Posted on 04/20/2007 10:35:24 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The search for the propellant of the killer-madness in Cho Seung-Hui tells us more about disorders in American thought than about those of the murderer. Recall first and foremost that the crime was quickly identified as the “bloodiest shooting attack in American history” done by a single person. We accepted this—but quickly rejected its corollary: namely, that if it was that—the most violent rampage in 231 years of history—then it had some claim to be called unique. In fact it differs in magnitude but not in kind from shootings in which 23 or 19 people were killed. If a man jumps out of an airplane window at 25,000 feet and survives, it is understandable that there should be public curiosity about how he managed to do so, and scientists will wish to probe the event intending to illuminate, presumably for the benefit of ambitious acrobats, what made it possible. But when the causes of an event are inside a person’s mind, such probing is a waste of time, and on the order of presumption. Intensive study of April 16 could succeed in telling us various ways the script might have been changed to spare Cho’s 32 victims.
How? Well, an armed guard might have been retained for every classroom. Wonderful idea! But as the French say, une fausse idée claire: a terrific idea that doesn’t work. There are 500 classrooms at Virginia Tech.
Well, another idea would be to have barred the lethal weapons from the scene. But doing that would require a kind of cultural revolution, one at great variance with Southern traditions. Yes, such a ban might have been instituted anyway, and yes, efforts might have been made to enforce it, but guns go off in many places where they are illegal. Ask Google about murders in New York City.
Well, Cho Seung-Hui had a history of mental imbalance, and had actually spent time in a mental-health facility—from which, however, he had been discharged, as evidently fit to mingle in society. Does this tell us the simple story that standards are loose, too loose, and Cho Seung-Hui and all others like him should be—isolated?
That reasoning brings to mind J. Edgar Hoover’s testimony after the assassination of President Kennedy. The killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, had a security record which included time in the Soviet Union, for which he professed sympathy; a mysterious week in Mexico City during which he tried to obtain a Cuban visa; and membership in a political organization that pleaded for “Fair Play for Cuba.” Hoover’s observation: If I removed from access to presidential itineraries everyone with indiscretions the equivalent of Oswald’s, I’d have to lock up 500 people whenever a president visited Chicago.
So then, despairing of external measures, the scientists went to work. Here is a digest of one report, written by John Schwartz and Benedict Carey for the New York Times: “People with so-called avoidant personality disorder shun social situations because of a paralyzing dread of disapproval or criticism. Those with paranoid personality disorder nourish a deep distrust of others and see insults and malicious meanings in almost every interaction. Both are stubborn patterns of behavior that can begin in adolescence or earlier, and in his influential book, Disorders of Personality (Wiley, 1996), Dr. Millon identifies a blend of the two as ‘insular paranoid’ disorder.”
Long live the scientists.
But magnify such research by a factor of 1,000 and we would still not come up with a test that imposed a big X mark on the application for admission by Cho Seung-Hui. We can retroactively pluck from him signs of aberration, but they did not come together beforehand to spell out, NOT FIT FOR ADMISSION.
So you are left with the most violent shooting attack in American history committed by someone you don’t have an apparatus for successfully disqualifying or isolating.
We need, then, to return to the paradox: The most modern scientific methods aren’t refined enough to discover the most dangerous people in our society.
Pretty soon we’ll forget, not the horror of what happened, but the presumption that we can discover and attack evil, other than by the cultivation of biblical rules for human behavior.
* * *
Similarly, here we have WFB meandering around the page talking about not very much and ending on a strange and discordant note.
Yup.
The admission question is not particularly relevant, since we have no idea what history of Cho's plusses and minuses were available to the decision-makers. The relevant question is why our laws and policies are set up so that numerous signs of things a lot more ominous than "aberrations", which clearly spelled out NOT FIT TO REMAIN, are studiously ignored.
So far, the reductionist psychological analysis of Cho offered by experts has been spectacularly unenlightening. What does it profit us to hear an expert explaining something he doesn't understand, in terms of other things he doesn't understand? What do we learn when familiar pathological behaviors are labelled with technical jargon like so... "People with so-called avoidant personality disorder shun social situations because of a paralyzing dread of disapproval or criticism" ? Nothing much. None of these explanations - bullying, rejection, narcissistic personality disorder, depression, avoidant personality, schizophrenia etc. - none of these psychological reductionisms even recognize an objective factor that the rest of us call evil.
the presumption that we can discover and attack evil, other than by the cultivation of biblical rules for human behavior. <<
took him a few words!!!..but he finally got there!
