Authorities say that 25-year-old Guy Bartkus, the man who blew up his car outside an In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) clinic in Palm Springs, Calif., left behind a “manifesto” that detailed his bizarre beliefs.
The blast killed Bartkus and injured five clinic workers. The FBI considers the attack an act of terrorism.
Bartkus attempted to livestream the attack but failed. “The subject had nihilistic ideations and this was a targeted attack,” Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said at a press conference.
Why target an IVF clinic? Bartkus was part of a bizarre subgroup who go by several names: promortalist and misandrist as well as Efilism (“life spelled backward).
The bottom line is that they are anti-life: human life, animal life, insect life, any life.
Nihilism has been around since the 19th century and in its most extreme form posits that life is meaningless. Bartkus was angry at the world for existing.
Bartkus reportedly said, “ I am angry that I exist, um, and that, uh, you know, nobody got my consent to bring me here.”
“Those who carry out nihilistic violence are not seeking to change society or promote a specific ideological outcome,” said a report by the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (ISD) titled “Terror without ideology? The rise of nihilistic violence.”
“Instead, perpetrators of these attacks are deeply enmeshed in subcultures that share misanthropic and nihilistic worldviews, promote anti-social behavior and encourage violence as an outlet for their emotions and personal struggles.”
Katherine Keneally, director of threat analysis and prevention at the ISD, says Bartkus’ views were different from most nihilists because he believed he was on a mission.
The report points to a manifesto left behind by the Madison, Wisconsin school shooter in December, which was called “War Against Humanity,” as an example of nihilistic-fueled violence.
Keneally says people who get wrapped up in these beliefs skew younger; mental illness can also be a predictor. On the website believed to be linked to Bartkus, he said he had borderline personality disorder, a mental health disorder characterized by impulsive behavior and difficulty regulating one’s emotions.
She said in Bartkus’ case, the fact that he posted videos of himself making bombs on YouTube and posted on a pro-suicide forum, suggest that there were warning signs that could have been flagged prior to the bombing.
“There were signals that could have potentially served as a way to disrupt this attack,” she claims.
Keneally notes that Bartkus’s motivation was partly to “relieve suffering” by reducing the human population.
“Basically, I’m anti-life. And IVF is like kind of the epitome of pro-life ideology,” he said on a now-shuttered website.
Bartkus burned his family home down when he was nine, says his estranged father.
“He started a fire by the shed. I came home from work, he was trying to shove it underneath the shed and set the shed on fire, the shed caught the house on fire and burned it down,” said Richard Bartkus. “I know we hadn’t talked in over ten years.”
One national security expert told NewsNation that Bartkus’ philosophy is one of the strangest domestic terrorist movements he’s ever seen. The suspect apparently described himself as pro-mortalist, a fringe belief that includes a desire to die as soon as possible in order to prevent further suffering.
People who are nihilist or anti-natalist believe procreation is unethical, unjustifiable and that life is meaningless, though the majority do not encourage or condone violence.
Nihilism used to be popular on college campuses in the 1960s and ’70s. In any time of upheaval, when the established norms become unsettled, people seek out different ways of thinking, a different way to look at the world.
Fortunately, Bartkus’s search for truth didn’t end up killing anyone but himself.
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