For the Thrill of It

For the Thrill of It
Simon Baatz

One of Nietzsche’s supermen was Cesare Borgia, a cruel but Machiavellian (literally) figure who was undone by Fortuna. Even Machiavelli couldn’t explain it. The Chicago supermen Leopold and Loeb were in turn undone by their own bad luck even more than by their arrogance. They should have hanged, but Fortune wasn’t done spinning her wheel. Then Loeb was slashed to pieces in prison by a young man he was coming on to and Leopold became a guinea pig for a malaria test in the (false) hope of getting an early release. When he finally did get out it was clear he still thought he hadn’t done anything wrong. Perhaps we really are just cogs in Clarence Darrow’s deterministic machine. Or perhaps that machine is Fortune’s wheel. It’s hard to think of what the lesson from all of this is, aside from the obvious one that no matter what hand life deals you, being rich helps.