* * *
OK. First of all, evil is banal, and each and every one of us is perfectly capable of it, and to an appalling degree. Not everyone does manifest it, though. Secondly, even if it were possible to quantify the evil somehow - say “those with ‘evil quotient’ [EQ] above 0.40 are not to be permitted... [insert the list: to own firearms, to procreate, to be admitted to citizenship...] - then what to do about those with EQ 0.39? The test would be inherently approximate.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOW...All I can tell ya is......go to DU to get your thoughts confirmed!!!!!( I truly believe you’re offended... but do always look between your legs to make an opinion?????)
Trying to quantify evil is to misuse science. It tells us no more than a bald statement that the kid was possessed by a demon. You know evil persons when when you see them do evil but it is impossible to predict with an exactitude who they are or what they will do. Somewhere this guy’s virtual twin will live his whole life without doing something like this.
“a strange and discordant note” for a strange and discordant situation, Cho and the Blacksburg horror. I’m not normally a big fan of WFB’s column, but I do think this was a pretty good one.
I’m also encouraged that WFB was able to write a decent column less than a week after the death of his beloved wife. It’s a hopeful sign that this great American hero may be able to carry on for a while yet.
All conservatives and all true Americans are in this man’s debt.
The problem lies equally with evil, and those who would deny its existence.
WFB failed to mention the obvious. If Virginia Tech has 500 classrooms, it also has 500 self-reliant law abiding students who would be willing to carry if the rules would allow it.
So?
Not everyone does manifest it, though
So?
Secondly, even if it were possible to quantify the evil somehow - say “those with ‘evil quotient’ [EQ] above 0.40
Yeah, I know the routine. You can't build an evil-meter therefore there is no such thing as evil, etc., etc.
You wrote, “The relevant question is why our laws and policies are set up so that numerous signs of things a lot more ominous than “aberrations”, which clearly spelled out NOT FIT TO REMAIN, are studiously ignored.”
I agree with what you wrote, but probably not with what you meant.
Assuming you meant that Cho should not have been allowed to remain at Virginia Tech, I believe that you (as most of us) are looking too narrowly at the problem.
Expelling him would not have prevented his murderous rampage. He could still have come to campus as an ex-student and killed at will. Or he could have exploded in another venue, such as mall, elementary school, church.
This guy was a ticking time bomb, sure to eventually go off.
The bigger issue is what to do with the seriously disturbed individual, how to identify and effectively remove from society those who would harm us, without violating the freedoms we hold dear as individuals in this great land.
Being odd, or obnoxious, or sullen and angry simply isn’t criminal until an act is committed that breaks the law or until associates or family can convince a judge that the individual is a danger to himself or others. This is a very hard thing to do, and, even when seemingly successful, often merely treats the mentally aberrant until he reaches the margins of “normalcy” and is allowed back into society.
What to do? Again, I agee with what you suggested: that our laws and policies somehow better address how to remove the sicko from society.
Trouble is that he didn’t care about being blown away by someone with a concealed weapon. He expected to die.
Concealed weapons would have been no deterrent to this perp, but they might well have lessened the body count.
I don't know why GSlob brought up 'measurement of evil'. It's a stupid red herring. Ignore it. The question we can ask about Cho is not just 'why was he crazy' or 'how did he come to be such a demented nut', but...
How did Seung Cho become evil?But many would consider this to be the most politically incorrect question imaginable. Even on FR.
Removing him from Virginia Tech could have been the first step to preventing what happened. His continuing enrollment there allowed him preserve a facade of functionality, and given our idiotic “privacy” laws, prevented his family from finding out how bad his condition really was. I’m sure they were paying at least part of his tuition (he may have been eligible for financial aid for the rest) and were apparently giving him some spending money as well. There’s been no mention of his ever holding any job, but somehow he had no trouble paying for two guns and a whole bunch of ammo, a hotel room in which to make his videos, equipment with which to make the videos, and a hefty overnight package delivery to NBC.
If he’d been booted out back in 2005, he would have had to go home or turn to muggings and burglaries to support himself. He was clearly unemployable, even to bag fries at McDonald’s, and clearly lacked the social skills to run small time scams to get money, housing and other basics from unsuspecting people. Whichever he tried to choose, his family certainly seems like the type that would have swung into action to get him into involuntary treatment, if he’d been booted out of college (and they’d been shown the “work” and record of complaints which prompted it) and was utterly unemployable. If he didn’t go home, he’d have soon found his way into the criminal justice system for mugging or burglary, and been found mentally incompetent by a court.
I have no idea what your post was about.
So the solution is enforced Bible Reading?
Reminds me of something Nozick said. By saying that P is true, one is committing an act of violence against those who say otherwise. Or something to that effect. Even asking a question like "is P true?" can be construed as an agressive act. Therefore Nozick recommends we formulate it as 'how is P true?' rather than 'is P true?' or 'P is true'. He was raked over the coals by some australian philosopher for that.
Concerning good and evil - yes, there is an inevitable conflict because, while good can tolerate evil to some extent, evil cannot tolerate good to any extent.
