958.
An excellent summary and commentary poem on a legal case you must have studied, Adam. During the 300 years of Western thought you summarize, there was certainly a tendency to divorce thought from action–as well as divorcing it from its antecedent culture in ancient Greece and Rome, and in the Christian centuries. Thus disputes over thought and will, when popularized, could indeed bear poisoned fruit. I am only surprised that the two student murderers did not receive the death penalty. That was probably more due to their own youth (maybe 5 or 6 years older than their 14-year-old victim) as to any excuse that their studies had led to crime. And I am not surprised that Loeb was killed in prison, for even guilty prisoners seem to retain a horror for unnatural acts like the abduction of a child for the purpose of murder.
Child murderers and pedophiles are called “short-eyes” by other inmates, who hate them with a passion. As Leo Yankevich once told me, “Short-eyes don’t last long in the prison population.”
Your structure, bouncing in brief around the Continent to settle in the systematic progression of the Germans–Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche? Forgive me, most of my meager reading in philosophy is years behind me–establishes a suitably ominous inexorable tone that is well paid off in the final verses. The radical abbreviation in these summaries, just this side of glib, is a daring gambit that feels like it pays off, accentuating how ideas can affect youthful, rash, unsophisticated minds. The poem almost asks for a companion piece, tracing how the practical application of such ideas in “the land ideas shape” might redound back across the Atlantic.
I’m glad you appreciated the “daring gambit.” This was pared down from a much longer initial draft that had me thinking, “I’m not trying to teach philosophy,’ so I took the dive and compressed three centuries of epistemological discourse into a quatrain. Nietzsche had to get his own quatrain due to the subject.
On consideration, a good epigram would have been from Alexander Pope: “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
I like your suggestion for a companion piece — I think I owe philosophy a vindication after this poem.
I appreciated the compression of this poem. A marvelous economy of the language for certain. The poem made me think how all thoughts and endings are bad when sans Jesus. For example, a person similarly motivated, antisocial personality disorder and worse, who tried to kill his father with a hammer to the head, came to Christ and is a potent apologist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb2ggj9mKM0&t=1s
Mike and I have just watched the Alfred Hitchcock film “Rope” and as I was watching, it put me in mind of your well-crafted, thought-provoking poem – I had no idea this film was based on this case when I chose it for entertaining Father’s Day viewing. I’ve just returned to your poem… and wow! Words not only matter, they tap into the very depths of the soul… for good or for evil. Your closing stanza is powerful and poignant, and I thank you for bringing this remarkable case to our attention – it is most relevant in these times.