Letters to the Editor
had_enough
Published Letters: 816 Editor's Choice: 48
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not quite random
[Read the article: How little we know about Cho]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Joan wrote:
Our desire to posit reasons for Cho's rage is a natural response to tragedy and loss. We'd rather believe speculative theories about the madness of Cho Seung-Hui (preferably, ones that suit our ideology) than to think it was random and beyond our control.
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The--comparatively--easy way to deal with this kind of thing is to liken it to getting eaten by a shark. There's no rhyme or reason to a shark, other than it likes to eat, a lot. And if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time... And, similarly, therefore, there's no rhyme or reason for Cho.
Except, that's just not true. Joan, you are wrong to say that Cho's actions are some kind of rarity. The only thing rare about them is the number of people he killed. Otherwise, his actions aren't unusual at all. You can look in the newspaper of any major city in this country, any day of the week, and find a story about a man (usually a man), who has killed his--usually--*estranged* wife, and his children, and then he kills himself. This happens constantly. And the thing that drives that man's actions, is not much different from what drove Cho. They all grow from the same root.
Now, the exception is if Cho were seriously chemically compromised, or was schizophrenic, or in some way had a lethal brain-chemical imbalance that was not being addressed, and it was of long-standing.
But, there is the distinct, and dreary, possibility that he had no more than the garden variety neuroses that humans have, grown to monstrous size. That he was so utterly miserable, and so utterly in a world of his own, that no other humans existed for him, in any meaningful way. Mass slaughter was a way for the unhappy child to "get his way" at last. Phrase it any way you want, Cho's actions are well within the common bounds of human behavior. Just check your newspaper.
Had he killed three people, it would have been a tragedy, but there would be no special story. The only difference between Cho, and your average estranged husband who kills his family, is the number of bodies.
In short, it's a cop-out to say this was a random nightmare. It's an everyday nightmare for thousands of people week-in and week-out. And until this society finds a way to nip this kind of behavior in the bud before it finds its inevitable outlet, this will continue to be an everyday nightmare.
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yer both right..
[Read the article: A tale of two horrors]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]things like the Iraq war are always overdetermined. Simple explanations are not usually the right ones. Remember that the meaning of Occam's Razor is not that the simplest explanation is usually the right one, but, rather, the correct explanation of anything is only as complicated as it needs to be, and no more so. Meaning, that sometimes things really ARE complicated.
Thus, Gary, you're right about Bush's essential nature. I think he's a classic disordered personality...both cynical, and deeply religious.
Joel Hart, I think you're correct as well. I was a proponent of the Herzkowitz theory before there WAS a Herzkowitz theory.
I think one big reason why both our domestic and our foreign policies are so utterly disordered, and have been, even before 9/11, is that the men at the top are disordered. Cheney, disordered by his ego, and his unbridled arrogance and greed, Bush, disordered by his profound neuroses centering on his father. Leadership means never admitting you're wrong? Where the fuck did GW get his MBA? In Stalin's Kremlin? Shit. That statement tells you everything you need to know about GW Bush. He's mad as a hatter.
You see this a lot in business organizations. If the people at the top are relatively sane, then the business tends to be relatively sane...just like a family, in that way.
But, if the people at the top are borderline personalities, or disordered personalities--and GW Bush is a classic case of that..how much more evidence does any of us need, for chrissakes?--then whatever they have wrought will also be disordered...and if there's one thing that has characterized our government for the last six years, it's disorder.
Because, believe it or not, while I'm a lefty in just about every sense of the word, I was willing to accept a deeply conservative president, if he showed himself to be a competent, aware, mature, worldly leader who could do the job. Unfortunately, that's not what we got. We got a man who is probably very close to the line between disordered and psychotic. And was from the moment of his inauguration.
So...sadly, yer both right, Gary, Joel. This situation is utterly intractable, and will continue so, until Congress gets the courage to begin impeachment proceedings against Cheney, then against Bush. Until then, we will have chaos. You cannot clean out the stables until you pick up the shovel.
Congress??? If anyone from the House is reading this, it's time to pick up a shovel.