Exactly! Much less. And possibly none, if the first victim was armed. The point is, the risk for the perp would have destroyed his fantasy, making it unfeasible for him to carry it out, cowards as they are.
Similar to most things he's written in the last 5-10 years, I'm afraid.
...”None of these explanations - bullying, rejection, narcissistic personality disorder, depression, avoidant personality, schizophrenia etc. - none of these psychological reductionisms even recognize an objective factor that the rest of us call evil”...
The field of psychology has been more destructive than constructive from its beginning. Freud and his cronies have left behind the biggest scam in the history of the world. Most of the labels you recite above have been thought up by “committees” who meet in a room and discuss their ideas. Aside from Schizophrenia, I know of no lab report which can help to diagnose any of these. In my view, “narcissistic personality disorder,” is a modern term for evil. These people hate the good and the successful because life must be all about them and if they cannot use you, they will attempt to destroy you.
I respectfully and totally disagree with you. I believe that people are somewhat hardwired from birth for whatever reason, some good, some evil and most capable of some each way, but not to the extreme. In children who show early on a lack of impulse control, reward and punishment usually work to produce a healthy and productive human being. The problem is that parents today receive so many different messages about child rearing that they fear to do anything regarding discipline, leaving their child to the “experts” at church, school or at the pediatrician’s office. Many children are left on their own because parents have to work. There are definitely medical reasons for certain behaviors but these usually can be diagnosed and treated. There, again, it is painful and frightening for good, loving parent to accept the fact that they have a child with some kind of disability and some choose to ignore it. Sometimes I see programs with titles such as “A look Into the Mind of a Serial Killer,” and I know most of it is speculation. In this life we have the consistently good and the consistently evil and neither can look like or be like the other.
...”Concerning good and evil - yes, there is an inevitable conflict because, while good can tolerate evil to some extent, evil cannot tolerate good to any extent”...
Well said! Does the Bible not say that in the last days good will be called evil and evil will be called good? One thing is certain, when a society decides to blur the concepts of “good and evil” which have existed for eons, situation ethics emerges where anything goes and the double standard becomes the rule. In other words, the authorities set up different “rules” for different people.
WOW, WHAT A WAKE UP!
Dear God:
Why didn’t you save the school children at ?.
Bath, Michigan 1927
Houston, TX 1959
Moses Lake , Washington 2/2/96
Bethel , Alaska 2/19/97
Pearl , Mississippi 10/1/97
West Paducah , Kentucky 12/1/97
Stamp, Arkansas 12/15/97
Jonesboro , Arkansas 3/24/98
Edinboro , Pennsylvania 4/24/98
Fayetteville , Tennessee 5/19/98
Springfield , Oregon 5/21/98
Richmond , Virginia 6/15/98
Littleton , Colorado 4/20/99
Taber , Alberta , Canada 5/28/99
Conyers , Georgia 5/20/99
Deming , New Mexico 11/19/99
Fort Gibson , Oklahoma 12/6/99
Santee , California 3/ 5/01
El Cajon , California 3/22/01 and
Blacksburg, Virginia 4/16/07
Sincerely,
Concerned Student
Reply:
Dear Concerned Student:
I am not allowed in schools.
Sincerely,
God
with all due respect to the man, the times have changed around buckley, who has passed into irrelevance
he has always been a marquess of queensbury northeastern elite
civility in politics disappeared long ago with the new generation of demagogues on the left and their media sycophants
the gop needs a leader without nuance or compromise
I think WFB can be excused for this. He has other things on his mind this week: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1818948/posts
A simple revisit of privacy laws and rules where information can be shared without the fear of violating some law or being sued.
The magistrate who ordered Cho to get outpatient care was following the law. The breakdown occurred when there was no communication between the court, the outpatient treatment facility and the student’s admissions office (or whatever the office would be called).
Just like we do with sexual offenders I believe society has a right to know about mentally ill persons once they have broken the law - any law so we can protect ourselves.
I believe people are compassionate enough to care and support a sick person (in other words would not persecute him/her due to mental illness). But at the same time be observant for developments that might lead to other law violations or even violent behavior.
I live in a town that has a State mental hospital. The town is small. Our newspaper prints the police blotter every day and every day there are laws broken by people released from treatment so they can integrate into society.
Most that have been released integrate well, but others cause fear among those they come in contact with. There was a gay guy with aids who walked around with a home made button that said “I have Aids and I’m Gay” - then he would stop little boys and talk to them. Is that fair to society?
In Cho’s case there were signs. Had some information been shared perhaps more could have been done with him. The rights of the mentally ill should not trump the rights of others to peaceful enjoyment of life. Yes mental illness is an illness but so is drug resistant tuberculosis. When either can affect others it should be dealt with. If that involves institutionalization then society must do what it must to protect itself.
