Letters to the Editor
-
Responses to some posts about my post before...
Maineiac, you've misjudged me. I was drawing on personal experience. Yes, his situation was definitely extreme. Of course, suffering people of all kinds have families, and some try hard to reach out, it fails, and they're forced to let go. Part of being an adult is having to face situations that have no solution, whether it's alcoholism, being paralyzed, or the effects of wartime.
But, if you'll hear me out, I think you and David make a mistake when describing him as "unreachable." I read this unsettling quote about the Columbine shooters... someone said, "I guess some people are just born evil."
You're not being like that. But you are writing him off in a similar way. Considering his crime, it's appropriate to write him off now. But mentally ill people like him are not inherently unreachable as you say. They are human beings, who respond to the same things you and I do.
Let me put it a differently. Before he was a murderer, when he frightened people, in their eyes, he stopped being a person struggling and trying the best he could like everyone else, and became a danger, or something impossible to understand. His hostility wore everyone down, including the dept. head who tried to reach out. That's a break of the human connection. It's the same kind of break when you say he's unlike us or could never change.
And that break has to be fought against because the community's reactions play a part in each individual's view of themselves. There was a human actor behind that hostile front. Maybe he sank more and more into the front, until in the end he played it to it's logical extreme.
I believe a way of fighting that is to constantly reach for and acknowledge the human actor behind the front, dodging the lack of social skills, the maladjustment and the anger. The human connection is what keeps us from harming each other. In wartime, for example, you kill a dehumanized enemy.
If he could have connected with someone, however awkwardly, he could have discovered all the benefits of those connections, and slowly been drawn out of his isolation. When you say he couldn't be reached, when you write him off, you make exactly the mistake that should never be made.
I don't think your metaphor works, Maineiac. Diabetes has nothing to do with trouble relating to people, or to alienation.
Now, there are really extreme situations, which lie beyond the realm of my understanding. Jeffrey Dahmer, as David mentions, is one of them. But these school shootings never seem that unemotional. They are murder/suicides.
Lastly, I didn't mean some kind of hackneyed love-fest cure. But surely you're like me and many others (you too Nekuba): when you encounter a "destitute soul" you do what you can. You keep trying to show warmth to them. This is what people call the support of a community. It doesn't take the place of counseling. But, the opposite is true also. And you need both.
Each of you must have had someone--say a teacher who took you aside--that did something like that for you. That's the kind of thing people remember. If you think it's pointless to try, you're burnt out.
A creative writing class is a kind of community, a less superficial one than, say, a normal lecture class. It provides opportunities to engage people. That includes drawing lines, and saying what's appropriate and not. Teachers have lots of responsibilities, but, surely, looking after the strays, as best they can, is one of the biggest ones.
But, sure, there are limits to what people can do. And we can't judge them now. I think, I'm reacting to the situation where he frightened the professor. It seems so outlandish that I feel like I'd have to be involved until I saw some change. You're sure you'd be different, Nekuba?