Cho Seung-Hui & What makes sense
Submitted by KJ 4/21/07
He was a stranger, different, isolated, teased, mocked and alone. He then chose an extremely evil way to have his revenge.
I am neither rationalizing, nor excusing what he did in killing the students & faculty at Virginia Tech but I can see why and maybe what happened. Do you know what it is liked to see someone be picked on, and gossiped about so much so it can physically make you ill? I bet some of us do. An old friend of mine from high school is manic-depressive. Back then no one had any idea what was wrong with him. 350 days out of the year he was normal but in two weeks or so time he could self destruct. He would talk out-loud to himself after not being able to sleep for 48 hours. Other kids, even his ‘friends’ teased him and even more so teased him laughingly behind his back. Even in his state of mania he knew what was happening he was cast out of the herd, the peer group did not approve. Even some kids who came out of the closet had more acceptance. He was labeled “crazy”.
The difference is he took it in stride; he was determined to “triumph in spite of them” and try to lead a fulfilling life and be a successful man. He told me of a hand written letter he received on a Saturday morning from a fellow student that was written anonymously. It was in a girls handwriting and it described how bad she felt for him letting him know how many people in his entire high school were talking about him and his odd behavior that he felt he had no control over. He read it and looked up at his Father who took it from him read it and asked what he wanted to do with it. He told his Dad to tear it up, and throw it away; that it didn’t matter and he would graduate pretending nothing was wrong.He never was violent he said because that would be a failure.
Who should a person attack when they sink into such a haze of insanity? When students and teachers really don’t know what’s wrong but continue to harass some one or stonewalling them into their own corner? My old friend said he felt like almost everyone around him was putting him down, and it would be the worst thing to lash out at anyone.
I only know of this story since he told me over drinks after his father died. He said some of the same things happened in college, but it was nothing at all as bad as highschool.
Cho wanted revenge, he wanted his evil legacy broadcast, he wanted to kill and then die with his victims. It is similar to Columbine in that those kids and he were outsiders with an evil plan and had then had cowardice to carry it out instead of proving everyone else wrong, that they could be great someday and find their own niche. Its too bad everyone else talked about Cho but did not DO anything. The tragedy is this has now happened too many times and now we are less in shock and more numb.
Out of all the pieces of TV, Internet, and print journalism- Peggy Noonans article is the most accurate, she said it best:
"Common sense says someone should have stepped in like an adult, like a person in authority, and taken him away. It is only common sense that if a person like Cho leaves a self-aggrandizing, self-celebrating, self-pitying video diary of himself to be played by the mass media, the mass media should not play it and not publicize it, not make it famous."- Peggy Noonan
He was a stranger, different, isolated, teased, mocked and alone. He then chose an extremely evil way to have his revenge.
I am neither rationalizing, nor excusing what he did in killing the students & faculty at Virginia Tech but I can see why and maybe what happened. Do you know what it is liked to see someone be picked on, and gossiped about so much so it can physically make you ill? I bet some of us do. An old friend of mine from high school is manic-depressive. Back then no one had any idea what was wrong with him. 350 days out of the year he was normal but in two weeks or so time he could self destruct. He would talk out-loud to himself after not being able to sleep for 48 hours. Other kids, even his ‘friends’ teased him and even more so teased him laughingly behind his back. Even in his state of mania he knew what was happening he was cast out of the herd, the peer group did not approve. Even some kids who came out of the closet had more acceptance. He was labeled “crazy”.
The difference is he took it in stride; he was determined to “triumph in spite of them” and try to lead a fulfilling life and be a successful man. He told me of a hand written letter he received on a Saturday morning from a fellow student that was written anonymously. It was in a girls handwriting and it described how bad she felt for him letting him know how many people in his entire high school were talking about him and his odd behavior that he felt he had no control over. He read it and looked up at his Father who took it from him read it and asked what he wanted to do with it. He told his Dad to tear it up, and throw it away; that it didn’t matter and he would graduate pretending nothing was wrong.He never was violent he said because that would be a failure.
Who should a person attack when they sink into such a haze of insanity? When students and teachers really don’t know what’s wrong but continue to harass some one or stonewalling them into their own corner? My old friend said he felt like almost everyone around him was putting him down, and it would be the worst thing to lash out at anyone.
I only know of this story since he told me over drinks after his father died. He said some of the same things happened in college, but it was nothing at all as bad as highschool.
Cho wanted revenge, he wanted his evil legacy broadcast, he wanted to kill and then die with his victims. It is similar to Columbine in that those kids and he were outsiders with an evil plan and had then had cowardice to carry it out instead of proving everyone else wrong, that they could be great someday and find their own niche. Its too bad everyone else talked about Cho but did not DO anything. The tragedy is this has now happened too many times and now we are less in shock and more numb.
Out of all the pieces of TV, Internet, and print journalism- Peggy Noonans article is the most accurate, she said it best:
"Common sense says someone should have stepped in like an adult, like a person in authority, and taken him away. It is only common sense that if a person like Cho leaves a self-aggrandizing, self-celebrating, self-pitying video diary of himself to be played by the mass media, the mass media should not play it and not publicize it, not make it famous."- Peggy Noonan
posted by Charlotte Rose at 7:11 AM
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