They did, Bill.
Please retire, sir. We admire you, but you're too old for this.
I find the comparisons here of mental illness - a disease of the mind and functioning of the brain - with EVIL.
To be morbidly evil one has to be in touch with reality - and GOOD - the alternative.
This young man was sick - without intervention - being passed around by conveyor belt treatment which passes for ‘care’ of mental illness these days. Give him a pill and hope it works. A pill which was totally ineffective for his disease.
What he interpreted as reality was threatening his very being and he was coping as best he knew - withdrawal, isolation and supposed blame of strangers who were ‘out to get him’ - it is called Paranoid Schizophrenia - young people between 17 and 25 under severe stressors such as finalizing their student years, facing independence and supporting themselves who often have a genetic disposition to the impairment, fall into its devastating pathology.
If he had a slow growing brain tumor which presented as bizarre behavior, we would be empathizing here.
I never thought I would see people of wisdom and intellect stoop so low as to mock mental illness.
I also hope none in your families ever experience the tragedy of it.
As usual, a wonderful piece from the Grand Old Man. When the “civilization” passes out of civilization, this sort of barbarism will happen with increasing frequency. The nation - and the world - is becoming increasingly barbaric, as evidenced by the loss of civility in public life and the behavior of criminal thugs and so-called terrorists, not to mention out-and-out lunatics. Unfortunately, rationality and conscience are not equal, and never have been equal, to civilizing the human race even nearly as well as the certain knowledge that all actions will be judged, eventually, according to fixed standards by an impartial Judge who sees all.
On 9-11 the passengers on the fourth plane knew what was about to happen and, disregarding their own peril, COUNTERATTACKED with the battle cry,
“Let’s roll!”
There is a universal consciousness now, for both terrorists and the innocent alike, that any future hijacking attempt will be met by passenger counterattack.
It is rumored that the dead and wounded at V-Tech went like lambs to the slaughter in stunned disbelief. Is it possible now that the behavior of nutjob psychopaths like Cho will watched much more closely by the general public, and:
if shots are heard, the collective response will be to counterattack?
In both cases, better to die fighting and save the lives of others as a result.
You're already going down the "no such thing as evil" road in post #29, where it's not about evil per se anymore, it's about "personality quantification across the whole properties/qualities matrix" reductionist rubbish.
but about the necessarily arbitrary threshold value of it and about the "penumbra" in which the whole lot of the borderline evil cases will find themselves
So you are not advocating evil-o-scopes and the measurement of evil? Great. Nobody else here is. Why do you keep going on about it then?
The possessed in biblical times lived in small villages and people were generally aware whether the demon had been exorcised or not and could stay clear of him. In Cho’s case, the “priests” declared him fit to rejoin society. No one else was permitted to gainsay what the shrinks said, even the judge who sent him to them.
I'm not sure I agree with this. One of the things that motivates an A-hole like this is the knowledge that his killing spree will be plastered all over the evening news, the front page of the newspaper, etc. Even a half-decent chance that he'd get gunned down after shooting one or two people might cause him to reconsider.
Shooting one or two people is bad enough, but think about it . . . does anyone today even know the name of the guy who killed himself and the hostage yesterday at the NASA building in Houston?
No, dear, that’s why God made extremists. If that’s what I’m required to vote for, then you may include me out. I’ll settle for a communicative gentleman who knows how to STAND for something, and won’t back down. I want a real man (or woman) who will go toe to toe without depositing a big fat turd on the carpet of the Oval Office.
My post is so unworthy of Mr. Buckley’s rhetoric, but I don’t want anyone to get lost in the vocabulary. Keep it simple, clear and immediately understandable.
...who will win with the ability to persuade others to see his side. George W. Busch and his family, his mother in particular, may be entertaining and delightful neighbors, but George W. couldn’t talk an eskimo into a dogsled.
Legalized concealed carry by law-abiding students and faculty is the only thing that would have stopped the maniac at VT.
more than any other quality, george blew it because he did not pay proper attention to public relations and perceptions
while on a personal level that may be an asset, in politics it is fatal
winning every news cycle and every issue, not with lies and deception, but with clear communication and the truth, is key to holding the real power to improve the foundation on which this nation stands
he depended and relied on volunteers like freepers to do the work for him
when he betrayed our principles, only vacuum remained
imagine what bush could have accomplished if he understood this simple fact
the gop needs a leader without nuance or compromise
compassionate conservatism, aka c-lite, is dead
bush killed it
See # 29. It IS possible [at least in principle] to do personality quantification, and thus to do ‘evil-o-scope”. More, it is highly desirable to do so. The difficulties are of purely technical character. Besides, the result - the matrix of probabilities - would be intelligible to professionals only. Hence the abuse potential.
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