By Bagudu Mohammed
I stumbled upon a chilling headline that instantly seized my attention: “German nurse sentenced to life for killing 10 patients with lethal injections to reduce workload.” It wasn’t just the horror of the act that struck me, but the disturbing logic behind it. Instead of reacting with the expected shock, I found myself sinking into reflection, the realization that this wasn’t just a story about murder but a terrifying revelation about human subjectivism gone wild. If headlines could whisper moral lessons, that one screamed a truth I’ve long believed: subjectivism, when left unchecked, can be the real monster within us.
The headline alone told a whole story. Before I even read the details, it reinforced a conviction I’ve often had, that even the calmest of humans can lose their moral compass under pressure. We see it daily. The weary nurse who grows numb to patients’ cries, the banker whose indifference frustrates the desperate customer, the teacher who snaps at students after a long day all become shadows of themselves when emotion, ego, and exhaustion collide. Yet, what lay beneath this particular nurse’s crime was not merely the crushing weight of overwork; it was the creeping dominance of subjectivism, the inward justification that one’s feelings, stress, and needs can outweigh the value of another’s life.
According to Reuters, the nurse, working in a palliative care unit near Aachen, Germany, injected elderly patients with lethal doses of painkillers to “ease his workload.” Between December 2023 and May 2024, ten lives were extinguished under the veil of efficiency. The court described the crime as “particularly severe,” ensuring the nurse would likely never walk free again. As investigators uncovered similar cases from his past, I couldn’t help but wonder: how does one cross that invisible line where personal reasoning becomes a weapon of destruction?
That is the silent tyranny of subjectivism it convinces us that our perspective is the only one that matters. When reality becomes filtered solely through our emotions, pain, or self-interest, morality begins to blur. A small act of selfishness here, a justified anger there and before long, conscience becomes negotiable. Subjectivism teaches us to preserve our fragile sense of self, our comfort, our priorities, even if others must suffer for it. It tells the nurse that peace of mind is worth ten lives. It tells the angry mob that suspicion is enough to kill.
Not long ago, in Ilorin, Nigeria, a woman was lynched by a mob at Ipata Market after being mistaken for a kidnapper. Only minutes later did the crowd realize their dreadful error. But by then, it was too late. Their subjectivism, the unshakable conviction that what they believed must be true, had already claimed an innocent life. This same mindset fuels everyday cruelty: the lecturer who slaps a student in a fit of rage, the politician who insults citizens under pressure, the armed extremist who mistakes vengeance for justice. Each act springs from the same poisoned root a self-justified emotion elevated above reason, empathy, or truth.
Psychologists call it ego defense, the unconscious attempt to protect one’s self-image, often at others’ expense. Philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre warn that freedom without responsibility can lead to what he termed “bad faith”, the deceit of living by one’s emotions while ignoring moral accountability. In every era, the danger remains the same: when we see the world only through our eyes, we lose the ability to see others as human. And that blindness is where monsters are born.
Yet, the paradox of subjectivism is that it is not entirely evil. In moderation, it empowers individuality, creativity, and courage. It gives us faith when logic says all hope is lost, and confidence when reality feels unkind. It reminds us, as Nietzsche argued, that truth is often a matter of perspective but he also warned that not all perspectives deserve equal weight. There lies the challenge: balancing empathy and reason, emotion and evidence, self-belief and humility.
Our collective failure to strike that balance explains so much of today’s chaos, from political intolerance to social division. Everyone insists on being right, few pause to be fair. Every group guards its narrative, every individual defends their truth. Consensus fades, dialogue collapses, and shared reality fractures into fragments of personal conviction. What remains is a society where truth becomes relative, where justice depends on who tells the story first, and where moral monsters are not born in darkness, but in the blinding light of self-righteousness.
In the end, the German nurse’s tragedy is not just about one man’s crime; it’s a mirror reflecting our collective flaw, the ease with which we surrender objectivity for comfort, reason for emotion, and empathy for ego. Subjectivism, left unexamined, makes each of us capable of cruelty, often without realizing it. But when we acknowledge our biases, when we allow other perspectives to challenge our own, we reclaim what makes us human.
Perhaps, then, the true battle is not between good and evil, but between our perceptions and reality, between the world as it is and the world as we feel it to be. And in that fragile space between the two, every one of us must decide whether to become human, or monster.
